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Michael Jeneid Dies

Innovative outdoor education director changed lives of many

Michael Jeneid

Michael Jeneid, 75, former director of BU’s Survival, Urgency, Recreation, Growth and Enthusiasm (SURGE) program, died on August 15, 2009.

Jeneid, an inspiring figure to students and faculty, died at his home in Stinson Beach, California, after a battle with bone cancer.

Jeneid was recruited to the University by BU President Emeritus John R. Silber (HON.’95), after Silber learned of his work with the Outward Bound schools in the United States and Australia. "I was deeply saddened to learn of Michael Jeneid’s death," says Silber. "He was a splendid man — truly outstanding, mar­velously imaginative, and inspiring as an example to his students."

SURGE was an innovative outdoor education program at BU during the early and mid-1970s. It offered students one-week courses centered on rock-climbing, kayaking, and winter camping. It also offered a one-month Hudson River journey, from the river’s source at Lake Tear of the Clouds, in the Adirondacks, to Battery Park, in Manhattan.

"We call it a survival and self-orientation program," Jeneid said in a 1973 New York Times account of his Hudson River course. "Essentially, it’s a means of improving your self-image."

Many of those who signed on for Jeneid’s courses — several of whom later worked for him — would call that an understatement.

"Michael’s emphasis on trying, always trying, never succumbing to the fear of failure, has guided me through my life," says Brian Kunz, an alumnus of the Hudson River course, who later became a SURGE instructor and is now the deputy director of outdoor programs at Dartmouth College.

"He changed our lives, that was the thing," says Saranne Taylor, a SURGE instructor, who went on to become safety director for the Hurricane Island Outward Bound School, in Maine. "He influenced me probably more than anyone other than my parents."

During the 1970s, derivatives of Outward Bound, which uses challeng­ing physical adventure to teach stu­dents that they can do more than they thought possible, proliferated. But Jeneid’s BU courses were unique, in part because of his unyielding emphasis on physical challenge.

"Many adventure organizations lost their way and found themselves processing an experience without going through the action part first," says Kunz. "To me, Michael defined adventure education: action and reflection."

Jeneid’s courses were also unique because of his unusual background and his ability to meld the physical demands of outdoor activities with the poetics of an intimate experience with nature. A native of Great Britain, he served with the Royal Marines and was an avid bird-watcher and the author of several collections of poetry.

In the late 1970s, Jeneid moved to California, where he taught cross-country skiing with the Sierra Club and pursued his passions for ocean kayaking and bird-watching. He also churned out small-press writings on birds in the works of Shakespeare, Chaucer, and Whitman.

But for many, his legacy will rest with the impact he had on the lives of his students. "By having complete faith in them," says Taylor, "he got them to do their best."

Michael Rezendes (CAS’78) is a former SURGE instructor.

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