A painted papier-mâché mask with a lively hodgepodge of primary colors and an obvious grin sits quietly in a Marriott School office, bearing an uncanny resemblance to the professor sitting only a few feet away.
For Professor Neil Lundberg the mask on his shelf personifies the joy of teaching—not art or theater but therapeutic recreation in the Recreation Management and Youth Leadership Department, recently added to the Marriott School.
In his upper-level class, program dynamics in therapeutic recreation, students explore how recreational activities can improve the lives of those struggling with illnesses or disabilities—making masks is just one therapy option.
“My students insisted,” Lundberg laughs, referring to the mask. “They wanted me to experience the gooey paper on my face. These masks can teach clients about the guises they may wear every day. It may sound simplistic, but the metaphor of showing one’s true self, without hiding behind a façade, can help clients, like delinquent teenagers, to effectively express themselves without reverting to problematic behaviors like substance abuse, self-abuse, or silence.”
To better serve clients such as these, students experience an array of activities firsthand, alternating throughout the semester between the roles of therapist and client. One day they might explore how horseback riding helps agoraphobic clients overcome fears of open spaces and social interaction, another day how adaptive skiing helps those with physical disabilities improve coordination or how painting helps those with eating disorders address poor self-image.
Such hands-on activities often require students to learn in a classroom without walls—a rare find in a business school.
“We can’t learn to be good therapists by staying in the classroom,” says Katelyn Frost, a recent RMYL graduate from Orem. “That means we do Tai Chi, run obstacle courses, kayak, rock climb, or ski and identify the evidence behind why these activities are therapeutic.”
But the class isn’t all fun and games, Lundberg notes. The point is to explore the therapeutic value of an activity using proven frameworks like the self-efficacy theory, in which a client’s success in accomplishing one task, like a ropes course, transfers to success in another task, like confronting conflicts at home. It’s more science than recreation.
Even in their boundless classroom, students begin to see the effect their careers can have. Brooke Sessions, a senior from Broomfield, Colorado, recalls her class trip to the local climbing gym.
“I saw my timid classmate climb to the very top of the wall—something he never thought he could do—and leave with renewed confidence and a sense of accomplishment,” Sessions says. “At that moment I realized that therapeutic recreation can be life changing.”
In addition to helping students understand their future clients, the RMYL class also offers students unparalleled preparation for upcoming internships and jobs. They leave with a collection of programs, resources, and experiences under their belts. It’s this growth that Lundberg finds the most gratifying part of the course.
“Students transform into professionals in this class,” Lundberg says. “It builds their confidence as budding therapists and gives them a taste of their futures.”