Press Room

Theisen, Sherra. “The Texas Nature Project Makes Its Home in Mason!”

Mason County News, 1 November 2006.

Texas Nature Project is a non-profit organization founded and operated by educators. TNP was created to fill an important gap in the educational process for traditional undergraduate college students. Founders, Dr. Sherra Theisen and Jan Schultz have over thirty years of experience in the field of higher education. Sherra has a PhD in Philosophy and has taught at Rice, the University of Houston-Downtown, the University of St. Thomas, and the University of Texas at San Antonio. Jan is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and has worked as an administrator at Southwestern University and the University of St. Thomas. Sherra is the Chief Executive Officer for TNP and Jan is the Chief Operating Officer.
            Sherra and Jan were responsible for the development and implementation of a one-year living-learning experience for first-year traditional students at the University of St. Thomas in Houston. This program focused on the development of the whole person: mind, body, and spirit. For four years, Dr. Theisen lived on-site with her students and served not only as their teacher, but as their role model and mentor. The program integrated theory and practice, values and life. Service played an essential role in the success of the program. It became obvious to Sherra and to Jan that it was the experiences outside of the classroom that most significantly impacted the lives of their students. And, more specifically, it was those experiences that afforded students opportunities to interact in nature.
            Very few of Sherra and Jan’s students had ever had the opportunity to interact in nature. The majority of students were from urban areas, and many had grown up in environments that did not allow for experiences in the outdoors: apartments, condominiums, town homes, and high rises. Even more surprising, the few students who had grown up in rural areas had never bothered to interact in nature in a meaningful way. Students were content to spend their time in their rooms, in isolation, working on their computers, and the many other electronic devices that had become so important in their lives. Each complained, in his or her own way, about their self-imposed isolation. They longed for a sense of community and they longed to live lives of worth and dignity. The one-year, living-learning experience was not only an answer to these longings for community and value, it served to encourage a sense of wonder, awe, and stewardship among participants.
            The simple act of working in a garden, planting and tending flowers and watching them grow proved to have a transforming effect on student lives. Hiking through the woods, gazing at the night sky, and interacting with wildlife allowed students to experience the sense of overwhelming joy and peace that come only through interaction in nature. These experiences had other almost equally significant effects on students. They encouraged connections between self and others, opened new vistas for consideration, ignited ethical and moral reasoning, liberated the imagination, nourished the soul, and helped students to understand that the development of the heart, soul, and mind must be the critical components to finding purpose and meaning in life.
            Research certainly supports the need for just such a program for our young people. Studies have consistently shown that our system of higher education has developed serious flaws that have interfered with its ability to help our young achieve the depth of critical thinking, intellectual curiosity, and human compassion that are so essential for living a life of worth, dignity, and meaning. By the 1990s the radius around the home where children were allowed to roam and play had shrunk to a ninth of what it had been in the 1970s. Today, average eight-year-olds are better able to identify cartoon characters than native species, such as mesquite trees and mockingbirds in their own communities.
            Most of our children have never experienced the wonder of nature play. They have never known the awe of being in the midst of a meteor shower; they have never heard the sound of an owl, or experienced the unfettered joy that comes with watching a couple of raccoons at play.
            Author, Richard Louv, in his book Last Child in the Woods, has compiled powerful research on the impact of nature. This research shows that direct exposure to nature is essential for healthy childhood development—physical, emotional, intellectual, psychological, social and spiritual. This research also demonstrates that nature is a potent therapy for depression, obesity, and attention deficit disorder. Environment-based education has been proven to dramatically improve standardized test scores and grade point averages and it stimulates the development of creativity, humility, and skills in problem solving, critical thinking, and decision making.
            Nearly every American ages forty and above, maintains a visual picture in their mind of an important experience they had in nature, especially in solitude. For most of these Americans, this memory will have some sort of spiritual significance. Nature awakens us to the love and power of the Creator. It moves us beyond self to others and makes it possible for us to understand that we are a part of something bigger and greater than self. Nature nourishes the spirit. Our young cannot be expected to be good stewards of the earth unless we allow them the opportunity to share the experiences in nature that have brought joy and inspiration to the many, many generations that have come before them.
            Sherra and Jan spent over a year searching for a site in the Texas Hill Country for their non-profit. When they discovered the 100 acre North Point Ranch, here in Mason, they immediately knew they had found the perfect site for their Center for Nature and Eco-Justice Studies. While it was important to Sherra and Jan to find a property rich and varied in topography, geology, climate, plant and wildlife, it was at least equally important to them to locate their non-profit in a place where their students would be able to experience a sense of true community and history. Mason, with its warm appeal and its devotion to faith, family, and friendship seemed to them to be the perfect location.
            The citizens of Mason have been extremely welcoming to Sherra and Jan. The Texas Nature Project had a Board meeting at their North Point Ranch in August and a number of our city’s leaders attended and had the opportunity to meet Sherra, Jan, and their full Board: Mayor Brent Hinckley and his wife Monica, City commissioner Pat Reardon and his wife CJ, North Point neighbors Keith and Sue Kaan, Mason County News Editor Gerry Gamel, and alternative builder Jim Wilson. County Judge Jerry Bearden invited Sherra and Jan to meet with him in his office shortly after they moved to Mason so that he could personally welcome them to Mason. Jan was invited to speak to the Mason’s Lion Club in September. Shortly after Jan’s presentation, Lion Ted Smith invited Sherra and Kan to tour the Gene Ashby Ranch. Sherra and Jan have also been warmly received by every other member of our Mason community and look forward to continuing to build positive partnerships.
            Students from various urban-area colleges and universities in Texas will have the opportunity to apply for admission to Texas Nature Project. In order to qualify for admission, students must have demonstrated a strong commitment to the values of service, citizenship, stewardship, education, justice, diversity, tolerance, friendship, and community. It is expected that thirty students will participate in this for-credit educational experience each semester. Sherra will be overseeing the academic component of this program and Jan will oversee the administrative component.
            TNP students will participate in class five days a week. Classes will be taught by Sherra. Sherra expects to have a number of guest speakers assisting her with class instruction. It is extremely important to Sherra and Jan that their students not only have the opportunity to learn the history of the Mason area, but that they have the opportunity to hear Mason’s stories directly from the people who have lived its history.
            Sherra and Jan also hope to make their North Point Ranch available to the people of Mason for other educational opportunities. Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, and other student groups will be welcome to use the ranch for hiking and exploring. Sherra and Jan are also available to assist the community with presentations on stewardship, nature, values clarification and community building.                     
            Texas Nature Board is currently composed of people from Austin, Houston, and San Antonio. Board members have been selected to represent the various constituencies that TNP will be serving: undergraduate students, parents, and educators. The TNP Board hopes to appoint at least one new member to their Board from Mason within the next year. If you are interested in applying for a position with the Board or otherwise supporting Texas Nature Project, or would like to learn more about our programs, please contact Dr. Sherra Theisen or Jan Shultz by telephone at 325-347-5978 or by mail at PO Box 300, Mason, Texas 76856, or email at theisen@texasnatureproject.org
Quotes from students:

1. “Dr. Theisen and Jan were the first people I met as an undergraduate and they were also the ones who had the greatest impact on me. What I learned from them affects me everyday, and has shaped the person I have become.” Gina Rigano, Senior.
2. “My experience with the living-learning community, has, thus far, been the highlight of my college career. It taught me to value service to others, the community I live in, and the natural world around me. There is no doubt in my mind that Texas Nature Project—and the wonderful women who run it—will give future generations of students similar exiting opportunities for personal growth and self-exploration.” Katherine Raley, Senior.
3. “It has been through Dr. Theisen and Ms. Schultz’s guidance and example that I have learned what it means to be just, caring, and compassionate, assets I hope I will carry with me when I become a physician.” Maria Hamzo, Senior.
4. “When you work for Jan and Sherra you work with them, and as you’ll soon find out, they work for you. Their mission, dedicated to recovering tools that can make them nature sound natural again, is as remarkable and rare as the kind of people they are.” Curtis D’Costa, Graduate Student.
5. “As a result of my experiences in the living-learning community, I have been able to live a better, more purposeful life. This experience has also engrained in me a mature devotion for excellence that demands a commitment to Truth.” Lindsley Sturgis, Junior.

Quotes from Board Members:

• “Texas Nature Project will be offering our state’s undergraduate students a uniquely meaningful learning experience. There is no other such learning experience in the country and its focus on nature and stewardship is one that our nation’s young sorely need. There is nothing of greater importance to me than my faith. It is my since belief that we cannot truly care for the Creator until we have learned to care for His creation.” Dorita Hatchett, Administrator, University of Houston, Vice President, TNP.
• “I am proud and humbled to be part of a project that offers the potential to influence the lives of our young in such a meaningful way. I have no doubt that TNP will have an enormously positive impact on the lives of thousands of our state’s college students.” Dr. Rose Signorello, Psychologist, University of St. Thomas, President, TNP.
• “Students who participate in TNP curriculum will not only have the opportunity to experience the inspiration and solace that comes through interaction in nature, they will gain the perspectives, understanding, and skills required to find ways to protect and nurture our planet and all its living beings for us, their generation, and future generations.” Martha Atkins, Doctoral Candidate, Secretary, TNP.
• “Love is demanding: it demands that we be compassionate, intelligent, reasonable and responsible, and that we change our self-destructive, other-destructive, and world-destructive ways. All true education is, at its heart, an act of love. I am so grateful that my vocation and profession allow me to live my faith: ‘they will know us by our love.’” Dr. Sherra Theisen, CEO, TNP.