Nature is unscripted and hard to predict. Having recently discovered this reality, Penn State has decided that its 98-year-old, student-led Outing Club shall no longer be allowed to go on outings. Citing the high risk of remote environments and poor cellphone service, the university is recommending that the club restrict its offerings to films and speakers. Students are being funneled into engaging only in previously vetted human constructions.

The students of the Outing Club are fighting back — and good for them. Driven to explore both nature and risk, they are well on their way to adulthood, which means knowing how to resist injunctions that are more protection against future lawsuits than they are in service of the students themselves.

Not so long ago universities took on the authority of parents, in loco parentis. Now that many modern parents have absolved themselves of the responsibility of raising mature, bold, responsible adults, it seems universities have followed suit. At Penn State, the Outing Club wasn’t the only one on the chopping block — caving and scuba diving are reportedly out as well.

In my 15 years as a professor at Evergreen State College, I led field trips to Panama and Ecuador that sometimes lasted months. My students and I explored archipelagos and jungles, coral reefs and colonial cities. And I experienced and heard tell of many dangerous situations.

On one trip alone, in 2016, which my husband and fellow professor Bret Weinstein and I led together with 30 undergraduates (and our own two children), there were life-threatening emergencies involving a tree fall in the Amazon, a boat accident in Galápagos and, later, a serious earthquake in coastal Ecuador. Everyone made it home, but why take such risks? Is studying the politics of land use, the cultures of early Americans or territoriality in butterflies worth it?