The Nimrod Fellowship

Written by Victoria Kelly         

I grew up in a small town—too small to have its own post office—spending plenty of time outdoors with my father and my older brother. When I came to Hillsdale, I became close with a few other students hailing from rural areas, but sometimes I wondered how strong the hunting, fishing, and conservation culture at Hillsdale College actually is.

I can now answer that the culture is strong, offering opportunities specifically for students with those passions. One such opportunity is the Nimrod Fellowship, a program for students at the College with experience or interest in hunting and fishing. As part of the program, students engage in activities on and near campus as well as traveling to events and hunts. The Fellowship connects the experience of  outdoor sports with the academic strength of Hillsdale, as every experience includes an academic component.

The Fellowship is connected with the Nimrod Education Center, started by friend of the College Al Taylor and directed by Al Stewart, who was an upland game bird specialist with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources for over 50 years. In the words of Morgan Morrison, associate director of business and industry, who helps lead the Fellowship, outdoor and shooting sports “is an enormous space that the College has broken into with the Halter Center and now with the Nimrod Education Center.” He added, “What we really want to do is convince and change the hearts and minds of people who have no experience with these sports.” The Nimrod Education Center and Fellowship especially look to change those hearts and minds about the impact of hunters, marksmen, and anglers on conservation.

The Fellowship focuses on cultivating understanding of and educating non-hunters and non-anglers about the financial contributions of hunters, anglers, and other outdoor sports enthusiasts to conservation. Through such legal structures as the Pittman-Robertson Tax and the Dingell-Johnson Act, as well as through voluntary efforts, hunters, anglers, and other sportsmen provide much of the resources for both obvious and lesser-known conservation efforts. The Fellows learn and work to help highlight the fact that the people taking part in the outdoor sports are also the ones doing the most, by law and by choice, for conservation efforts.

The Fellowship consists of a small cohort of students (there are eight now and will be twelve next year) including some of Hillsdale’s shooting sports athletes and other students representing a variety of backgrounds. The program has been evolving, growing from a group that started by hosting the Nimrod Speaker Series and attending other events around Hillsdale as well as special hunts (which always contain an educational component) to one that hosts wild game dinners and conducts outreach work among students about mindsets around conservation.

My long-time roommate, Jessica Strasser, ’25, has been a part of the Nimrod Fellowship since the original cohort formed in the spring of 2022. One of her favorite experiences with the Fellowship has been pheasant hunting at Hunter’s Creek with Mr. Charlie Mann, a friend of the College and of the program. Mr. Mann came to campus as part of the Nimrod Speaker Series and invited the fellows to visit his pheasant hunting club. Jessica was one of the students to benefit from that visit and learn about running a responsible and successful hunting lodge and its relation to modern conservation.

Jessica referred to the Nimrod Fellowship as a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.” Its focus on the funding behind conservation sets it apart from other programs around the country that just serve to introduce students to hunting, fishing, and the shooting sports. For other students like her who may be interested in working in conservation statistics someday—or for anyone who wants to understand better and contribute to the broader conversation around hunting, fishing, and the shooting sports—the Fellowship offers a fast-tracked ability to grow in that capacity. “Ideally, some or all of us will have the opportunity to shape conservation efforts in the future,” said Jessica.

Conservation is one of many areas of public debate and policy that affect our world today, and it is  near to the heart of current and future Hillsdale students alike. Understanding who does the work behind conservation, identifying how those resources move from their sources to enabling conservation efforts, and sharing that message with those not yet informed is an invaluable bit of work toward advancing the conversation. Through the Nimrod Fellowship, students here gain priceless opportunities and memories as they grow in their passions for the outdoors and contribute to that mission.

Victoria Kelly, ’24, is a proud country girl from upstate New York. On the rare occasion she is not studying or hanging out with all her favorite Hillsdale people, you can find her debating politics, practicing Tae Kwon Do, or swing dancing, preferably outside under the stars.

Published in May 2024