When students go off to college, they must often leave their love of hunting and fishing behind.

University of Montevallo President John Stewart doesn’t want it to be that way.

Stewart’s desire to allow students to continue to enjoy the outdoors while attending college has grown into the President’s Outdoor Scholars Program. Now in it’s fourth year, the program has 39 students who hope their education leads to a career working in an outdoors related industry. Students in the program that maintain at least a 2.5 grade point average qualify for scholarships of up to $3,000.

As a youngster, Stewart grew up fishing and hunting in the coastal marshes of Delaware. But when he went to college eight hours away at Wake Forest University in Winston Salem, North Carolina, he could hunt and fish only during the Christmas holidays and during the summer.

“Being in college really limited my opportunity to hunt and fish,” Stewart said. “And I wasn’t able to do it with my best friends.”

Stewart, who owns a 23-foot blue water boat and enjoys trolling for big game fish in the Gulf and Atlantic, remembered his college experience when he was thinking about ways to set Montevallo apart from other colleges.

“I thought, in our part of the world, what do students love more than football,” he said with a laugh. “The answer might be hunting and fishing.”

Stewart wanted to develop extra-curricular outdoor activities and turned to William Crawford, who worked in fundraising for the university. He knew Crawford was an outdoorsman who also operates a retriever kennel.

“When I was in high school, I wanted to do something that had to do with the outdoors,” Crawford said. “I looked at the wildlife sciences but I knew people who went into that and had a hard time finding a job.”

Crawford’s career took another path. Stewart offered him an opportunity to return to what he originally wanted to do.

“This came along and it was kind of a dream come true,” Crawford said. “He felt like with my background and my love of the outdoors, I could do this.”

The program started out as a way for students to take outdoor excursions, so they could enjoy hunting and fishing while away at college. The trips were popular but students really wanted more.

Students like Porter James wanted a major that would help them get a job in the outdoor industry. Like Crawford, James was looking at a traditional wildlife sciences degree offered by land grant colleges like Mississippi State and Auburn. But the President’s Outdoor Scholars Program at Montevallo offered the career options he was looking for.

“I said, ‘I’ve got to check this out,’” James said. “I’m glad I did. The experiences I’ve had in this program are unbelievable.”

The President’s Outdoor Scholars Program allows students to design their own degree through Montevallo’s Interdisciplinary Program. If Montevallo doesn’t offer the major they want, they can take courses from different departments and put them together for an interdisciplinary major.

Outdoor resource marketing is one of the most popular majors in the Outdoors Scholars Program. It blends business management and marketing courses with environmental science courses to create a degree that targets the outdoors industry.

“What I plan on doing is pulling classes from different majors to make myself more marketable to companies in the outdoor industry,” James said.

While classroom work is important, the whole idea of the program was for students to be able to get outdoors while they went to school. So, the curriculum includes hunting and fishing field trips.

“We want students to indulge their passions and enrich their lives while we prepare them for their careers,” Stewart said. “Not many institutions prepare students for careers in the outdoor industry.”

Adam Carroll, a freshman from Carrollton, Georgia, ran across the program when he was a junior in high school. He wanted to fish competitively and knew professional angler Clent Davis had fished on Montevallo’s fishing team. The President’s Outdoor Scholars Program gave him the options he was looking for.

“I’ve already met a lot of people and done a lot of cool stuff,” Carroll said. “We went on a guided redfish trip to Venice, Louisiana. That was something I had never done.”

Students have enjoyed a variety of experiences. Four students went with Stewart and Crawford to the Bahamas on a blue marlin fishing expedition. There was also a visit to the Duck Commander headquarters.

Stewart and Crawford have worked to get outdoors related companies to sponsor trips and scholarships. Students don’t have to pay heavy class fees to enjoy their outdoors experiences.

Outdoors companies hope their investment pays dividends. Students mostly gravitate toward a business careers, Crawford said. But others are considering work with nonprofit organizations and there are students who are also interested in communications careers.

The next step will be for the program to establish its own curriculum.

“We’re in the process of building a lodge on campus to house our students and our program,” Crawford said. “We’ve been looking forward to having a place our program can call home.”

Robert DeWitt is the Outdoors writer for The Tuscaloosa News. Readers can email him at robert.dewitt@tuscaloosanews.com.