Alumni Profile | Philliph Mutisya

“Through NOLS I learned to ask the hard questions of my students and of myself. If we can do this, we can eliminate the barriers of humanity.”

James Wynn is a Wilderness Medicine grad who, when not changing diapers or chasing monsters out from under beds, can be found outside looking for adventure.

ALUMNI PROFILE Philliph Mutisya

By James Wynn NOLS Wilderness Medicine Staffing Coordinator

Dr. Philliph Mutisya is sitting in his kitchen in North Carolina, relating a tale about the first time he put into practice the lessons he learned from NOLS.

Fresh off his Instructor Training Course, the then 28-year-old Kenyan fell asleep at the wheel while driving a borrowed Nissan Duster from Lander to Colorado.

“I was just outside of Laramie,” he said, his lilting accent emphasizing the memory, as if it happened just yesterday. “The coffee wasn’t working and I fell asleep. It was then that I had the accident.”

Philliph’s car hit the guardrail and careened across Interstate 80, somersaulting three times, and throwing him through the windshield.

“I barely had a scratch on me,” he said. “I know a lot of people would have been very scared, but I was not, because of what I had learned from NOLS.”

It was the fundamental NOLS value of resiliency in the face of an adverse situation that led Philliph to view his accident as a lesson about his ability to overcome hardship.

“That is what I learned from NOLS,” he said. “The ability to understand who we are and our unique identity.”

Now in his seventh decade, Phillip credits his lifetime of goals met to that first course he took so long ago.

His path from Kenya to the Wind River Mountains began in 1978.

“I was working for the Peace Corps in Kenya, but I felt I was not learning anything,” he said. “I wanted more but I didn’t know how to find it. I was approached by George Newbury, who was director of NOLS Kenya at that time,” Philliph said. “I came to work for NOLS and I have never looked back.”

Those first few months working for NOLS Kenya opened up a world to Philliph he never knew existed.

“Before NOLS, I realize now I didn’t know about things,” he said. “I didn’t know about biology, psychology, and the growth of human behavior. I began to think in terms of group dynamics, critical approach dialogue, and sharing small spaces with people.”

Eventually, Philliph became the first Kenyan awarded a scholarship on a NOLS Instructor Training Course. “And so I came to Wyoming,” he said. He will never forget his first views of the Wind River Range and the Lander Valley.

“Where I was from in Kenya, no one knew that nature still existed in the way it did in Wyoming,” he said.

After his course, Philliph taught NOLS students all over the Rocky Mountain West, shaping an entire lifetime of education. “NOLS has always been the roots for me,” he said. “Everything from there has been the branches.”

Philliph’s path led him to earning his doctorate of education in Instructional Education; he is now a professor of education at North Carolina Central University.

“NOLS trained me to teach to the students, and to make sure that my students focus on their abilities,” he said. “Through NOLS I learned to ask the hard questions of my students and of myself. If we can do this, we can eliminate the barriers of humanity.”