Taking learning outside the four walls of a classroom has always been a primary goal and in turn an intangible benefit of Sewanee’s outreach program. For over 30 years, Sewanee students, faculty, and staff have ventured outside of their communities and comfort zones to forge new relationships and partnerships with people from all over the world and from all walks of life.
Working together, we learn more about our values and identities, various cultures and traditions, and how social systems and inequities have led to populations and communities being vastly underserved and undervalued. Through short-term immersive service projects, our outreach and service-away programs work hand-in-hand with communities to make a difference and live into the visions and missions of community partners.
Outreach Goals
Our outreach program considers the University’s four values of community, inquiry, flourishing, and courage to ensure we are living into Sewanee’s vision and mission to “enable students to live lives of grace, integrity, and a reverent concern for the world.” With this in mind, our goals are to:
- Community: Create sustainable, collaborative community partnerships with mutually beneficial outcomes.
- Courage: Design immersive, place-based learning that allows us all to step out of comfort zones and live into new experiences, while challenging our perspectives and ways of thinking and being.
- Flourishing: Foster personal growth and continued development of meaning and purpose.
- Inquiry: Increase awareness and knowledge of the communities in which we are invited.
