Stay up-to-date with the latest happenings, initiatives, and community involvement opportunities. Explore our diverse range of events, news articles, and updates as we strive to promote active citizenship and foster meaningful connections within our community.
The Office of Civic Engagement and the South Cumberland Community Fund announce that a new director of community development, Mandy Bouldin will began her role as of October 14.
More than ninety students, faculty, staff, and community members participated in the DebateWatch between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump on September 10, 2024.
Operating under the South Cumberland Summer Meal Program through a partnership with Sewanee Dining, service members distributed free shelf-stable meals to children 18 and under at seventeen recurring sites in Franklin, Grundy, and Marion counties. Over the course of 8 weeks, 71,356 meals were given out, along with over 500 children’s books and 400 craft activities, increasing food availability and alleviating the “summer slide” in learning during the summer months when schools are closed.
Meet our dedicated Summer Meal Associates, who came together from various backgrounds to make a lasting impact on the South Cumberland Plateau. This year’s cohort included Sewanee students, local community members, and college students from across the region, all united in their commitment to serving the community. Their efforts extended beyond meal distribution to support a diverse range of local organizations, contributing to both immediate relief and long-term community growth.
The Office of Civic Engagement is proud to congratulate our students for the awards they received at commencement! Here we list students who received awards and had served as Bonner or Canale service interns, Outreach trip leaders, and/or Dialogue Ambassadors.
During the 2024-2025 academic year, four faculty members will serve as faculty fellows working to promote community engaged learning in their courses and on campus. The fellows are Maxwell Dahlquist (Earth and Environmental Systems), Eric Ezell (Earth and Environmental Systems), Lucia García-Santana (Spanish), and Clarissa Peterson (Politics/African and African-American Studies).
Through their participation in the Bonner and Canale program, students received training to engage in and lead capacity building projects while applying this knowledge through shared work with local community partners. Their work this year led them to design programming, organize events, develop marketing materials and social media campaigns, manage volunteers, lead workshops and classes, and write grants.
Nearly a decade ago, the Office of Civic Engagement partnered with the South Cumberland Community Fund (SCCF) to create the Philanthropy Internship Program, a unique civic engaged learning opportunity to develop students as active global citizens advancing economic, social and environmental well-being through engagement in philanthropic activities.
South Cumberland Community Fund (SCCF) has a unique relationship with the Office of Civic Engagement. The organizations share a director of community development, Katie Goforth, who oversees the SCCF community development committee, the SCCF grants committee, and the OCE’s philanthropy internship program. Additionally, the OCE’s director Amy Patterson serves on the board of SCCF. These professional ties connect the two organizations in ways that increase capacity, collaboration and resource sharing.
During the 2023-2024 academic year, seven different outreach trip experiences allowed students, faculty, and staff to engage with people from all over the world and from all walks of life, working together to serve a variety of community-identified needs and projects.
The Dialogue Across Difference program continues in its work to foster opportunities for students, seminarians, staff, and faculty to engage in meaningful dialogue, deliberation, and civil discourse. During the Easter 2024 semester, our work continued to expand with the growth of Dinner & Dialogue, a community-engaged learning course in the Rhetoric program, the onboarding of a Canale Intern, and an invitation to the SNF Ithaca Initiative National Student Dialogue at the University of Delaware.
During the 2023-2024 academic year, Bonner service intern Stewart Miller conducted community based research with the support from the Gessell Fellowship for Research in Social Ethics. A junior American Studies major, Miller examined the Tennessee Investment in Student Achievement (TISA) law, which went into effect in fall 2023.
In November of 2018, the Bonner Foundation introduced a new set of student workshops to the Bonner network meant to bring “a more comprehensive understanding of civic and community engagement.”
The current class of Bonner and Canale Juniors, C’25 collaborated on five issue brief topics. The topics addressed challenges our community partners have encountered as barriers to their work, shared with our students to explore in more depth.
During 2023- 2024, Kate Cammack (Neuroscience/Psychology), Jennifer Matthews (Theatre), Katy Morgan (Psychology), and Sid Simpson (Politics) served as Community Engaged Learning (CEL) Faculty Fellows. With support from OCE, the Bonner Foundation, the McCrickard Fund, and the Office of the Chaplain, each taught a course with a CEL component, devised a project to support CEL on campus, and engaged in dialogue with the Faculty Fellows for Purpose and Career.
During National Service Week, spanning April 21st to 27th, the SCP AmeriCorps program members emerged as beacons of community support and solidarity across the South Cumberland Plateau. Their unwavering commitment to service manifested in diverse projects to bolster the capacities of organizations vital to our communities.
In the spirit and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., around 200 students, faculty, staff, and community members came together to work side-by-side and serve together in unity.
Accessible from the door to the basement of Carnegie Hall (room CL008), the Student Supply Closet is a space designed to help any undergraduate and seminarian students access any items that they need and otherwise have limited access to.
During the Advent 2023 semester, students at Sewanee: The University of the South participated in their Civic and Global Leadership Capstone Projects. This diverse group of students undertook initiatives close to their hearts, showcasing a dedication to making a positive impact on both local and global communities.
In partnership with the Office of Civic Engagement, the fellows will each teach a community engaged learning (CEL) course, design and implement a project to further CEL at Sewanee, and mentor a faculty member who will teach a CEL course in the next academic year.
In a special ceremony held at Convocation Hall on November 16th, students of the Philanthropy Internship Program awarded $30,000 in grant funding to local nonprofit organizations and government agencies.
During the fall 2023 semester, the Office of Civic Engagement, with support from the Roberson Project on Slavery, Race, and Reconciliation, offered a course in FYP. This new and different path for FYP allowed students to not only take a deep look into Sewanee’s history but also to partner with the city of Selma, Alabama.
VISTA alums from across the country returned to the Mountain November 10th-12th to mark the end of a nine-year chapter: the sunset of the South Cumberland Plateau VISTA Project.
Dinner & Dialogue continues to bring together students, seminarians, staff, and faculty for shared conversations about what we hold dear while creating space for meaningful connections with folks from across campus. Two events were held in the Advent 2023 semester, with nearly 50 members of the campus community in attendance at each dialogue.
South Cumberland Plateau AmeriCorps members came together on Oct 28, 2023, in recognition of Make a Difference Day, to proudly participate as a community partner in Mountain T.O.P.’s annual Fall Festival, helping to provide shoes, coats, winter gear, and boots for children and families across the South Cumberland Plateau.
The Office of Civic Engagement is pleased to introduce our new Bonners and Canales for the 2023-2024 academic year.
In honor of 9/11, the SCP AmeriCorps program observed a day of service and remembrance. SCP AmeriCorps members reached out across the plateau to support a variety of community endeavors.
In commemoration of Constitution Day 2023, Sewanee Votes!, the Office of Civic Engagement’s voting initiative, hosted a “Dessert and Democracy” event where a group of 30 students engaged in conversation centered around individual’s values as they relate to the Constitution and our current political state in the US more broadly.
The annual AmeriCorps Summer Program is a short-term, intensive ten-week community service program to directly support anti-poverty efforts on the Plateau, focusing on alleviating child hunger and reducing summer learning loss.
Before studying abroad, Adri Silva, C’24, had never competed in gymnastics. But that didn’t stop her from joining her host university’s team in Ecuador and coming home with two medals from a major international competition.
Thanks to the Biehl International Research Fellowships, four Sewanee students spent the summer undertaking transformative research journeys across three continents.
One student’s work in her hometown near Sewanee exemplifies the immeasurable impact a unique Sewanee service program has had on local communities and on the students who serve them.
For over two decades, the philosophy professor and (now former) director of the Office of Civic Engagement has been at the center of efforts to push Sewanee’s academic and co-curricular offerings out of the ivory tower and into the community, where they can make a real difference.
For more than 10 years, the University Office of Civic Engagement has nurtured a unique classroom-community symbiotic relationship on the Plateau. Recently, founding director Philosophy Professor Jim Peterman stepped down passing the torch to Politics Professor Amy Patterson. What is the OCE? Where did it come from and where is it going?
Olivier Mbabazi (Bonner student leader) and Angus Pritchard have been awarded the prestigious Thomas J. Watson Fellowship for 2022-23.
