Learn, Serve, Grow: Welcoming Sewanee’s New Students through Service and Community Building

This past August, just like every August, Sewanee welcomed new students to campus, providing countless ways to connect and help our newest community members feel welcome and excited about their transition to college. This year, however, Sewanee piloted a new First Year Experience (FYE) program that aimed to provide an even deeper connection for students—a connection to each other, to mentors and professors, and to the campus and wider community. This new and innovative program allowed students to engage in three different ways: through Encounter, an academic course where students explored themes around place and place-making, stories and storytelling, and memory and truth; through Embark, a one-credit course that introduced students to the academic and community resources on campus; and through Explore, an intensive, three-day immersive experiential learning experience that students participated in as soon as they moved on campus. Explore tracks included themes around identity, wellness, the environment, student athletics, and of course, service and community building.

The Office of Civic Engagement was honored to take part in the Explore track of FYE this year by offering the service component titled Learn, Serve, Grow. Gandhi, the leader of India’s independence movement, famously said, “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” Our Explore track helped students to find themselves, their sense of belonging, and their potential by engaging in service and relationship building with local community partners and their organizations. Our time together commenced with a picnic at Angel Park in Sewanee where students spent time hearing from local community leaders, who shared not only their work and organizations but who also shared what inspired them to do community and civic engagement. Then, the rest of our Explore time together was spent with two of our best community partners, Mountain T.O.P. and Sleep in Heavenly Peace (SHP). At SHP, our students and mentors spent the day building beds for local children in the community who otherwise would not have a safe or healthy place to sleep. They learned about the health and developmental risks of not having something as simple as a bed. At Mountain T.O.P., students worked at their center on the volunteer cabins and learned about issues around housing insecurity in Appalachia and in particular on the Cumberland Plateau.

First year student Ben Tibbles (Danville, Kentucky) said, “This explore was a great introduction to the area surrounding Sewanee and opened my eyes to service opportunities on campus. I particularly enjoyed the bed building, as during that day I made a lot of really good friends.” And Savannah Carlson (Reno, Nevada) said, “Explore allowed me to learn about and feel comfortable in this community very early into my college experience. It was inspiring to meet some of Sewanee's community partners who clearly have a passion for serving the community, and I realized that students like myself can become a key part of helping others around us."

We are incredibly grateful to our community partners who helped us welcome our students in Learn, Serve, Grow! Together, we helped challenge students’ sense of self and citizenship as we empowered them to learn about their new community and make a difference!