Place

Activate research and academic use of the Outer Domain

Rationale

Humanity requires solutions to global environmental challenges. Tomorrow’s leaders need to be prepared to step up at this critical moment to innovate solutions and rectify environmental injustice, which disproportionately affects some racial and lower-income groups. The University of the South has multiple environmental assets, including our large faculty with environmental expertise, the Domain, six majors, and a farm. As part of its work to cultivate engaged global citizens, the institution fosters diverse partnerships across our community and beyond to support students in their development as environmental leaders and professionals. Academic engagement on the Outer Domain and surrounding communities will provide entry points to understand environmental challenges; foster student relations with faculty, staff, and community partners; explore historical and contemporary environmental injustice; and cultivate a sense of responsibility for stewarding the environment.

Description

The University will develop the Sewanee Environmental Institute (SEI) with a mission to educate and inspire a new generation of environmental leaders, stewards, scholars, changemakers, and innovators who will create and advocate for solutions to global environmental challenges and environmental injustice. The Sewanee Environmental Institute will provide a cohesive platform to better integrate our strengths and create new opportunities to:

  • Attract and engage community- and environmentally-motivated students with diverse academic and professional interests.
  • Cultivate an interdisciplinary network of innovative leaders, scholars, and professionals.
  • Elevate the University of the South’s profile as home to one of the nation’s flagship programs in the environment.
Supporting Tactics
  • Build interdisciplinary research collaborations, such as the Split Creek Observatory, the University Farm, and conservation partnerships, that will:
    • Connect faculty, students, and classes across the College to the Domain.
    • Serve as a place-based vehicle for educating and skill-building to address multidimensional global environmental challenges.
    • Foster inter-institutional collaborations that model interdisciplinary research and raise our profile regionally and nationally.
    • Link data science and data literacy to the Domain.
    • Continue to connect prospective high school students to the Domain.
  • Elevate Environmental Arts and Humanities (EAH) to attract students with diverse environmental interests by (i) supporting a rotating EAH fellows program that would allow EAH faculty to engage more deeply with the major while supporting it by offering core courses, (ii) co-sponsoring symposia on emerging topics that bring scholars and practitioners to our campus and Domain for important conversations, (iii) strengthening environmental justice studies, and (iv) training students in the research and construction of narratives related to the environment and environmental injustice.
  • Offer a high-profile speaker series or annual symposia highlighting emerging topics and conversation around environmental justice, biological conservation, regeneration, and ecological restoration.
  • Support Domain Across the Curriculum (described in Strategy 3D) by innovating curricular and co-curricular collaborations with the Office of Environmental Stewardship and Sustainability (OESS), the Office of Civic Engagement (OCE), the Center for Religion and Environment (CRE), and the proposed Center for Project-Based Learning and Action.
  • Develop co-curricular and continuing education opportunities that leverage the Domain and the University’s environmental expertise to offer our students and post-bac professionals (i) new tools, (ii) vocational inspiration, (iii) networking opportunities, and (iv) a way to articulate a specific set of skills and co-curricular experiences and practica to employers.
  • Expand the popular and high-yielding pre-college field studies summer program to attract more high school students with diverse environmental interests.