Center for Religion and Environment

Supported by the University’s commitment to sustainability and by its extensive course offerings in environmental studies, the Center for Religion and Environment at Sewanee seeks to transform individuals and society by helping both to integrate their faith with care for the natural environment. All students are invited to participate in Center activities, including its “Earthkeepers” gatherings and “Opening the Book of Nature” program. On occasion, the Earthkeepers group takes observational field trips accompanied by interested faculty members. The group also meets weekly to discuss major themes related to the environment in Christian scripture and theology, as well as how these themes bear on concepts in the natural and social sciences. The character of this university-wide Center for Religion and Environment, associated also with The School of Theology, is virtually unique in American higher education.

Global Education and Off-Campus Study

The Office of Global Citizenship provides resources for students to study abroad. There are over 400 diverse program offerings available. The global citizenship web pages offer information for students, parents, and faculty related to international travel and off-campus programs of study.

Internships

Summer internships help students connect their strengths, interests, and skills with a vocation. Students gain significant, practical work experience and valuable contacts with established professionals.

Sewanee’s internship programs feature these unique benefits:

• Paid Internships — Students can pursue the internships that interest them, even if the internship site does not have funding. Generous grants and gifts from alumni and friends enable the University to fund more than 250 internships per year.
• Resources and Support — The University’s Career and Leadership Development staff and alumni network can help a student find, arrange, or even create an internship opportunity.
• Flexibility — Sewanee’s well-established internship program offers a history of positive relationships with internship sponsors and the flexibility to fit student interests.

Landscape Analysis Lab

The landscape analysis lab provides opportunities for students to participate in interdisciplinary environmental research, education, and outreach. Faculty in the lab come from the Departments of Biology, Economics, Forestry, Philosophy, Politicals, and Religious Studies. The lab offers internships and independent studies in which students work with faculty on research projects, engage in outreach to local schools, and collaborate with government, non-profit institutions, and corporations. These activities center around the lab’s state-of-the-art geographic information systems computer network which contains detailed spatial information about land use, biodiversity, and socioeconomic factors for the Cumberland Plateau and the southeastern United States.

Research Opportunities

A number of opportunities are made available, during the summer as well as in regular academic terms, for students to pursue original research projects in collaboration with professors or with faculty guidance. Scholarship Sewanee, is an annual celebration of student scholarship, research, and creativity. The Director of Undergraduate Research coordinates access to these opportunities.

Service-Learning and Community Engagement

The Community Engaged Learning (CEL) program connects the class room to local, national, and international communities and rests on a commitment to the involvement of faculty, students, and community partners in service projects, community-based dialogue, problem-solving, and personal reflection informed by academic study. Pursued in this way, community engagement encourages self-knowledge, a deepened understanding of place, and intellectual development.

Students can pursue a Certificate in Civic and Global Leadership and choose between two tracks, Development and Human Capabilities (CVDV) or Community and Global Health (CVHE). The CVDV and CVHE attributes are used to designate courses that fulfill certificate requirements in the catalog and course schedule.