Anderson Bears the Torch for Public Health

June 27, 2024 by artsciweb

Anderson Bears the Torch for Public Health

As a public health nutrition advocate, the College Scholars Program at the University of Tennessee greatly enhanced my educational, professional, and personal journey to be where I am today. Thus, I am honored to share my story and contribute to the College Scholars newsletter as an alumna.

I graduated from UT Knoxville in May 2022 with a bachelor’s degree in College Scholars with an emphasis in food security and public health nutrition. Now in graduate school, I often get the question of my background and what I studied during my undergraduate degree. While I quickly assess how much time a person has to listen while I craft my response, I don’t believe I can ever sufficiently encapsulate the true power of interdisciplinary curriculum through the College Scholars Program.

My particular major allowed me to weave together my passions for food systems, nutrition, and public health. While I started my freshman year with a major in nutrition, I was quickly disillusioned by the siloed approach to food and wanted to think more systematically about the access, utilization, and consumption of food within systems of power locally and globally.

This is what led me to design my interdisciplinary major in food security and public health nutrition. My program sought to examine the intersection of nutrition-related disease and health disparities, within which systems of privilege and oppression interact to influence the ways people access, afford, and consume food. Through courses in sociology, food policy, anthropology, and public health across the disciplines at UT, I studied the plethora of factors that influence food choices and health outcomes in human nutrition, while supplementing my program with minors in Spanish and international agriculture and natural resources.

Faculty mentorship and completion of the senior project is an integral component of the College Scholars Program that attracted me to take my learning to the next level. I was privileged to receive strong support, guidance, and encouragement from Betsy Anderson Steeves, who was an associate professor in the Department of Nutrition. With the support of my mentor and faculty members on my thesis defense committee, I conducted independent research using qualitative methods on the lived experience of food insecurity for UT students.

My College Scholars thesis gave me invaluable skills in qualitative research methods and culminated in presentations at conferences on the local, state, and national level; providing evidence and advocacy for the opening of a food pantry on campus; and the publication of a manuscript titled “Navigating Hidden Hunger: An Exploratory Analysis of the Lived Experience of Food Insecurity among College Students.”

After graduation, I wanted to continue my passion for international engagement and leverage my Spanish speaking skills, so I lived in central Mexico as a Fulbright Scholar with the Fulbright-García Robles (COMEXUS) program. I was selected as a Fulbright English teaching assistant in Puebla City, Mexico, where I taught at Centro de Capacitacion para el Trabajo Industrial Number 08. At this polytechnical school, I taught students aged 15 to over 50, all of whom were passionate about learning English and highly engaged in binational cultural exchange.

I found myself learning more from my students than teaching, as I immersed myself fully in the celebratory culture of Puebla that is rich in gastronomic heritage, indigenous traditions, and holidays like Dia de los Muertos.

Outside of the classroom, I was active in planning sustainability events and teaching art lessons to children at a local community theatre, and I even painted a mural to commemorate my institution’s 60th anniversary. My interest in international food policy and using research and advocacy to promote sustainable food environments in Latin America was informed by my experiences in Mexico, a place and people that will forever be imprinted on my heart.

Message from the Director – Summer 2024

June 27, 2024 by artsciweb

Message from the Director – Summer 2024

I hope this newsletter finds alumni, family, and friends of the College
Scholars Program doing well. I write this as I am coming to the end of
my fourth year as director. Even though the first couple years of my
directorship were impacted by the pandemic, this position is still the best
job at the University of Tennessee, as former directors Jeff Kovac and Chris
Craig had indicated.

Without further ado, we have a lot to report in this issue.

It is very nice to be back to face-to-face interviews of applicants to the
College Scholars Program! It is also great to be able to recruit in person
again. We’ve tabled at Hodges Library (see photo on back) and have
begun meeting with advisors from different colleges at the university.

We celebrated the 50th anniversary of the College Scholars Program
2023—the oldest honors program at UT Knoxville! We held a celebration
at the UT Conference Center in spring. Former director of the program,
Jeffrey Kovac, was a key organizer for the 50th celebration and he wrote
an overview, which is published online at scholars.utk.edu.

My main way of interacting regularly with individual college scholars is
through our weekly seminar. Over the past few years, these seminars
have shifted over largely to professional development. We did this shift
primarily to increase the sense of community and networking among
College Scholars students and various units within the university that are
highly relevant to college scholars (such as College Scholars advisor Ali
Brewer—see online edition—and staff from Undergraduate Research and
Fellowships and from the Center for Career Development).

Based upon an idea of college scholar Amara Pappas, this academic year
we started to open the first 15 minutes of each seminar with a college
scholar talking about their program or study or plans for their senior
projects. Borrowing a phrase from Andy Warhol, we’ve been calling these
segments of each seminar our “15 Minutes of Fame.”

This spring we had our program’s first invited speaker through the
Jeffrey and Susan Kovac Visiting Scholar Endowment. Our speaker
was alumna and Alumni Advisory Board member Mary Anne Hitt. She
gave a wonderful and uplifting talk about her work leading climate and
environmental organizations and campaigns. We look forward to holding
these Kovac Lectures regularly and would love to get to the point where
we could have at least one such lecture each semester.

In this newsletter we catch up with three alumni of the program: Ashlyn
Anderson, Anne Buckle, and Jay Raman. We also welcome our newest
Alumni Advisory Board member, Joshua Maine—see online edition. We
thank Jay St. Clair, who stepped down from the board last spring, for all his
help over the years!

Because college scholars themselves are the raison d’être for the program,
we once again allot them plenty of pages in this newsletter!

Finally, although I am preaching to the choir here, College Scholars
students are among the very best at UT, as you will see from reading here
about the amazing work of many of the current students in the program.
This statement is backed up by the fact that, despite our program’s
small size, College Scholars graduating seniors regularly are selected as
Torchbearers—the highest honor UT bestows. In just the past three years,
six college scholars have been Torchbearers: Ashlyn Anderson and Taylor
Dempsey, 2022; Diego Lourenco, Emily Morgan, and Diba Seddighi, 2023;
Sarah Lange, 2024.

We would love to hear from you! Please keep in touch via email at
scholars@utk.edu or tfreeber@utk.edu, or call me at 865-974-3975.

Young Alumni Spotlight – Maya Bian

September 29, 2021 by artsciweb

Young Alumni Spotlight – Maya Bian

Understanding Care in Non-traditional Settings

Maya Bian (’20) graduated from UT and the College Scholars Program in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Five months before then, she had been in China conducting ethnographic research for her senior project. Bian’s research, generously supported by endowments to the College Scholars Program, had been concerned with the experiences of elderly residents living in the long-term care facility her grandfather lives in. How were meanings of care shaped, articulated, and practiced within such a non-traditional institutional care setting in China?

“The influence of College Scholars on the formation of this question and the interdisciplinary design of my research was substantial.”

“The influence of College Scholars on the formation of this question and the interdisciplinary design of my research was substantial,” Bian said. “I was seeking to understand how the interaction of Chinese philosophical thought and China’s socioeconomic and political context played out in the arena of care and well-being.”

Her project, as personal as it had been academic, was rewarding and illuminating, and she continues to build upon her work as a College Scholar in her current master’s program. Bian just started her second year as a Yenching Scholar at Peking University—which has been entirely online due to the pandemic—where she studies China studies with a research focus on eldercare and care work.

“This next year, I will be focused on writing my master’s thesis, where I hope to explore the efficacy of state attempts to regulate what it means to care through the law and official discourse,” Bian said. “Upon graduating from the Yenching Academy, I plan to work in a caregiving capacity to ground my academic experiences with a greater empathy for and understanding of the labor of care, which seems particularly

Eventually, Bian would like to return to school for an MD and/or a PhD in medical anthropology.

“I pursue this path with immense gratitude for the College Scholars Program, not only because the program encouraged and supported me in pursuing the varied interests that have led me to where I am now, but also because it taught me that doing so will make me a better student, researcher, and community member.”

Student Scholar Spotlight – Zoe Ward

September 29, 2021 by artsciweb

Student Scholar Spotlight – Zoe Ward

Featured student work during their time as a college scholar in the College of Arts and Sciences.

Zoe Ward

I was awarded the Gilman Scholarship which is a national scholarship for undergraduate students to intern or study abroad. The scholarship expands access to foreign study by supporting students who might not otherwise be able to participate due to financial constraints. Gilman scholarships are typically awarded to low-income and first-generation students often from less advantaged regions who present academic achievement and rigor.

I have not been able to study abroad with my Gilman Scholarship just yet because of travel restrictions during COVID-19, but I have deferred my program to summer 2022. I plan to travel to Geneva, Switzerland, to study global health and development policy with the School for International Training (SIT). The program provides me the opportunity to study in the world capital of public health and sustainable development organizations. With the program, I will meet with experts from international organizations including the World Health Organization (WHO), the International Committee of the Red Cross, Médecins Sans Frontières, and UNAIDS. I plan to use the connections and experiences that I gain from this program to further my research for my senior project on effective governmental policies to combat infectious disease outbreaks.

Student Scholar Spotlight – Sebastian Van Horn

September 29, 2021 by artsciweb

Student Scholar Spotlight – Sebastian Van Horn

Featured student work during their time as a college scholar in the College of Arts and Sciences.

Sebastian Van Horn

This summer, I took a job with the Tony Award-winning Utah Shakespeare Festival. Out of nine shows that ran throughout the season, I worked on three out of four Shakespeare productions: Pericles, Richard III, and Comedy of Errors. My job backstage was wardrobe, which can be defined as a crew meant to carry out the vision of the costume designer. I maintained the costumes, repaired any notes, and executed quick changes – costume changes that can happen in as little as 30 seconds.

This summer was beneficial because, while I have worked on more than 10 productions within the past two years, I have not branched outside of Knoxville and the local theatrical scene. My time in Utah presented me with the challenges of stepping outside of my comfort zone (notably a solo drive across the country), working with a new theatre, and collaborating with a conglomerate of new people. I spent a lot of time alone while I relearned how to do a job that stopped during the pandemic, but I also made plenty of new friends and memories that I will cherish for the rest of my career.

Student Scholar Spotlight – Konrad Szymanowski

September 29, 2021 by artsciweb

Student Scholar Spotlight – Konrad Szymanowski

Featured student work during their time as a college scholar in the College of Arts and Sciences.

Konrad Szymanowski

I am a junior in the College Scholars program, and I focus on international and cross-cultural sociolinguistics. This past April, I participated in the 25th annual EURēCA event hosted at UT, submitting a research project titled: “What’s the Price of Nuclear Energy? Negotiations of the Chernobyl Disaster in German Literature and Culture in the Late 1980s.” Under the guidance of my German mentor, Professor Stefanie Ohnesorg, I submitted my project to the College of Arts and Sciences, Humanities category, creating a detailed poster and presenting my research to several faculty mentors (over Zoom, of course). My research entailed literary and cultural analysis of two German narrative texts written in the aftermath of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster of 1986, in which I discussed the main themes relating to: the consequences of uncontrolled nuclear energy, government mismanagement and irresponsibility, and collective public culpability for disasters. I argued about the importance of situating the German sociopolitical context of the Cold War by focusing on German texts; why Chernobyl in particular aroused intense public debate in Germany about nuclear energy and responsibility; and the striking ability of literature and media to provoke important discussions about moral and ethical dilemmas and issues. Ultimately, I was awarded for my research and presentation, receiving an Award of Excellence in the Humanities category, as well as an OURF Gold award.

While this particular subject of research lies outside the direct scope of my academic interest, studying firsthand the power of situatedness, the influence of literature and popular media, and the specific German context of these narratives provided me with a deeper insight into how I will approach my final senior undergraduate thesis. I intend to research the sociopolitical situation of linguistic minorities in Europe, in particular Germany, and the relevance of historical literature surrounding this topic will play a fundamental role in my thesis. My experience at EURēCA has provided me with a more dedicated, focused sense of what I can accomplish through motivation and attention to detail, and I look forward to stepping into the more professional world of research in my near future!

Student Scholar Spotlight – Emily Pope

September 29, 2021 by artsciweb

Student Scholar Spotlight – Emily Pope

Featured student work during their time as a college scholar in the College of Arts and Sciences.

Emily Pope

In spring 2021, I was invited to the virtual National Council on Undergraduate Research (NCUR) conference. This honor included creating a poster, a small speech, and gathering resources to share concerning a play I wrote in summer 2020 called Callaway. The conference itself included hundreds of college students from around the nation in dozens of different fields of study, and I feel proud to have been selected to represent the UT College Scholars among this advanced cohort of students.

During this process, I was able to network with students from fields vastly different from my own, and I found that our projects often had more in common than I would have thought at first. The NCUR conference also gave me the confidence I needed to continue pursuing my production of Callaway as my senior thesis project. The questions my peers asked of me led me to reflect on obstacles in my project, and the interest they expressed showed me that my project was worth continuing.

Student Scholar Spotlight – Hannah Morris

September 29, 2021 by artsciweb

Student Scholar Spotlight – Hannah Morris

Featured student work during their time as a college scholar in the College of Arts and Sciences.

Hannah Morris

This summer I worked as a teaching fellow for Breakthrough Collaborative, a national leader in education equity that provides empowering educational experiences for traditionally underrepresented students on their path to college. It is also an AmeriCorps program. Breakthrough admits students in middle school and partners with them until they graduate from college. I specifically served as a teacher in the academic summer program. I taught an interdisciplinary course that focused on identity, diversity, justice, and action. I worked with my students to identify a community issue they were passionate about and create an action plan for seeking justice. I also was the head of the Community Novel Committee. This role includes leading a committee that implemented a program-wide reading curriculum. We read Punching the Air by Yusef Salaam, who is one of the Exonerated Five.

Serving with Breakthrough Collaborative was an incredibly valuable learning experience that aligned perfectly with my program. The goal of my program is to combine an understanding of policy with an understanding of childhood education. By teaching with Breakthrough, I was able to get hands on experience in the field of education, but I was also exposed to the nuance of educational policy in particular. I developed important teaching skills, classroom management techniques, educational advocacy, and more. My experience at Breakthrough furthered my desire to pursue educational equity.

I am also working towards educational equity in the Knoxville community. In spring 2021, I started as an intern with the high school program at Thrive Lonsdale, which serves 9th-12th grade students in the Lonsdale neighborhood. In this role, I provide academic support, mentoring, and tutoring to traditionally underrepresented students. Further, this semester, I am helping launch a college preparation program that starts in ninth grade and works with students through the college application and acceptance process.

Working at Thrive was the first place I realized that I was passionate about educational equity, and that passion has been solidified the more than I have gotten involved with the organization. It was working here that first encouraged me to pursue an interdisciplinary major through College Scholars, and in my experience at Thrive, I learned the power of both intervention and prevention in the pursuit of educational equity. Working in the Lonsdale community has also demonstrated the impact of environmental factors on education, such as access to nutritious foods or safe play spaces.

Student Scholar Spotlight – Sherry Ludington

September 29, 2021 by artsciweb

Student Scholar Spotlight – Sherry Ludington

Featured student work during their time as a college scholar in the College of Arts and Sciences.

Sherry Ludington

As a senior in the College Scholars program, I took full advantage of the internships and opportunities available to me this past summer. My efforts to become a documentary filmmaker have led me to two conclusions: first I need to be a good storyteller, second, I need to know how to do it all: filming, editing, lighting, audio, etc. I accepted an internship with UT in the communications marketing department creating videos to “tell the stories” of students while promoting the various clubs and organizations they participated in. I also had the opportunity to help host a group of journalist students and their professors from Serbia…I am working on a documentary of their trip and will be traveling to their country in December. Additionally, I worked with the university’s TVC commercial production unit along with Clinton Elmore filming plays and creating training videos. What many do not realize is the vast amount of professional video equipment acquired by the university over the past two years is astounding. As a result, I now feel confident about my skills and abilities to create content in the film industry as I arrive to the finish line of my College Scholars journey.

Student Scholar Spotlight – Diego Lourenco

September 29, 2021 by artsciweb

Student Scholar Spotlight – Diego Lourenco

Featured student work during their time as a college scholar in the College of Arts and Sciences.

Diego Lourenco

I recently became a Peer Coach for UT’s brand new First Year Studies Program, the UT Success Academy, which was started due to the lack of retention in our Black and Latinx male populations. According to the university’s retention data, Black and Latinx males are far less likely to receive a degree, in comparison to their peers. The UT Success Academy is designed to help increase retention, from when students first get to campus, all the way through to graduation. First year students who are a part of this program must engage in activities that, according to data, a “successful student” does. For example, attending tutoring/supplemental instruction sessions, joining a student organization, meeting with academic advisors, creating an academic success plan, and more. If by their senior year of college, they remain in good standing with the program, on top of their renewable scholarship, they will earn an all-expenses-paid, study abroad experience in South Africa. The first cohort size is 215 students, and the goal for next year is 200+. We want to keep expanding the program every single year and continue to help students with their transition into college life.

The role of the Peer Coach is to mentor, advise, and help with the college transition into a primarily white institution for these incoming minority students. I have a group of eight freshmen students that I advise. A few of my responsibilities include hosting events for my mentees to attend, co-facilitating a First Year Studies class, helping the students to make sure they’re meeting their goals and staying on track with the program. Since I’ve become a Peer Coach, I’ve gotten to meet and know so many different freshmen students and learn about their lives. Seeing incoming freshmen come to the university and being able to help them with their transition into college is an amazing experience for me; especially considering how difficult it is to make that transition as a minority student at UT. I wish there was a program like this when I was a freshman at the university. Overall, my goal is to have a positive impact on these students and ensure their time at UT is worth it. Already, only full two weeks into the semester, students have come to me expressing their concerns about college, their fear of failure, and their thoughts on leaving. Our goal is to make sure students are staying in college, and to make Rocky Top feel like home. That’s exactly what I plan to do in my role as a Peer Coach.