Registration now open for Great Smokies Experience at Maryville College

After the COVID-19 pandemic forced a two-year hiatus, Maryville College’s Great Smokies Experience will return in July to give rising high school juniors, seniors, and recent high school graduates an opportunity to take part in a learning lab like no other.

The 10-day program will give participants both college credit and a chance to explore environmental issues and sustainability studies while living and learning in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

“It’s an opportunity to gain an understanding of complex relationships between the natural world and the social world, as well as an understanding of how our sense of place is a part of who we are,” said Dr. Andrew Gunnoe, associate professor of sociology at Maryville College and the Great Smokies Experience coordinator. “It’s understanding that here in the Smokies, we have a unique biodiversity region that informs our approach not just to sustainability, but who we are as a people and a culture.”

This year’s program will take place July 14-25 on the College’s campus and at the Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont, a residential environmental learning center located on the Tennessee side of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GSMNP). Participants who complete it will earn three hours of credit for the Environmental Issues and Sustainability Studies (ENV/SUS 101) class from Maryville College.

In addition to hands-on environmental and sustainability work, Gunnoe said, students will learn how various disciplines — political science, history, sociology, biology and ecology, just to name a few — are tied to their relationship with the land, particularly here in East Tennessee.

“We do root our educational program in science and the scientific community and what it tells us, but a lot of it comes down to place,” he said. “We look at structural issues like sustainability as big issues, but also at what we can do in our own communities and our own lives to make small changes. It’s all about understanding the link between ourselves and our environment.”

In addition to Gunnoe, instructors for the Great Smoky Mountains Experience include Dr. Mark O’Gorman, professor of political science and coordinator of the College’s environmental studies program; John DiDiego, education director at Tremont; and Bruce Guillaume, founder and director of Mountain Challenge.

The cost per student for the entire two-week program is $1,799 and includes tuition, fees, room and board, all special events, and transportation to and from the Park. Students will spend the majority of the course living in the national park at Tremont, and the remainder will take place on the Maryville College campus and other important Southern Appalachia sites.

This program will include a variety of activities, including mountain hikes, nighttime exploration of the park, kayaking on Tellico Reservoir, exploring the Maryville College Woods, and taking part in Mountain Challenge, an on-campus program that seeks to build teamwork, enhance communication and teach problem-solving skills through outdoor experiences.

And while classroom work is a part of the curriculum, Gunnoe said, those hands-on experiences make the Great Smokies Experience an interactive program that’s often transformative for participants.

“That’s the key in the Great Smokies Experience — it’s an experience as well,” he said. “Abstract ideas like sustainability can be lost on a 17- or 18-year-old, but a week spent in the Smoky Mountains is not. I kayaked and played in the Smokies in college, and that’s what led me to develop my own environmental consciousness.

“Immersing them in their natural environment is a very important and perhaps life-changing experience. You get college credit, and you’re going to learn some classroom things, but the experience of being outdoors for a week with a cohort of other students, to know what it feels like to climb up Mt. LeConte and look out over the Tennessee Valley — they’re not going to forget that.”

Space is limited, and while the deadline to apply for the Great Smokies Experience is May 10, spots are filling quickly, Gunnoe said. Interested participants are encouraged to apply now.

For more information, contact Gunnoe at [email protected] or visit the website at maryvillecollege.edu/gse.