Meet Madison: Young UTC graduate is ‘one to watch’

20-year-old Madison Cothern graduated from UTC on Saturday, May 4, with a bachelor’s degree in secondary education: history. Photo by Angela Foster.

At 20 years old, Madison Cothern was one of the younger graduates participating in University of Tennessee at Chattanooga commencement ceremonies on Saturday, May 4.

Despite her age, her list of accomplishments does not reflect a lack of experience—as Cothern said she graduated with about 186 credit hours.

A Chattanooga native, Cothern attended Collegiate High, completing dual-enrollment classes at Chattanooga State Community College. She received her associate degree in history and her high school diploma at 17 years old.

Now, three years later, she has a bachelor’s degree in secondary education: history.

Cothern said she enjoyed challenging herself, but it wasn’t always easy.

“I was not naturally this gifted student,” she said. “I had to work for it and it was something that I had to be put in the right places for those things to be able to happen.”

Dedication is one thing. Cothern faced a challenge that set her apart from most other students.

At 3 years old, she lost conductive hearing in her left ear, requiring her to wear a bone-anchored hearing aid. In March of this year, she experienced hearing loss in her right ear and had to get a second hearing aid.

Cothern described her hearing impairment as an asset to her story rather than a hindrance.

In 2019, she published a children’s book titled “Beautiful, Brown, and Bionic,” which tells of her experiences as an African American deaf ballerina.

“I think it’s important for children to be able to say, ‘Hey, there’s someone that looks like me that’s doing the same things,’” Cothern said.

She said she does recognize that her hearing impairment affected her college experience. Fortunately, captioners helped her by sitting next to her in class, using a stenographer to translate what was said.

“If I didn’t have captioning in my classes,” she said, “I was going home and teaching myself everything. That was a big part of the journey.”

During her first year at UTC, Cothern was a Brock Scholar in the UTC Honors College.

“I was exposed to a lot of opportunities,” she said, “and I was also able to pursue a lot of research.”

The research usually involved her favorite topics in history.

“Much of my research focuses on intellectual history,” she said. “I tend to focus on 1680 to 1900 existentialism. That’s my favorite branch in the scientific enlightenment.”

During her time at UTC, Cothern also got the chance to research the Holocaust and the Cold War through travel abroad excursions to Germany, Austria and Hungary.

“It was a very interesting learning experience,” she said. “Learning how these experiences are similar and differentiate from the United States is something I’ll never forget.”

As a student teacher of U.S. American history at East Hamilton High School, Cothern used SpongeBob and other pop culture references to explain concepts like the Cuban Missile Crisis.

“The students were like, ‘I’ve never seen history this way. I’ve never thought about it like that,’” she said. “Oftentimes it’s not presented to them in that manner and it’s by people that don’t even look like them.”

Madison Cothern displays her Alpha Society medal.

Cothern’s hard work at UTC did not go unnoticed. Along with graduating as a Latin honors candidate, she was inducted into the Alpha Scholastic Honor Society—one of the University’s oldest and most prestigious honor societies. She was also the recipient of a ThinkAchieve graduate award for the extracurricular work she did on campus, including her membership in the Freshman Senate and her work as a peer writing consultant in the UTC Writing and Communication Center.

Two days after crossing the McKenzie Arena stage as the recipient of a bachelor’s degree, Cothern was set to begin an online master’s history program through the University of Memphis. She hopes to one day work in nonprofit education.

“By the time I got to UTC I was finally able to really explore my passion,” Cothern said. “I was able to hone in on that research interest and have the time to get materials together so I would be ready to apply to grad school.

“It very much allowed me to have that jumping ground to be able to start my career, but I was also able to intellectually push myself as well.”

Madison’s mom, Chasney Zulueta, stands as one of her biggest fans and constant supporters.

“Madison is definitely a trailblazer,” Zulueta said. “She’s one to watch. She’s definitely going to give back what was poured into her.”