Associate Lecturer Catherine Meeks Quinlan, left, Associate Lecturer Lucy Schultz and Guerry Professor Jennifer Boyd were awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities grant titled “Implementing a Humanities-Informed Environmental Studies Major at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.” Photo by Angela Foster.
Thanks to funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), an Environmental Studies major at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga is one step closer to becoming a reality.
As part of an overarching announcement of nationwide grants, the NEH awarded a $149,957 “Humanities Connections” grant to UTC for the project titled “Implementing a Humanities-Informed Environmental Studies Major at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.”
Catherine Meeks Quinlan (Department of English), Dr. Jennifer Boyd (Biology, Geology and Environmental Science) and Dr. Lucy Schultz (Philosophy and Religion) were the grant’s principal investigators.
The NEH recently announced $26.2 million in funding for 238 grant awards to support humanities exhibitions and documentaries, programs at colleges and universities, expanding access to historical collections, sustainability projects at museums and archives, and scholarly research in the humanities.
“From studies of the impact of emerging technologies on humans to new documentaries that lift up undertold stories, these projects show how the humanities help us understand ourselves and our world,” NEH Chair Shelly C. Lowe (Navajo) said in the announcement. “NEH is proud to support 238 exemplary new education, preservation, research and public programs that will expand our nation’s cultural resources and foster learning in communities across the country.”
Meeks Quinlan, an associate lecturer of English, has been involved with establishing an Environmental Studies minor at UTC since the summer of 2021. The minor was officially launched in fall 2022.
She said the award, which will fund a three-year project to expand the minor into a major, builds off a $35,000 grant they received two years ago.
“This grant continues to develop around why this program matters,” Meeks Quinlan said.
Even though “environmental studies” sounds similar to “environmental science,” she said it is much different.
“As a field, environmental studies is more concerned with the human and social dimensions of environmental- and sustainability-related issues,” she explained. “There’s some science that’s required as part of the program, but there’s more humanities courses, more social science courses.”
Schultz, an associate lecturer of Philosophy and Religion, discussed their plans for the grant and some of the program’s highlights.
The first year, she said, is dedicated to passing the curriculum for the program to launch in 2025.
“We’re doing a lot of promotion to recruit students and get the word out,” Schultz said. “We’re going to be flying in three great scholars in environmental studies to do a panel on interdisciplinary environmental studies and what they’ve learned.”
The Environmental Studies major will provide activities and opportunities for students to receive hands-on learning by meeting professionals in the field and community.
“A big part of the curriculum is place-based experiential and service learning,” she said. “A big part of this grant is to fund those projects.”
Schultz said they have worked with local high schools to sponsor hikes for any student interested in the program. Last fall, Environmental Studies hosted 80 high school students from The Howard School, taking them on a hike to Lula Lake in Lookout Mountain, Georgia.
The program will also help students complete a River Studies and Leadership certificate, which she said is usually difficult due to the number of required classes one needs to take.
“Those are just some of the various components of the grant work that we’re going to do so we can offer a robust, well-rounded set of options for students,” Schultz said. “We want students to do projects that are making a positive impact in the community while getting their degrees.
“It’s really important, especially when the situation seems gloomy and dire. We think about environmental issues to have hope and be inspired by the work that others are doing so that we gain momentum and energy around change. Those are the values and vision that we have for our program.”
The grant is especially worth highlighting because it isn’t necessarily typical to see humanities-focused programs receive an award of this amount, said Boyd, a Guerry professor of Biology, Geology and Environmental Science.
“The major is finally going to be implemented and developed with support from the NEH that is a significant amount for non-scientific research,” Boyd said.
It wouldn’t have been possible without Schultz and Quinlan, she added.
“They’re amazing,” Boyd said. “I can’t say enough wonderful things about them. They are so driven, motivated and passionate about this.”
Learn More
‘Let’s be friends’: How an interdisciplinary gathering led to an environmental collaboration
The environmental studies program recently sponsored the inaugural UTC Earth Day Environment and Sustainability Showcase. The event took place Monday, April 22, in the University Center.
