Twins Mitchell and Meaghan Hibbs are both members of the Honors College at UTC. Mitchell is graduating on May 4 with a bachelor’s degree in entrepreneurship. Meaghan, majoring in trumpet performance and international studies, will graduate in December. Photo by Angela Foster.
Twins Meaghan and Mitchell Hibbs, who hail from Chattanooga, have stuck together through the years. There was no exception when both chose the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga for their undergraduate years, where they are both members of the Honors College.
Staying close to home was a priority for them, especially with the change that college brings, said Mitchell—an Innovations in Honors student who will graduate on Saturday, May 4, with a bachelor’s degree in entrepreneurship.
His sister agreed.
“There’s just a simplicity to choosing UTC,” Meaghan said, “and then I kind of approached it with the open-mindedness and open-heartedness of, ‘If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work.’ But yeah, it’s worked out well.”
With experience in the arts after attending Chattanooga High School Center for Creative Arts—where both “majored” in instrumental music—Meaghan has added a major in trumpet performance after finishing her degree in international studies. As such, the Brock Scholar will graduate this December.
Since declaring her performance major, Meaghan said she has had “a lot of really rich experiences.”
“Performance-wise, those have been some of my favorite experiences, playing with friends that I have or for family,” she said.
Mitchell said one of his most memorable UTC moments occurred at a National Collegiate Honors Council conference. He had created an art piece on a three-foot by four-foot canvas that had taken over 80 hours to complete. He was one of just a few students presenting their art.
To ship it to Florida, he had to visit several UPS stores around Chattanooga to find a box to put his piece in so he could check it into the plane.
“I still remember going down the escalator on the way out of the airport,” he recalled.
The theme of the art piece was self-reflection. While coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, Mitchell was part of an online mental health group that was incorporating Eastern spiritual theories. He took those elements and created a “self-portrait of sorts.”
Both siblings are thinking about taking some time off school to explore their interests. For Mitchell, the ideal scenario is to own his own business.
“I always kind of went into this field with the aspiration of wanting to be in some way an artist or be creative, but also still very realistically being able to support myself,” he said.
For Meaghan, the dream is to play in a symphony orchestra. If not performance, she would like to get involved in arts advocacy.
“I care a lot about women’s representation, especially in classical music,” she said, “and as a brass instrumentalist, I feel like gender stereotypes are still really strong. Connecting back to my humanities degree, if there’s a way I can kind of bridge the two together, that would be a dream.”
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