Chloe Wright
Editor-in-Chief
Sanjana Priyonti
Executive Editor
Winter break has passed, and the Domain welcomes back its enthusiastic and hardworking community. As a new semester begins in full swing, the longstanding tradition between The Sewanee Purple and Vice-Chancellor Pearigen continues as the executive staff sits down with him to discuss his views on hot-button campus issues and goals for the Easter semester.
Highlights of the Purple’s interview with Pearigen include:
- Pearigen’s goals include continuing to implement the University’s Mind, Heart, and Place strategic plan and launching a major fundraising campaign.
- Arcadia at Sewanee, a long-proposed luxury senior living community on the Domain, continues to be explored, and Pearigen sees its potential benefit to the Sewanee community as well as the possibility of a fundraising partnership with the outside nonprofit group leading the development effort.
- Long-discussed apartments for faculty and staff are finally happening, with site clearing started for the project in January and funding being planned with a combination of endowment investment and sales of rental houses owned by the University.
- Pearigen condemned several recent instances of anonymous racist slurs and comments being aimed at students and Confederacy-themed artifacts found on the Domain. He urged that Sewanee acts as a welcoming and safe community for all.
- Asked about allegations in the ongoing Johnson Hall mold lawsuit, he declined specific comment but emphasized the University’s commitment to supporting students
- Combining the University’s offices for community engagement, global citizenship, and inclusive excellence into a single “synergistic” center is underway, and Pearigen hopes the effort will strengthen the University’s programs and outreach.
Excerpts of the interview have been lightly edited for clarity.
Chloe Wright: Let’s start with a nice, easy question. What are your hopes and goals for the semester?
Vice-Chancellor: I think my overarching hope for this is the success of our students and the advancement of the institution. Just seeing our students do well, seeing them succeed, seeing them graduate, their success, is why we’re here, why we do what we do, and to help make that happen. So, advancing the University, seeing us move forward in terms of our quality, in terms of our recognition, in terms of telling our story.
You know, there are certain things that we think about. The number one goal is always going to be recruiting the next generation of Sewanee students. You know, recruiting the next class. I mean that at the highest level, it’s getting the next class in here, both in the college and the seminary. So that’s always kind of goal number one. Also, we have very strong, ambitious goals regarding fundraising. So we’re moving toward a new comprehensive campaign, which will be raising endowment, supporting capital projects, doing renovations in some of our facilities. Instead of calling it deferred maintenance, we’re calling it historic preservation. We’re going to raise funds for historic preservation. And the kind of the funds for scholarships and for supporting our faculty. So there’s going to be a big, comprehensive campaign that we’re that we’re laying the groundwork for now. So that’s going to be really important as a goal. And part of that also involves developing and sort of finalizing a new campus master plan. What are our priorities with regard to our facilities? What needs renovation? What needs strengthening? What needs development, and are there potentially new capital projects that might be on the horizon? So that’s a goal, getting the campaign, laying the groundwork for the campaign.
I would say another goal is related to our strategic plan. We have a very ambitious strategic plan: Elevating Mind, Heart and Place. And there are elements of that plan that are very important as we move forward, seeing that the new first year experience that was a pilot program this year is implemented fully for next year. That’s going to be really important. As part of our strategic plan, the capital campaign, that also comes back, comes back to that as well. We’re in the process of developing out some of our programs regarding the Split Creek Observatory. There’s been some great movement on that front recently. So all of those things that tie back to the strategic plan are part of our goals.
A very immediate goal is submitting our every 10-year SACS [Southern Association of Colleges and Schools] reaccreditation focus report, and then having an on-site committee come and institution reaffirmed. So that’s a very specific, SACS re-accreditation is a very high on our goal list for this year, as you can imagine.
Chloe Wright: What progress have you made in terms of the reaccreditation process?
Vice-Chancellor: So every 10 years, you have to submit a lengthy report, and there’s an off-site committee that reviews that report, and then if there are things that they want to see, further evidence of or more information about, they will send us a reply to our report. So, we’re in the process now of responding to their reply. Responding to their report is writing what’s called a focused report, and it’s actually due on Monday, next Monday. And then the on-site committee will be here in early March to kind of check us out. So, it’s a very time-consuming process. The Provost, Scott Wilson, has been leading that process and has really done a great job.
Sanjana Priyonti: What steps have you taken for the advancement of the institution?
Vice-Chancellor: Well, the comprehensive campaign will be really important in helping us advance the institution as we try to attract the next generation of students and also make sure the students here are successful. The resources that are necessary for scholarships, funding for faculty support, for capital projects, all of those are the kind of efforts to help advance the institution. …We’ve had some great news about Sewanee in the last six months. You know, from being identified as the most beautiful campus in the country to a new Rhodes Scholar — Kylene Monaghan’s success there. Those are all signals that this place is doing well, and there’s a great opportunity for us to kind of continue that that trajectory? … We have a first-year class that is a terrific class, and we want to just continue that trajectory, both in the college and again, in the seminary.
Chloe Wright: Jennifer Cooley is our new Dean of the College. What was that hiring process like? Talk to us more about how and why she was chosen.
Vice-Chancellor: Well, we did a national search. We had a good number of applications from around the country, some very strong applications, and she emerged as the very best. And I’m so impressed with Jenny, impressed with the way she has hit the ground running, the way she has taken on leadership of our faculty. And I think the faculty are very enthusiastic and supportive of her.She brings great experience, as well as some really fresh ideas. And matter of fact, one of her signature programs, or developing programs, is called Sewanee +100 — how we as an institution, are impacting that 100-mile radius. It’s really exciting to see the number of ways our faculty are connected to this, not only the Sewanee community, but the surrounding region. And so, we’re really excited, and it fits right into, very beautifully into the strategic plan terms of our place and the impact we have on our place. So, I think Jenny’s doing a great job. Really very happy to have her here.
Chloe Wright: What goals do you and Jennifer have for the University within the next five years?
Vice-Chancellor: As the leader of our faculty, she’s helping to pull together the faculty that will be leaders in that first-year program and the different components of that. She has brought, clearly, some fresh ideas, but she’s also fully embraced the strategic plan with the various components of the academic experience. So, it’s great to have both the fresh ideas but also embracing the elements of the strategic plan that tie in with our academic program already.
Chloe Wright: We have a lot of transitions happening now in terms of positions, we have the new head of Greek life and Assistant Director of Student Life. Both are alums. What goals do you have for these new people?
Vice-Chancellor: Well, thanks. I’m really grateful for Dean Campbell and the terrific work she’s doing as the new Dean of Students and Vice President for Student Life, and really happy to see her building her team. We had some vacancies, and I think she’s filling them with some really talented and experienced folks coming from different backgrounds — again, Sewanee alums, but they’ve been out and so they bring, sort of the experience of the places they’ve been to now, help move the institution forward. As you know, one of Nicky’s goals is to interview or to meet with every single first-year student. I think she’s about a little more than half of the way through that. It’s a very time-consuming thing, but I appreciate her willingness, because she wants every student to have a whole sense of belonging and to feel like this is their place. I think she’s starting that by saying,.. I’d like to meet you and get to know you. That goal plays into an institutional goal related to our retention and graduation of our students. We would love to have every single student who comes through here graduate. I think getting to know the students in that way will really help her and help us meet that retention goal.
Sanjana Priyonti: That really makes this place so attractive to new students. There was this idea I had that during orientation: when students are moving in, we should have signed votes so that that says, like, welcome to Sewanee, things like that. So, she made that happen in one day, because I just told her and showed her picture of Harvard University and how they were doing it. And she did that.
Vice-Chancellor: Well, I’m very proud of Nicky and the leadership that she brings to the division, and, you know, her passion for her commitment to our students. She’s great to have in that position, and it’s really good to see her building her team out down that will reinforce the good work that is already being done there.
Sanjana Priyonit: And she’s willing to listen, which is important.
Vice-Chancellor: She is. She really is, yes.
Chloe Wright: And speaking of you know, general Sewanee and community, we were also curious about the new apartment construction out of the village, and what exactly, how will that benefit the Sewanee community as a whole, you know, the whole residential college, residential college town that Sewanee, you know, it’s at its core, the kind of college that You went to, for undergraduates.
Vice-Chancellor: Well, you know, you’ve heard this, but we have kind of a housing challenge, a housing shortage for faculty and staff. And this has become a very popular place for people from the outside or alums to buy and build homes here or buy homes here. So we find ourselves in a position of not having adequate housing for the faculty and staff who might want to live here. And so the apartments will make a big difference, especially for junior or younger faculty and staff members, a place for them to be able to come and live here on the domain. You know, I’ve said many times for some people living in Chattanooga or Nashville or whatever is the best thing or the right thing for their families. My goal is to ensure that anybody who wants to live here can live here. And so apartments will open avenues for some people who would like to live here but haven’t been able to find the housing to do so. So I’m really excited about it. It’ll also help generate more activity and sort of activate the village by having more people living right there. I think that’s a great thing for the businesses, for the restaurants, for the Sewanee community. So again, I love the idea of our faculty and staff living here in Sewanee, for some folks, that may not be the right thing for them and their family, but for those who want to live here, we really want to make it possible, and I think the apartments will do that.
Sanjana Priyonti: Last semester, we talked about budget cuts and how Sewanee is trying to cut budgets so that it can function properly. So how are we getting the budgets for the housing apartments?
Vice-Chancellor: That’s a good question. The plan is to take a portion of — we have some funds set aside through our endowment for investment purposes that can be used for something like this. And so, we’re probably going to use about eight, seven or $8 million of that investment component of our endowment to help with the apartments. That’s not going to cover the entire cost. Another area, another way we’re going to help cover the cost is through selling some of the homes that we have in in Sewanee, some of the smaller or some of the houses that that people might like to purchase and renovate or upgrade a bit. So, it’s a combination of funding from what’s called the Sewanee Village Ventures [SVV]. That’s the endowment piece, a combination of funding from that, plus the sale of houses that will provide the revenue to make the project work. And, you know, I think it’s important to note that that sort of thing doesn’t have an impact on the budget. We’re not using operational dollars for that kind of project. We’re using these outside resources from the SVV and from housing sales.
Sanjana Priyonti: As for the apartments, how affordable are they?
Vice-Chancellor: The rates at the apartment will be very much in line with what we think is a good and fair and manageable rate for our faculty and staff. Matter of fact, it might very well even be sort of under-market rate that you might get somewhere else, but we want to make sure that it’s a rate that our faculty and staff can afford.
Chloe Wright: Just seeing your professor walk by and wave — you know, that’s what Sewanee is about, really.
Vice-Chancellor: One of the biggest changes when I when I came back after being away for 13 years, was to see the much larger number and percentage of our faculty and staff that that no longer live on the Domain. And I’d really like to be able to reverse that and get more people back here. …We’re not requiring people to live here, but we should think we’re a better community when they’re more of our faculty and staff right here.
Chloe Wright: And with the housing on campus, what remediation processes or steps have been taken in terms of dorms like Johnson?
Vice-Chancellor: Part of the comprehensive campaign will be very much aimed at raising $50 or $60 or $70 million to do some refurbishments and renovations in our in our facilities, with the residence halls being at the top of the list. Last year, we renovated or last fall, the refurbishments at Johnson and McCrady amounted to almost a million dollars – just those two projects. We’re currently looking at doing a renovation of Hunter Hall. The board can take a proposal to the Board of Regents in February to do a refurbishment of Hunter Hall. And our goal, our hope, is ultimately to tie in — we have a chill water system for heating and air conditioning. Are some of our buildings. It’s a large operation, and we’re only at about 50% capacity. So we have capacity to help to use that same system for doing more heating and air conditioning in our residence halls. Our thinking, is that we can tie in Hunter, Elliot, Tuckaway and Cleveland to this chill water system and still have the capacity for other facilities. If we do that, that will help us ultimately put air conditioning in in in Hunter and Cleveland, which don’t have air conditioning. And it will allow a more efficient use of air conditioning at Elliot and Tuckaway, which do have air conditioning And over 10 years, there’s a great payback by doing something like that.
Sanjana Priyonti: I see. What about McCrady?
Vice-Chancellor: We did some work on that last fall. McCrady, Hunter and Cleveland are the three that are not air conditioned at the moment. So we’ve got a plan. And hopefully we could get McCrady in there somewhere along the way as well.
Vice-Chancellor: I’d like to address all three of those. Quintard was air conditioned when we did a renovation of Quintard in 1988 and ‘89 and that was the first building we air conditioned. So, there was a time before ‘88 that none of our residence halls were air conditioned, and now we’re down to all but three. So we’re making progress.
Chloe Wright: The elephant in the room, we have to mention it. What detailed responses can you give us about the allegations made in the Johnson lawsuit?
Vice-Chancellor: I’m really not at liberty to talk about that….It’s one of those things where you just don’t have much to say, other than, you know, we’re doing our best to make sure that the students who are there now are taken care of, and we we’ve cared about our students all along, and we’ll continue to support them.
Chloe Wright: Have you heard anything from parents or students who are not involved in the lawsuit?
Vice-Chancellor: About?
Sanjana Priyonti: Those residents who didn’t file the lawsuit, who used to live in Johnson — what did you hear from them?
Vice-Chancellor: What I hear is the students like living in Johnson today, and I’m glad they do, and think we did a good job of addressing that, and hope it’ll continue to be one of our most popular residence halls going forward.
Chloe Wright: To continue on with the theme of housing, what comment can you give about Arcadia at Sewanee [the senior-living housing project that’s under discussion with a proposed building site beside St. Marks Community Center on Alabama Road, near the apartment site on U.S. 41A]?
Vice-Chancellor: Well, you know, senior living housing has been discussed. For decades, it kind of surfaces and there’s some discussion about it and some investigation, then it just kind of doesn’t end up happening. The Arcadia group today, I think they’ve made, they’ve made more progress in in the conception and the potential planning than we’ve had before. So I’m pleased to see that there’s good work being done to explore the possibility. No decisions have been made. It’s not been finalized. There’s still a lot of due diligence that needs to take place. A couple of weeks ago, they had some bore samples done, to determine whether the whether the ground is suitable for doing that kind of project. So there’s some things like that that need to be explored. The funding of it will need to be explored. There are a number of things related to environmental study. We have to take a look carefully at all kinds of issues related to traffic, and full due diligence is underway.
So, I think it’s important to keep in mind that we haven’t [and] the Arcadia [group] itself has not sort of said, yes, indeed, this is good. We’re doing this. And they are in that process of exploration. So I’m glad to see at least careful consideration has been given to something that has been thought about for many years, and that many people would say would be a great addition to the University, to have that kind of housing for people to live in their later years.
Chloe Wright: And we heard some concerns from some faculty or staff about the cost and affordability. I believe in November there, the news came out that they’re probably they wouldn’t be able to provide faculty or staff discounts. What would you say about has affordability been a concern for the Arcadia group?
Vice-Chancellor: Yeah, that’s probably a better question for them. I know they’ve heard that expression of concern, and I believe it’s something they’re thinking very seriously about, it being a place where the folks who live here, many would be able to afford it.
Chloe Wright: And how does this fundraising campaign impact University’s upcoming general fund campaign, since you did talk a lot about how the main steps this semester were to fundraise?
Vice-Chancellor: yeah, that’s good question. The current model would require some portion of the cost of it to be from private funding, private gifts. And so, what we will have to determine is, is that sort of something that they do separate from the University, or is it part of, sort of, even though it’s not the University… part of… a capital campaign? …Would we want this to be part of what people are giving to in order to enhance the Sewanee experience? And I think again, there’s been a lot of interest through the years in having something like this, and there would be some real benefits to the University if we had that kind of facility. So ,it wouldn’t exactly be the University fundraising campaign, but they would certainly be drawing on people who would also potentially be interested in supporting the University. And you could see how gifts to something like that might be seen as tantamount to support for not just the University, but the Sewanee community.
Chloe Wright: I’ve heard lots of people express concern over the items that related to the Sewanee’s history with the Confederacy. What steps do you or the University as a whole plan to combat this kind of behavior?
Vice-Chancellor: Well, I, like everyone, was just very disturbed by those items that were discovered on campus. We take this seriously. We have kept the articles set aside. We’ve encouraged people to keep us apprised if they run across anything else like that. We want this to be a place where all people feel like they belong and that this is everyone’s community, and that people here are all respectful and kind and supportive of one another, and things like that have a tendency to be very disturbing to some. It’s very disappointing, and that’s something we don’t really tolerate. That kind of intimidation or things that would make people feel that kind of uncomfortable. I’m glad we haven’t seen any more of that. We weren’t sure if it was all at one time or or several times, these things being placed around, but we haven’t seen any more evidence of that. And for that, I’m glad.
Sanjana Priyonti: Talking about comfort and belonging, there were some racial remarks thrown at some students last semester. What are your thoughts on that?
Vice-Chancellor: Well, that’s unacceptable. Our Sewanee Police Department talked with individuals [who were targeted]. They looked for the kind of cars that were described in the event, in the events, and they will continue to monitor that. That’s not acceptable behavior, period. And I’m glad that we haven’t seen any. More of that, or heard any more of that? And I hope we don’t.
Sanjana Priyonti: That’s our hope too.
Vice-Chancellor: Yeah.
Sanjana Priyonti: It’s specially so disturbing because the person who it happened to ended up crying so badly and was thinking of Sewanee in the wrong light, and I was like, Oh, this is not what happened in the past years, and I’ve not seen it in the first year I was here. So being there to just comfort her, I lost words. I mean, I didn’t know what to say to her.
Vice-Chancellor: Well, I do hope that anybody who experiences that sort of thing will report it immediately, and that they will look to our Dean of Students’ Office, to my office. None of us accept that kind of behavior, and we will do whatever we can to prevent it and identify those who are responsible if we’re able to find them.
Sanjana Priyonti: Yeah, that’s what I said to her, and her dad was saying the same thing: go talk to the authorities, they would probably help you with this.
Vice Chancellor : I think it’s really important for people to report these kinds of things immediately. I think sometimes we hear about these things after the fact, or sort of second-hand or third-hand, and it’s really important to have that information right at the very beginning. Thank you for talking to her.
Sanjana Priyonti: But after going back home and coming back here, she probably has, she feels better.
Vice-Chancellor: You know, we’re not immune to these kinds of things happening here. But on the other hand, I feel like as a campus, as a community, we have values and in a way of relating to one another that really gives us a better starting point for these kind of relationships and for sense of belonging. And so those kinds of things like that are so out of, out of out of line with who we are and what our values are. And I’m glad to say we’re that kind of community.
Sanjana Priyonti: There were incidents with registration. classes just got, filled, and students who needed some courses couldn’t register for those. So what do you think about like, faculty recruitment and trying to mitigate those kind of problems.
Vice-Chancellor: Well, you know, I think we what we want our students to have great academic experience. We have a very strong faculty, and the numbers of our faculty are consistent with the current student-faculty ratio that we are promoting. There are times when you have the right ratio, but you have more students interested in certain things than others. And I do think Dean Cooley and our academic program and our provost are committed to helping students get as many of the classes as they want. But just sometimes that you run out of seats, and hopefully students are able to pick up those classes at a later point. Which classes are you hearing that are the most often, or at least, or occasionally not available for students.
Sanjana Priyonti: This semester, at first it was biology, like some of the courses in biology where, like, it was just 16 seats, but there were like, 50 students who wanted that class and they couldn’t get in. And I think, like they worked out on something, but now it’s [Chemistry] 152 as well, where, like, there is one professor is teaching it, and then 48 students are there, and 16 more are on the wait list.
Vice-Chancellor: Well, I know the Dean and Provost monitor these things closely, and keeping track of that and trying to address it where they can. It’s not, it’s not. We’re not always going to be able to fill every meet every student’s interest, but I think we do a pretty good job. And I think the faculty we have are very good about helping as many students be in their classes, enroll in their classes, as possible. So…finding out where there’s real pinch point, monitoring it and then trying to address it would be very much a high priority.
Vice Chancellor: I actually had heard some of this a couple of years ago that we were having some real problems. But. I’m, quite frankly, I haven’t heard as much about that recently. So would be interested to be interesting to learn more.
Sanjana Priyonti: Chemistry 152 and then Biology 200 courses. 242, and 222, something around that range. You need those courses to progress forward. So, if you don’t have these by your sophomore year, you won’t be able to progress to the next courses.
Vice-Chancellor: I will ask Dean Cooley what, what her sense is of those classes in particular.
Chloe Wright: And our last question is about hope. There are a lot of things going on in the world right now. If you turn on the news, you get thrust in the face with it – everything from domestic and international tensions, to some concerning statistics recently in the Tri County area about rising food needs. What advice do you have for people who are struggling to find hope?
Vice-Chancellor: That’s a great question. I think this place itself is a place of hope. I think being involved in this community, being part of this community, is a real statement of hope. I think the things that we’re doing on campus, the service activities, the service opportunities, I think, for students, for all of us, getting involved in something and doing something to support others is often one of the best ways of reminding ourselves about the hope that we can and should have, even in kind of challenging times.
We’ve got the MLK Day activities coming up, and I’ll be at the different locations and doing some of that work, and that reminds me as much as anything about why we should be hopeful. And there’s so many great things happening here. When you look at the care that our faculty and staff have for this place and for our students, when you look at the way the students are involved in activities like the two of you — I mean, you two bring me hope. You know the fact that you’re willing to take time and be involved in something like The Sewanee Purple, that’s a sign of hope.
For me, being on a campus like this and getting to know the students is probably the best indicator of and inspiration for that sense of hope. Being up on a college campus is probably the best place in the world to feel hopeful, because you’ve got this whole new generation of young leaders preparing to be great citizens in the future and servant leaders for our world. And that’s a really very inspiring and reinforcing thing,
Chloe Wright: That’s very kind of you.
Vice-Chancellor: I have a one thing I meant to mention about goals…We’re pulling together the Office of Global Citizenship and civic engagement and community building and connections. And there’s been some planning for that. And one of the goals for this year is for that planning process to continue to the point of being able to finish out this year with kind of a sense of what does that look like programmatically, for those groups, to continue to do the good work they’re doing, but also to do more in an integrated and synergistic fashion. Each one of those offices does really important work, but the question I’ve had all along is, is there even better work, or new and different work? Can we build something new out of those by pulling those offices together in a more cohesive and coherent and synergistic way? So, one of the goals for this year is to get to that point of saying, here’s what a new center that combines those offices will look like. It doesn’t diminish the work of any one of those offices. Matter of fact, I would say it amplifies their work by bringing them together in a more coherent and cohesive way.
Sanjana Priyonti: What is the progress going on with that?
Vice-Chancellor: The leadership of those three offices have been meeting, and they’re also bringing their teams together. I think they did some things back in December, looking at what are their common objectives and common goals. And I think we’ll see some real progress toward that, toward that new center coming together this year.
Sanjana Priyonti: There was this program for Posse scholarships. Posse recipients are guided, and they’re pushed through these leadership roles that they can take on and be leaders of the University. What are your hopes or ideas on maybe having a similar program for international students are also for the general students, where we are all kind of going through the same process and being trained how to be better leaders and how to take on things so that we are more involved within the University.
Vice-Chancellor Good point. You know, the cohort arrangement of the posse group is really powerful and meaningful. The fact of the matter is, in the strategic plan, goal number two, there are several parts of it that reinforce sort of leadership development. Built into the plan are some initiatives related to leadership development. And in terms of kind of people coming together, I think the first-year experience in which you have these cohorts, these groups, these classes, and they kind of move through the first semester together, and they have their experience both before school begins with orientation, getting to know the campus itself, getting to know more about the community. I think that’s kind of a version of the posse cohort support group and sort of leadership development. I think Dean Campbell is talking a lot about maybe developing an assistant proctor program that has more opportunity for sophomores to be involved in leadership experiences and in their leadership, they will be supportive of the first-year students. So I think, I think your question is right in the bull’s eye of elements of the strategic plan related to support for students and leadership development. So, keep looking for that and keep offering suggestions along those lines.
Sanjana Priyonti: …With all the random ideas I have about how to make it more inclusive program for everyone. The proctor thing was also one of those….Proctors can be those people who can be leaders within their own community, where they’re guiding every single student.
Vice-Chancellor: Yeah.
Sanjana Priyonti: And try to form a connection so that everyone feels like, oh, this is a really great place, and every experience we have that is good can be shared. And they might also feel interested to do the same thing.
Vice-Chancellor: Absolutely, I think our residential life system and the proctor and assistant proctor programs are just key to our success. And actually, look around campus, you know, Nicky Campbell was a head proctor when she was a student, and Kim Heitzenrater was the head proctor when she was a student, I was a proctor when I was a student…It’s historically been one of our most important leadership opportunities for students, but that pays back in terms of support for the students in the residence halls and students across campus. So I’m a big fan of the proctor program.
Vice-Chancellor: Thank you all for your time. Thank you for inviting me into this conversation.