Chloe Wright, Editor-in-Chief
Sanjana Priyonti, Executive Editor
Vice-Chancellor Rob Pearigen sat down with Sewanee Purple editors last week to discuss plans for the new academic year, including progress on a new Master Plan to refurbish dorms and academic buildings and All Saints Chapel and his administration’s goal of strengthening a sense of belonging for everyone in the University community.
Highlights included:
- The Vice Chancellor’s praise for the positive energy of 500 new students;
- the $2.8 million summer project refurbishing Hunter Hall and extending a central campus heating and air conditioning system to that dorm and three others. While that project extended HVAC water-chiller piping to a fourth dorm, Cleveland, it will be next summer before that dorm can be fully air conditioned;
- the still-developing campus master plan, which includes proposals for $70 million in work on campus and an overall $250 million fundraising campaign;
- TheVice Chancellor’s reflections on his upcoming 50th reunion, for which he and fellow 1976 alumni aim to raise $1.5 million to endow the First-Year Experience.
The following interview transcript has been lightly edited.
Sanjana Priyonti: What do you feel about the 500 new students that we have on campus?
Vice-Chancellor Pearigen: I think they’re great. There’s a real positive spirit about this group. They seem deeply engaged. They’re very smart. … I’ve just been so impressed with how energetic and engaged and positive they all are. It’s just been a great beginning to the year. Whether it was seeing them in the pre or at the honor code induction ceremony.
… At the honor code induction ceremony, there’s a point when the alma mater is sung, and they’ve never heard it before, so they don’t really know much about the words, and they’re a little bashful about singing. But they sang, and then after that, they all clapped. You know, it was just so cool. They just spontaneously started clapping.
… And I think the FYE, the First-Year Experience, has a lot to do with that kind of energy… Last year we had a pilot program that included about 120 students, and there were seven encounter classes and three sort of thematic clusters. And this year there are 475 students, up from 120. There are 27 classes in in nine thematic clusters, so 27 faculty members raised their hand and said, “I want to be part of this,” which is just great. And there’s 60 or 70 mentors, FYE mentors, that are helping the faculty do that. You know, the outing program and the athletic programs have been good about being part of those systems. I’m just really thankful for the faculty and the students who are mentors, and really grateful to Betsy Sandlin and Nick Roberts, who were the faculty leaders of this.
…It feels like it’s going really well. And part of the objective was to get students here all as a class and to have a universal experience, and to get to know the campus and get to know the campus community. So, they fanned out. They did service projects. They got to know members of the community. … I think this introduces them to the campus and to the community in a really meaningful way. They get to know the domain early instead of later, and I think it’s going to help with just long-term success with this class.
Chloe Wright: [During this summer’s] 20th anniversary of the School of Letters … the renowned poet Natasha Trethewey delivered an empowering speech on the importance of literature and inclusivity on Sewanee’s campus. What were your takeaways from that speech?
Vice-Chancellor Pearigen: She’s such an incredible woman, two-time poet laureate of the United States, one of the most thoughtful, inspiring writers, people that I’ve ever been around. … Her talk was powerful. She’s inspiring. She reminded us all of the importance of being who we are and living into our highest values, and particularly in a challenging time, to be bold about that and to be thoughtful. So, I found her talk just really remarkable. I shared it with several people after, and what a gift to have her on campus and to be among the Sewanee folks. And she was also very positive about the Sewanee experience about the School of Letters — in particular that being doing what we do here with the school of letters, but she’s a big fan of the university and, I think, enjoys being here.
Priyonti: [asks about concerns raised just before graduation by students concerned about the resignations of three African American staff members and the retirement of a fourth, and their loss, particularly for minority students. She notes that she and the Vice Chancellor have previously spoken about student concerns and his emphasis on building community and improving communication. Since then, she adds, the administration has emailed updates to the students who raised concerns and redesigned the University’s gathering welcoming faculty back for the new academic year.]
Vice-Chancellor Pearigen: Actually, one of the themes of that [faculty] gathering was also very much related to building community and encouraging that sense of belonging. Did we talk about the kind of chic Instagram thing that went out? … It has a series of pictures, and it talks about in each one how it’s kind of chic to be a Sewanee student. … to go to the gates and get your angel, to wear a gown, to be in the chapel with EQB, to sign the honor code. Here’s what struck me: having been a student here, and having been back here 23 years as a dean and a professor, and now having been back here for the last three years as a Vice Chancellor, I could identify with every single one of those pictures, every single one of those frames, every single one of those statements about ‘isn’t it neat? Isn’t it chic to be this?’ But the question I have is, I feel like for me it’s a privilege to have been associated with the school for so long and in so many ways that I could identify with each of those things. The question I’m asking myself is, could everyone here identify with each of those things, and if not, what can we do to help all of our students and our faculty and staff embrace, accept, and feel themselves, see themselves in those pictures? That, to me, would be the essence of encouraging a sense of belonging. … And for those of us who get it all, what can we do to help everyone feel a part of that experience?
… Colleagues in the human resources office are doing more to sort of onboard faculty and staff, to help them feel like they’re part of it. Certainly, Dean Campbell’s EQB ceremony, giving [new students EQB] pins and encouraging students to swap those pins … I think all of those are ways of encouraging that sense of community and belonging. And I’m always looking for other ways, so I hope you both will keep your eyes on things that you think I can do or we can do even better.
… I think part of the sense of community, the EQB thing, is such a natural thing here at Sewanee. But I think sometimes you can take things for granted …What I’ve been reminded since last semester is let’s not take for granted, let’s not assume that those kind of values are seen by everyone or felt by everyone, and what can we do to reinforce those things, which are second nature, but need intentionality and not just assumption that it’s going to be that way.
Wright: [asks about reopening Hunter Hall, where she now lives.]
Vice-Chancellor Pearigen: Well, I just want to first thank our facilities management and the folks who work in that area for the incredible amount of work, effort, time, labor they put into the summer renovations. They are working nonstop to get things ready, but it does take time, and Hunter had been offline for five or six years. … I’m really glad we were able to go there, take out the carpet, put in new flooring, new windows, new paint. That makes a huge difference. … We decided as long as we’re putting air conditioning in there, we would go ahead and run the chill water lines from the main system all the way underground from Hunter to Elliot to Tuckaway to Cleveland. So that’s why those pipes are all over the place. Elliot and Tuckaway were already air conditioned, but bringing them into that central system will improve efficiency and cost savings. Next summer, we’ll come back in and put in the air conditioning at Cleveland. Just so you know, that project, doing all that work (refurbishing Hunter and running chill water pipes to the other dorms), it costs $2.8 million. … These things are not inexpensive, but I think it’s very worth it, especially with the efficiencies that will be built in and the savings that will come over time. Instead of having each building on its own system, this ties into our chill water system, which had capacity, so it’s not only utilizing the capacity remaining even in the central system, but it’s also saving money.
Priyonti: [Asks about goals for the new academic year.]
Vice-Chancellor Pearigen: [Describes a recent cabinet retreat in which campus leaders shared each division’s three top goals and two biggest challenges and then agreed on a University-wide goal.]
It’s really about building our community and creating that sense of belonging. So, our overarching hope and goal for this year is to reinforce that point. Communication, the efforts we’re making, the programs, the initiatives — all of that is kind of centered around that goal, that idea, that vision for being a more unified community campus, a campus of belonging.
Along with that, there are some major, major projects that will involve the entire campus. We’ve been working for the last year on a new campus master plan, and later this week, we’re actually going to submit to the community a first iteration of the priorities of that plan in five different categories: academics, student life, sustainability, community, and athletics. (He adds that ranking needs and costs is ongoing.) … So, we’re going to be releasing that … list of items and priorities for capital projects. … Once the board of trustees endorses it and the Board of Regents embraces it, then we are off to the races.
…This is the middle year. We have a new strategic plan, Elevating Mind, Heart and Place. Now we’ll have a campus master plan dealing with capital projects, and then we’re working on developing our comprehensive fundraising campaign that will help make those other two things happen. So, this this year is kind of a convergence, or we’re moving toward a convergence of strategic plan, campus master plan, comprehensive campaign plan.
Priyonti: Do you think that this is for the next five years or longer?
Vice-Chancellor Pearigen: We’re going to put a lot of urgency around the first couple of years, but there certainly are things that we will not tackle until a few years out … We haven’t put the final touches on [the capital campaign], but we’ve sort of penciled in a campaign of around $250 million, with $70 or $80 million in what we’re calling historic preservation, not deferred maintenance. The project list on the campus master plan is about twice that amount … So at some point you have to say, well, you know, we may not be able to do it all, because, quite frankly, those are all capital projects. But the campaign will also involve raising gifts and funds for endowment growth, for scholarships, for faculty support, for programmatic opportunities and needs. So you can’t do the entire amount just for buildings. We’ll be having to make some important decisions going forward about how to how to break out those different categories.
Priyonti: What are some of the historic projects in the master plan?
Vice-Chancellor Pearigen: …We’ve got work to do in residence halls. We’ve got to figure out what to do with McCrady. You know, it will be the last un-air-conditioned residence hall after Cleveland is done …We have a chapel that is in serious need of some major, major renovation. There’s a series of water intrusion problems in the chapel. The roof is going to have to be replaced. All the stonework is going to have to be tuck-pointed. Putting scaffolding up [around the chapel] for a year and a half while all this project goes on is close to a $2 million item itself …The dishwasher at McClurg needs to be replaced. That’s a half million dollars.
… We’ve got some athletic facilities that we’ve done some great work on at the Fowler Center. … But we’ve got some work to do to ensure that all of our sports have the locker rooms and the areas that they need and the fields that are needed. We’re putting lights up next week at softball and baseball stadium’s fields, which will enable those teams to practice at night or play games at night, which will help with their academic experience. There’s a lot of work that needs to be done at the library and at archives. There are some major maintenance issues at those places. The HVAC system at the Bishop’s Common is 50 years old, and I think it’s on its last leg. You’re probably wishing you hadn’t asked.
Priyonti: The list is going on.
Vice-Chancellor Pearigen: And Woods Lab, oh my goodness, we’ve got some real work. Spencer Hall was great, but Woods Lab is a little sad, and we’ve got some major work to do with Guerry. When we have big events in there, we have to have the air condition blowing up to the point when the when the event starts, and we have to turn it off because it’s too loud when events are going on. …We’ve got we’ve got the most beautiful campus in the country, but behind the scenes we’ve got some work to do. It’s nothing we can’t accomplish.
Priyonti: It’s your 50th year since graduation. Looking back, a lot has changed. Probably a lot has remained the same. What are your takeaways, reflections?
Vice-Chancellor Pearigen: Well, that’s a great question. It’s hard to believe my class is coming back this fall for our 50th reunion. … It’s a great class. I’m still very close to so many of my classmates. … The class has chosen as its class project, a fundraising effort to endow the first-year experience. So our goal is to raise $1.5 million dollars to establish an endowment to support the first-year experience. Think about that. It’s a class that graduated in 1976, and their commitment is to the students in 2026 to have this new first-year experience. … It’s doing something for the next generation. It’s making a gift of something that they did not experience themselves but want future students to experience.
… When I gave a little talk at the EQB ceremony, I talked about community and places where communities are built, places where community exists here at Sewanee. And I actually mentioned 10 places or 10 experiences that I experienced community when I was a student, and the students today can experience in the same place in the same way 50 years communities are built. Athletic teams and sporting events where communities are built. I mentioned the beautiful over views, Greens View and the Cross and Morgan’s Steep, where community is enjoyed and built, and how that was true then. And it’s still true now. I mentioned All Saints Chapel as a place where people come together, people of all faiths or no faith at all, for that matter, but they come together there in common experiences. So it was to think back. … And one place I said is different: I mentioned that fraternities were a place of community when I was here, and today that includes sororities. …The principal then and the principal continues to be one of open parties, that they’re not closed with a by-invitation guest list at the door. … To me, it was meaningful to reflect on. …
… I’m in frequent touch with many of my classmates, and we have a very strong class, and people have remained close, in touch. … For those students that feel more on the side or more in the margins, we really want to do everything we can for them to have that same feeling of belonging.