For more than four decades, new faculty and staff to Berea College have embarked on a tour of Appalachia in order to learn more about the Appalachian region and to better understand the importance of the College’s Appalachian Commitment.

Funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Appalachian Seminar and Tour includes opportunities to learn about the Appalachian experience, provides context to the student population at Berea College, enables faculty and staff to connect their work to Appalachia, and builds community.

The program begins with two days of on-campus seminar exploring Appalachian history, material culture, diversity, politics, stereotypes, economic development, religion, health, and contemporary issues. 2008 tour participants also received a copy of Denise Giardina’s The Unquiet Earth and were given the opportunity to discuss the regional issues and conflicts presented in the novel prior to departure in preparation for what they would encounter on the tour.

The seminar is followed by five days on the road, traveling from east Kentucky into southwest Virginia and east Tennessee. For the second year in a row, the tour resulted in record attendance, with more than 40 faculty and staff members choosing to participate.

The tour is followed by a third day of seminar and reflection, including a panel discussion with faculty and staff who have infused Appalachia into their work and their work into Appalachia.

Upon returning to Berea, this year’s participants spoke positively of the self-discovery and regional understanding the tour had instilled and suggested how this experience would help them better relate to both their students and Appalachian alumni and friends of the college that they meet in their work. One participant, speaking of personal discoveries, wrote that the experience had helped realize how to “empower my students to think critically about how the classroom extends into their lives, and inversely, how their lives extend into many classrooms.”

The Appalachian Seminar and Tour is a remarkable and rare opportunity for new faculty and staff to better understand the region through a holistic approach of dialogue, contemplation, and first-hand experience.

We invite you to view the 2008 Appalachian Tour audio slideshow that contains images from this year’s tour and commentary from Appalachian Center Director, Dr. Chad Berry. http://www.berea.edu/bcnow/media/2008/AppTour/index.html

The next tour is scheduled for August 5-12, 2009. Interested Berea College faculty and staff members should contact Center Director, Dr. Chad Berry by email at chad_berry@berea.edu or at extension 3727 for more information.