Video

Greg Abernathy is Executive Director of the Kentucky Natural Lands Trust (KNLT), a Berea-based nonprofit working to protect, connect, and restore wildlands. Abernathy talks about KNLT's efforts ranging from strategic partnerships and outreach to land acquisitions. This presentation highlights KNLT's efforts regarding Kentucky's Pine Mountain to create wildlife corridors, preserve old growth forests, and develop educational and recreational opportunities.

Diana Ross' "If We Hold on Together" was the special music for Berea's 2021 Senior Celebration


LYRICS:
Don't lose your way
With each passing day
You've come so far
Don't throw it away
Live believing
Dreams are for weaving
Wonders are waiting to start
Live your story
Faith, hope and glory
Hold to the truth in your heart
If we hold on together
I know our dreams will never die
Dreams see us through to forever
Where clouds roll by
For you and I
Souls in the wind
Must learn how to mend
Seek out a star
Hold on to the end
Valley, mountain
There is a fountain
Washes our tears all away
Words are swaying
Someone is praying
Please let us come home to stay
If we hold on together
I know our dreams will never die
Dreams see us through to forever
Where clouds roll by
For you and I
When we are out there in the dark
We'll dream about the sun
In the dark, we'll feel the light
Warm our hearts, everyone
If we hold on together
I know our dreams will never die
Dreams see us through to forever
As high as souls can fly
The clouds roll by
For you and I

Student-athletes weren’t the only ones who experienced challenges dealing with the ever-changing athletic landscape. Berea College’s coaches talk about their biggest obstacles in practice, play and recruitment during their 2020-21 seasons.

Editors Anthony Harkins and Meredeth McCarroll read from Appalachian Reckoning: A Region Responds to Hillbilly Elegy, winner of the 2019 Weatherford Award for Non-Fiction, and speak with Dr. Chris Green, Director of the Loyal Jones Appalachian Center. Weatherford Awards honor books that “best illuminate the challenges, personalities, and unique qualities of the Appalachian South.” The awards are given jointly by Berea's Loyal Jones Appalachian Center and the Appalachian Studies Association. Visit http://www.berea.edu/appalachian-center/weatherford-award/ to learn more and see the complete list of winners since 1970.

Author Michael Croley reads from his book: Any Other Place, winner of the 2019 Weatherford Award for Fiction, and speaks with Silas House, NEH Professor for Appalachian Studies at Berea College. Weatherford Awards honor books that “best illuminate the challenges, personalities, and unique qualities of the Appalachian South.” The awards are given jointly by Berea's Loyal Jones Appalachian Center and the Appalachian Studies Association. Visit http://www.berea.edu/appalachian-center/weatherford-award/ to learn more and see the complete list of winners since 1970.

Speaker: Leanne Betasamosake Simpson

In “A Short History of the Blockade”, award-winning writer Leanne Betasamosake Simpson uses Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg stories, storytelling aesthetics, and practices to explore the generative nature of Indigenous blockades through our relative, the beaver—or in Nishnaabemowin, Amik. Moving through genres, shifting through time, amikwag stories become a lens for the life-giving possibilities of blockades, deepening our understanding of Indigenous resistance as both a negation and an affirmation.

Respondent: Tyler M. Tully (Oxford University)
Co-sponsor: Gender & Women’s Studies at Western Kentucky University

Je'Dynn '23 will be answering questions submitted by YOU!
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Berea College, the first interracial and coeducational college in the South, focuses on learning, labor and service. The College admits only academically promising students with limited financial resources, primarily from Kentucky and Appalachia, although students come from 40 states and 70 countries. Every Berea student receives a Tuition Promise Scholarship, which means no Berea student pays for tuition. Berea is one of eight federally-recognized Work Colleges, so students work 10 hours or more weekly, earning money for books, housing, and meals. The College’s motto, “God has made of one blood all peoples of the earth,” (Acts 17: 26) speaks to its inclusive Christian character.
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Mentioned:
- Admissions: https://www.berea.edu/admissions/
- Student Labor: https://www.berea.edu/labor-program-office/
- Our Funding Model: https://www.berea.edu/give/no-tuition/funding-model/
- Black Cultural Center: https://www.berea.edu/bcc/
- Espacio Cultural Latinx: https://www.berea.edu/student-life/espacio-cultural-latinx/
- CELTS: https://www.berea.edu/celts/
- Bonner Scholars Program: https://www.berea.edu/celts/bonner-scholars-program/
- Outdoor Activities: https://forestryoutreach.berea.edu
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Music Information:
Mango by Smith The Mister https://smiththemister.bandcamp.com
Smith The Mister https://bit.ly/Smith-The-Mister-YT
Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/mango-smith-the-mister
Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/Zn4SeyT3oME

Drawing on her book _Hill Women: Hope in the Appalachian Mountains_ (Random House), Cassie Chambers discusses the power of narrative and community on her own path to becoming a lawyer, an advocate for rural women, a teacher, and an author.

Dr. Cicero Fain, III, presents on his research refuting the myth of Black invisibility in Appalachia, with special attention to West Virginia. Dr. Fain is author of _Black Huntington: An Appalachian Story_ (University of Illinois Press), which was a runner up for the 2019 Weatherford Award for the best non-fiction book about Appalachia.

Speaker: Jasmine Syedullah of Vassar College

“Drawing on black feminist practices, this talk extends ideas of freedom beyond binaries of resistance and reticence, beyond oppositional relationships of being either fugitive or free to consider what nonbinary imaginations of freedom were born of those who chose to inhabit the hold of slavery otherwise. What do they teach us about the bounds of abolition?”

Respondent: Jessica Klunderlund, Director of the Carter G. Woodson Center and Assistant Professor of African and African American Studies

Co-sponsor: African and African American Studies