This workshop attempted to bring together participants from around the Sewanee community to think carefully and collaboratively on what it means to inhabit and care for this particular place, this section of the Cumberland Plateau. Participants examined different ways of valuing a place and methods for negotiating those values.

There was a lot of energy around our discussions. One thing we learned was a lack of confidence that these kinds of conversations would lead anywhere, and a correlative need for better communication. Concretely, this led us to create the Domain Forum, an informal monthly discussion at the Blue Chair that enables more open communication between faculty, students, and community members about projects on the Domain. Those have gone very well. We had some other thoughts about how the particular outcomes of the event might be carried forward, but with the loss of Kevin Hiers and Marvin Pate and with Jon Evans leaving his administrative post, the institutional support needed to continue that conversation simply doesn’t exist anymore. We may revisit those ideas with Dr. Amy Turner at some point, but we currently have no specific plans to do so.