by Emily Turner
What felt like dawn, a loud breakfast bell rang out across the open farmland in New Market, Tennessee. I lept out of bed realizing I slept past my own alarm, a pathetic ringtone compared to the metal structure the cook just struck outside.
It was the last day of the spring break field study program for the capstone course: Advanced Topics in Social Entrepreneurship focusing on social enterprise, local food systems, and social justice in rural Appalachia. The group of 14 students was led by our own Professor C. Sara Minard and Professor Felix Bivens, the founder and director of Tennessee-based Empyrean Research, in the Institute’s first US-based program. It was also my last program to run with the Social Enterprise Institute.
It has been an honor to develop programs for students, to engage in conversations with people like Doris at Thistle Farms, a Nashville-based social business run by women who “have survived lives of prostitution, trafficking, addiction and life on the streets” through the Magdalene residential program. I’ve been able to help create memories and inspire change amid countless students in numerous communities near and far, for that I feel extremely fortunate.
The reflections from the students and hearing stories from people like Doris inspired me over the past year and served as a reminder that we are all so deeply connected to each other.
These kinds of stories are where I dwell and seek to grow.
At some point in your careers, you will have to communicate a skill that you’ve developed and wish to carry with you on this long road of making a living. For me, it’s storytelling.
It’s easy to be reminded of this on a capstone trip with students in search of their own paths and spending our final memories at the Highlander Research and Education Center (originally the Highlander Folk School). The Center has hosted many grassroots leaders and influencers who led the Civil Rights and desegregation movement, like Septima Clark and Martin Luther King, Jr. Rosa Parks attended a workshop at Highlander just months before igniting the Montgomery bus boycott. It is a place where ideas are formed and inspiration is born. Leaders like Parks learned their skills, honed and used them in what changed the course of our history.
I have to believe that without developing the skills that drive our passions we cannot develop the courage to make a better world for ourselves and the people around us.
And so, while is is difficult to depart from an Institute that influenced my own path as a student several years ago, I’m grateful for the support of the students who have helped our efforts at SEI and the team that continues to grow the organization today. Thank you!
