Farewell to Jack Piepenbring
Our campus will soon bid farewell to Jack Piepenbring, Director of Safety and Security, here at MC. After 14 years of service to our beloved institution, Piepenbring is retiring to spend more time with his family. Piepenbring first came to be the director of Maryville College’s Safety and Security office after retiring from his prior career of 17 years with the National Parks Services as the District Park Ranger of Cades Cove. Piepenbring’s plans for retirement would make any person feel a slight tinge of jealousy. First, he plans to spend a lot of time with his wife Barbara, and their two grandsons. Apart from that, he plans to travel out west, ride his BMW dual sport motorcycle and continue riding his bicycle. “The past 14 years have had a pretty even keel,” Piepenbring said. He attributed this to...
Read MoreBeginnings and endings: A reflection of the 2017-2018 academic year
As the 2017-2018 Maryville College academic year comes to a close, now is the time to reflect on this period of grand beginnings, growth, loss, learning, chaotic politics and sad farewells. Containing three deaths, multiple retirements and numerous changes to academic policy, the end of this year marks the end of a tumultuous time in the College’s history. This year, the college had many celebrations for those who made Maryville their profession. Several individuals bade bittersweet goodbyes to the College after years of service to professors, students and staff alike. Both Ms. Mary Frost and Mrs. Carolyn Potter, the former an administrative assistant to the behavioral science division and the latter an administrative assistant to the humanities division, publicly announced their plans for retirement early in December. These two staff members were loved by students throughout the years and...
Read MoreMaryville College Works: A Senior Guide To Avoiding Alligators
Congratulations to the class of 2018, the first-ever class to graduate under Maryville College Works! By now, you should have all of those pesky checks completed. The checklist is a helpful way to track your graduation requirements in Maryville College Works, and may even be an irritating reminder of what’s left to do while you’re juggling the 12,000 other things that are required of you during your senior year. Of course, the checklist is not an end in itself. The real importance of Maryville College Works lies in the way that it connects your college years to your time after college. Our one-liner about Maryville College Works is that it is a program that “…integrates career preparation for today’s job market with a time-tested, small-college liberal arts education.” This integration is the bridge that’s on our logo: it helps...
Read MoreClowney Chosen as 2018 Commencement Speaker
For the 2018 Graduation ceremony, Maryville College has selected Mrs. Shirley Carr Clowney to deliver the commencement address on May 20. An Alcoa native, Clowney was one of the Maryville Six, the first group of African-American students admitted to the college following the 1954 Supreme Court decision “Brown v. the Board of Education,” the ruling that ended segregation in the nation’s schools. Clowney and the other members of the Maryville Six, all of whom enrolled in MC in the Fall of 1954, were the first African Americans to attend the college since 1901. Unfortunately, like many of the other members of the Maryville Six, Clowney did not have the honor of graduating from MC. Instead, Clowney transferred colleges, ultimately pursuing her education further by completing her Bachelor’s degree at Tennessee State University (TSU), a historically black university, in Nashville....
Read MoreMeet the Editors: Rachel Britt
With constant charm and candidness, even at 9 a.m., the Echo’s graphics editor, Rachel Britt, is a shining example of what Maryville College has to offer. Born and raised in Maryville, Tenn., Britt chose to attend Maryville College as a Graphic Design major. Along with being an editor for the Echo, Britt is a dance captain for the Maryville College Dance Ensemble and a first soprano in the choir. Britt’s job requires her to design the layout of the newspaper before it is printed, and it is not easy. “The job is not strenuous long term, but for two days it is very very stressful,” she said. “You are having to design an eight-page paper in one day. I like to work on things a little at a time, and in one day that’s just not possible.” Despite the...
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Gibson to be Fit. Green. Happy.®
This coming academic year, Gibson Hall will be designated as a Fit. Green. Happy.® place of living. Mirroring Lloyd Hall, Gibson, named after former Maryville College president Gerald Gibson, has been home to almost 150 residents each year since 2008. Standing four floors high, Gibson does currently employ a wellness component, which requires its residents to withhold from consuming tobacco products along with alcohol. Created by Bruce Guillaume, founder and Director of Mountain Challenge, the Fit. Green. Happy.® initiative generally aims to promote physical, mental and environmental wellness all around. It’s an idea which encourages a higher sense of awareness and attention paid to our environment in addition to sustainability practices. Because it has already been maintaining its preexisting wellness mandate, Gibson has been collectively decided upon by Guillaume and Student Services as the best candidate out of...
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