About

The University of the South’s Sewanee Environmental Institute (SEI) Pre-College Field Studies Experience is a residential summer environmental immersion for rising high school sophomores, juniors, and seniors atop the 13,000-acre Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee. Scheduled for late June and July 2026, the program offers ten-day sessions where students explore ecology, conservation, and landscape systems through direct fieldwork—hiking, canoeing, caving, and ecological survey. These excursions are guided by full-time Sewanee faculty and staff across biology, geology, forestry, and archaeology. SEI is not a traditional lab research program; instead, it blends interdisciplinary environmental study with outdoor exploration and applied observation, situating students in forests, streams, lakes, caves, and wetlands while examining how people have historically shaped and stewarded these ecosystems.

Tuition for 2026 is $2,000, which covers instruction, room, and board; a $300 deposit is required upon acceptance, and limited financial aid is available on a first-come, first-served basis. SEI is explicitly designed for students passionate about the natural world and environmental systems, providing a deep field-based experience rather than classroom lectures.

Sewanee’s SEI operates on a rolling acceptance basis, with applicants submitting materials to receive a registration invitation; there is no published selectivity rate, and admissions are capacity-limited. Participants live communally in dorms and eat in campus dining halls. While the program emphasizes place-based learning, it integrates modern field tools such as GIS and GPS technology, and students utilize mountain bikes from the university’s library for daily transport. Faculty involvement extends beyond excursions to encompass structured ecological study, species identification, and conservation strategy discussion, supported by Sewanee’s institutional strengths in environmental stewardship. The experience leverages the university’s ecologically diverse Domain, a distinctive natural laboratory reflecting Sewanee’s broader institutional emphasis on environmental science and sustainability.

While SEI does not confer academic credit, it offers substantive exposure to real field methods and ecological thinking, making it more rigorous than typical adventure camps. Given its accessibility and focus, SEI is best suited for students seeking hands-on environmental exploration and foundational field skills rather than research or traditional academics for their summer experience.