Chattanoogan Kenna Rewcastle Is Named A Torchbearer At UTK

  • Monday, May 4, 2015
  • John Shearer
Kenna Rewcastle
Kenna Rewcastle
photo by John Shearer
Notre Dame High School graduate Kenna Rewcastle is used to the excitement of finding out what she has discovered doing undergraduate environmental science research at the University of Tennessee.
 
But while recently learning some information of a different type, she was admittedly caught off guard.
 
She was involved in making a presentation to the Jim Haslam family as one of the graduating Haslam Scholars when she received news from Chancellor Jimmy Cheek that she had been named a Torchbearer.
 
While students used to find out during a Chancellor’s Honors Banquet whether they were Torchbearers, Chancellor Cheek has recently begun the tradition of informing the students in unexpected ways.
 
“That took me totally by surprise,” she recalled with a laugh recently during an interview from the Golden Roast coffee shop by the UT campus.
 
But after the shock wore off, she admitted to being quite humbled over receiving this award, which is the highest honor given at the school to graduating seniors and recognizes academic excellence as well as service to the university and society.
 
“A lot of students I’ve looked up to have received this, so it felt like such a big honor because I was recognized as being a leader at the level they were,” she said.
“I was joining the ranks of really amazing people I’ve gotten to know.”
 
“I also felt a sense of gratitude to everyone who had helped me get to that point.”
 
The feeling of appreciation has evidently been reciprocal, as she said she also received congratulations not only from fellow acquaintances and university faculty and administrators, but also from students she did not know well.
 
Miss Rewcastle was actually one of nine graduates named as Torchbearers. Another Chattanoogan, Matt Barnett of Signal Mountain, also was named and will be profiled in a chattanoogan.com story in the near future.
 
Noted former UT Lady Vols basketball player Cierra Burdick from Charlotte was also selected as a Torchbearer.
 
Besides Miss Rewcastle’s academic work investigating ecosystem ecology in the face of climate change, work that took her all over the world, she was also recognized for her work with Students Promoting Environmental Action in Knoxville. The latter also resulted in some travel.
 
She also kept busy in her immediate surroundings through a science-related column, “Life Under the Microscope,” which she penned regularly for the UT Daily Beacon student newspaper.
 
“I wanted to present scientific issues to the public that are not overwhelming (to understand),” she said. “People think scientists are weird, but there is a little scientist in everyone and I wanted to bridge that.”
 
She said the columns, which can still be found online, often drew numerous email responses from readers who wanted to discuss the issues further.
 
Miss Rewcastle, the daughter of John and Amy Rewcastle Jr., had her own first emotional response to the world of environmental science while taking an Advanced Placement science class at Notre Dame under Matt Irvin.
 
The class taught her in more of an in-depth manner about such issues as climate change and global warming, she said.
 
“I was really struck with how much we don’t know about the things that will impact our lives,” she said.
 
She had thought about going to Appalachian State University but decided on the University of Tennessee after being named a Haslam Scholar. Patterned after such other prestigious scholarship programs as the Morehead-Cain at North Carolina, the UT program started in 2008 following a gift from Pilot oil officials Jim Haslam Sr. and Jim “Jimmy” Haslam Jr. and their wives.
 
Students who are selected have opportunities to complete independent research, study abroad and participate in leadership activities, which for her in recent weeks have included helping with the recruitment activities for new Haslam Scholars.
 
Even though Miss Rewcastle focused on such related issues as soil systems, ecology and the environment after enrolling at UT in 2011, her places to do research were quite different. She went to Costa Rica after her sophomore year, and then did some research into no-till farming in China, where she learned that carbon still built up in the soil.
 
She then studied abroad in Denmark during the spring of her junior year, and later did an internship researching climate change in Switzerland and Sweden.
 
While she loved Copenhagen, Denmark, culturally, Sweden was quite fascinating academically.
 
“I was in the Arctic Circle on the front lines of climate change,” she said. “It’s a very exciting place to be in ecology.”
 
All the overseas experiences also taught her plenty socially, including developing a better insight into and appreciation for her own country.
 
“It has made me engage with the way we do things here rather than accepting the status quo.”
 
As an example, she went with her SPEAK group to Washington, D.C., to raise awareness about climate change.
 
Her interest in the environment and the outdoors has also led to more leisurely pursuits, including becoming an avid hiker. As part of that, she has worked with AmeriCorps to arrange backpacking trips on the Appalachian Trail.
 
As for the next step in her life after graduating May 7 with a degree in the College of Arts and Sciences’ College Scholars interdisciplinary program for honors students, she is being as meticulous as a veteran researcher.
 
The Fulbright Scholar finalist and Udall Scholarship nominee said she is going to try and work as a lab researcher/technician over the next year and then attend graduate school in the area of environmental science beginning in the fall of 2016.
 
She is not sure if she wants to be a professor and do research, or work to inform people about conservation policies, including trying to get the religious and scientific communities to come together better regarding climate change.
 
“I’m kind of torn about which one will make the most impact,” she said.
 
But one aspect of her life that she has not wrestled with is over attending the University of Tennessee. She is glad she came and is grateful to have been a Haslam Scholar, which she admits has become an even more competitive honor to receive for subsequent students.
 
“My experience at UT has been really challenging by being surrounded by people who really challenge me and are also achieving really great accomplishments in their own corners,” the ecosystem ecology and biogeochemistry major said. “It has pushed me to find my own corner.”
 
(To read some of Miss Rewcastle’s “Life Under the Microscope” columns in the UT Daily Beacon, go here: http://utdailybeacon.com/opinion/columns/life-under-microscope/.)
 
Jcshearer2@comcast.net
Kenna Rewcastle
Kenna Rewcastle
photo by John Shearer
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