Links to the latest version of the Program and Abstracts are above. They will be updated as needed.
Below you can get a quick look at the workshop's Plenary Sessions.
PLENARY SESSIONS
We’ll kick things off on Monday, October 19, with two insightful Plenaries. The first will orient us to the Southeast region through Tennessee RiverLine: A Strategy for Restorative Recreation. Reframing the Tennessee River, adjacent public lands, and river communities as a 1.2 million acre ‘River Park,’ Tennessee RiverLine is an initiative of UT Extension that advances a novel concept of restorative recreation along the 652-mile Tennessee River. Join this session to learn how the RiverLine is leveraging the power of partnerships to inspire new generations of Tennessee River stewards in RiverTowns communities in four states through recreation programming, environmental education, infrastructure design and implementation, and tourism development. Panelists Brad Collett (RiverLine Executive Director) and Clay Guerry (Recreation Specialist, Tennessee Valley Authority), plus another TBA, will discuss this innovative conservation area that knits a whole watershed together. Ryan Sharp (Professor, UTK) will moderate.
After a break, we’ll move to a second Plenary that truly meets the moment by assessing The State of History and Preservation in Our National Parks and Public Lands. The year 2025 saw unprecedented assaults on cultural resource management at the federal level. Research and programmatic grants were frozen or eliminated. Staffing levels for cultural resource professionals, already low, were drastically reduced in the name of government efficiency. And the administration’s push to restore truth and sanity to American history began a process by which the National Park Service was forced to first list then, in some instances, sanitize or erase accurate and inclusive stories at park sites across the country.
Although the jury is still out on the impacts that bad policy and stiffening resistance to censorship are having on our parks and preservation generally, now is a good time to examine where we all are. This panel will draw upon the expertise of four leading advocates for national parks and historic preservation practitioners to share their views on what’s happened, the impact over the last 15 months on preservation, and where historians, preservationists, and public lands advocates need to go now. Our speakers will be Sarah Wiecksel (Executive Director, American Historical Association), Anne Mitchell Whisnant (Professor, Duke University), and Alan Spears (Senior Director for Cultural Resources, National Parks Conservation Association), and Eboni Preston Goddard (Southeast Regional Director, NPCA).
The Tuesday, October 20, Plenary will be Protecting Karst Resources in Tennessee and the Greater Southeast: The Physical, Biological, and Cultural Elements. The term “karst” refers to landscapes formed when rocks such as limestone and dolomite dissolve, forming unique above-ground features as well as caves and other subterranean features. Large karst areas are found in Tennessee and beyond in the Southeast, and are extremely significant in terms of ecology and biodiversity, as well as being highly important culturally. This session will feature three experts who will walk us through the key elements of these fragile and beautiful landscapes: Chris Groves (Professor, Western Kentucky University), Matt Niemiller (Professor, University of Alabama in Huntsville). and Jan Simek, (Professor, UTK).
On Wednesday October 21, Derek H. Alderman (Professor, UTK) will present Names Are Never Just Names: Reconciliation, Revanchism, and the Struggle for Democratic Place-Making. Place names are not innocent labels on maps or signs. They are civic resources that have become flashpoints in struggles over identity, memory, power, and harm. Drawing on decades of scholarship and public engagement with place (re)naming in America, as well as service on the Federal Advisory Committee on Reconciliation in Place Names, Derek Alderman examines two competing futures: renaming as reconciliation and renaming as revanchism. Centering the committee’s Place Name Reconciliation Principles, he advances a participatory, research driven, reparative framework accountable to communities. Alderman warns against top-down revanchist naming practices that settle political scores and grievances, advance personal branding, weaponize symbols, and restore racial, colonial, and nationalist hierarchies. At stake is the integrity of the shared American landscape and the democratic making of place. Seth T. Kannarr (recent PhD graduate, UTK) will moderate.
Our closing afternoon on Thursday, October 22, will be devoted to the GWS Student Summit, part of which will be open to all registrants. Details to come.