Center for Appalachian Studies and Services

The Center for Appalachian Studies and Services at East Tennessee State University is a Distinguished Center of Excellence, established in 1984 during the administration of Governor Lamar Alexander. The center’s mission is to document and showcase Appalachia’s past, celebrate its cultural heritage, and promote an understanding of the influences that shape its identity. Among the center’s major components are the Carroll Reece Museum and the Archives of Appalachia. The Reece Museum, one of only two American Association of Museums-accredited university museums in the state, holds a permanent collection of over 10,000 artifacts and artworks and offers art and history exhibits that interpret the region. The Archives of Appalachia, one of the nation’s premier Appalachian archives, holds 10,000,000 manuscripts, 250,000 photographs, and over 60,000 sound and moving image recordings. The center also offers academic programs, including minors in Appalachian studies; environmental studies; and bluegrass, old time, and country music–the only bluegrass program in the nation at a four-year university. The Appalachian-Scottish and Irish Studies Program includes international exchange opportunities and travel abroad components. For twenty years, the center has sponsored one of Tennessee’s nine governor’s schools for gifted and talented high school juniors and seniors, the Governor’s School for the Scientific Exploration of Tennessee Heritage. The center has a strong publication emphasis, which includes a recording label, Now & Then: The Appalachian Magazine, and the Encyclopedia of Appalachia, which won the Weatherford Award in 2007. Grant-supported programs make up another component, a good example being the ongoing, ARC-funded Appalachian Teaching Project, which involves fourteen institutions in ten states. All these factors make the Center for Appalachian Studies and Services a national and international resource on one of the nation’s most complex and diverse regions.