After 18 years of service, Assistant Dean of Students Kristin Gourley plans for her next adventure
For Maryville College as an institution, it should come as no surprise that those who find a sense of purpose there eventually spread their wings to fly elsewhere.
For those who come to the College for an education or to serve as a member of the faculty and staff, it’s always a transformative experience. But for Kristin Gourley, that transformation brings about a yearning to take that change and apply it outside of the boundaries of campus.
“I’ve been at Maryville College a long, long time. I came here to do a one-year-long internship in 2004, and I haven’t left yet,” said Gourley, who will step down as assistant dean of students after 18 years at the end of this academic year. “I think that says a lot about the College itself. This institution is a very special place because of its people, and I’ve been able to have so many different experiences, from my internship to being the assistant dean.
“I don’t know what’s next, but I know I have to spread my wings outside of this special place. Maryville College has poured into me hopefully more than I’ve poured into it. I’ve been given the space and opportunity to grow here, and now I have to figure out how to do that outside of this community that’s so important.”
From intern to assistant dean
When she arrived in 2004 as a student activities intern, the University of Tennessee-Knoxville graduate was working on her master’s degree in UT’s College Student Personnel program. After achieving it, she served as the MC director of student involvement for seven years. In 2012, she was named director of campus life.
“I worked in student activities for my first eight years, and I loved seeing campus traditions being celebrated,” she said. “The memories I have tied to that are really kind of neat, but then there’s the bigger picture of how we’re meeting students where they are now. A student from 2004 barely checked emails and didn’t walk around with a device that’s always connected to the internet. Doing the best I can to stay on the edge of technology changes is in and of itself a challenge.”
A specific high-water mark was her involvement in putting together the annual G.L.I.M.P.S.E. conference — Gathering, Listening, Igniting, Mending, Persevering, Surviving and Empowering, a two-day student gathering held annually that allows students of color from colleges and universities in Tennessee and surrounding states an opportunity to network.
“The first one took place in 2008, just after the Obama election,” she said. “We had Black students on campus who felt really empowered and inspired. It’s a conference that’s still going on and rotating from school to school, and it allows Black students to meet together and support one another.”
As director of campus life, Gourley oversaw personnel and operations from the College’s eight residence halls and supervised 50 student organizations. In 2017, she was named assistant dean of students, and her responsibilities have included overseeing counseling and health services, parent and new student orientation, the leadership development program, multicultural services and student programming. She also oversees the College’s Student Intervention Team, the Center for Diversity and Inclusion, the Student Government Association and the Military Student Center.
Her student-centric approach to administration has provided a steady hand to undergraduates discovering their passions as young adults exploring the world through the lens of academia, but it’s been a two-way street, she added: She’s learned as much from them as they have from Maryville College, and seeing them navigate difficult times like the COVID-19 pandemic has been just as educational as standing alongside them during celebrations like commencement.
“Our students are people who are drawn to this institution and this community because they often value the same things,” Gourley said. “Maryville College students are going to be people who care about their community and the world around them, and who want to do what they can on the largest possible scale to make the world a better place. Our current students are willing to advocate for the things they care about, and they’re not afraid to speak up and speak out.
“What has been interesting is seeing our students navigate Maryville College as something more than a fixed place. If you think about it, our seniors had three semesters of what we could call normalcy, and then we went into pandemic-induced chaos. Our juniors, they managed to get one semester, and our sophomores and first-year students have never known Maryville College outside of the pandemic.”
A position of servitude
With COVID numbers falling and mask mandates lifted, the challenge for administration and faculty members, she added, is to be the keepers of tradition by helping incoming first-year and rising sophomores, juniors and seniors embrace those she played a large role in continuing but were canceled or shelved because of the virus.
“In some ways, faculty and staff are the keepers of our tradition and our history, because we’re the ones who are here for more than a short period of time,” she said. “It falls to us to be the history holder, and to the students to decide what it is they want their version of our community to be. And what’s exciting is that we can give them that information, but we don’t have to do what we’ve always done.”
Striking a balance between tradition and change is vital to the growth of the College, she said, and to the individuals who call it home — including herself. Seeing the institution grow has been exciting, but watching the students partake of both tradition and change has been the true reward of her time at MC. Few things, she added, rival watching the journey of an incoming first-year students taking part in the Covenant Ceremony to the Commencement stage a few years later.
“If you look at the Maryville College mission statement, it talks about how we prepare students for lives of citizenship and leadership,” she said. “I’ve lived that life here, and now it feels like it’s time to live that life somewhere else, to take that Maryville College mission beyond campus. It feels like in some ways I’m graduating with the class of 2022.
“I could stay here and retire from Maryville College and be perfectly happy, but if I’ve learned anything here, it’s that you have to continue to challenge yourself in order to grow. For me, what’s exciting about that is that I don’t know where that takes me. A lot of people ask me where I’m going, and the truth is I don’t know yet — but I get to figure it out, and that’s the most exciting part.”
And in that sense, she shares a great deal in common with the seniors who will graduate on May 7. Even as her final days as assistant dean draw to a close, the combination of nostalgic reverie and excitement over possibilities not yet revealed is very much a mirror of what the class of 2022 is experiencing, she said.
“In some ways, I really do feel like a senior. They’re so ready to graduate, but they’re also holding on to every last second of their time at Maryville College,” she said. “You can be completely ready to fly the coop but also want to stay there forever, and I kind of feel that way, too. In some ways, it feels like I’m graduating to the next step, and even Commencement this year will be bittersweet. It will definitely feel different, but it will also be very special.”