After finding a dream come true at MC, Gabbie Noonan ’25 prepares for the next chapter at MUSC
March 25, 2025
It’s the hope of every college student — find a school they love, form meaningful relationships, leave a lasting and positive impact on campus, and finish their degrees having discovered their callings and developed solid post-grad plans. For senior Health and Wellness Promotion major Gabbie Noonan ’25, the past four years at MC have turned that hope into reality.
Originally from St. Louis, Missouri, Noonan had taken a trip to the Great Smoky Mountains in the midst of college application season and fell in love with the location. When she stumbled upon the Maryville College website shortly after her visit, it felt like a sign.
“Finding a school with such wonderful opportunities, a tight-knit campus community, and a heavy emphasis on external community involvement at the heart of the Smokies was a possibility I simply couldn’t pass up,” Noonan said.
Like many soon-to-be MC alumni, Noonan said she was certain the MC campus was the place for her when she visited and instantly felt she had chosen a place that could be a home — a sentiment, she added, that has only grown stronger over the last four years.
“I can’t describe my experience at MC without using the phrase ‘it feels like where I am supposed to be,’” she said.
A personal experience leads to a vocational passion
Noonan discovered her passion for the health sciences in high school, after experiencing a blood infection that later required physical therapy treatment to help her recover her ability to walk. This had a profound effect on her, and she’s felt a calling ever since to help others going through similar experiences.
While physical therapy (PT), which focuses specifically on improving strength and mobility of a particular part of the body, was helpful for Noonan at the time, she later learned about the field of occupational therapy (OT) — a more holistic field focused on improving patients’ abilities to carry out all kinds of activities of daily living.
Discovering occupational therapy made her realize that she might have had an even better, more sustainable recovery if she had gone through OT treatment, which solidified in her mind that OT was the best course of study for her.
“I now realize that I have what it takes to empathize with those who experience setbacks with their health, and I want to contribute to their mental and physical regaining of independence and self-efficacy,” Noonan said.
Choosing the Health and Wellness Promotion (HWP) major at MC, Noonan said, was a no-brainer after she took the course Human Health and Wellness 101; the program’s focus on hands-on experience and its emphasis on the interconnectedness of mental and physical health were particularly intriguing, she added.
“Starting in the first year, students get opportunities to hear from and work with experts in various fields to truly understand all the factors that influence an individual’s overall health and well-being,” explained Savanna Gregory, visiting lecturer of Health and Wellness Promotion. “In later courses, students get integrated into the local community to understand how to assess the needs of the community and establish or work with local programs to address those needs.”
The HWP major also includes an internship requirement for all students, and the College’s various established partnerships with Blount County community organizations — such as Blount Memorial Hospital, Blount County Parks and Recreation, Boys and Girls Club, or Special Olympics, to name a few — ensure that HWP students have ample opportunities to connect with the community and gain experience in their field of interest.
Noonan has completed two internships during her time at MC — one with Smoky Mountain Occupational Therapy, where she shadowed MC alumna Tiffany Hursh Waddell ’19; and another with Sunshine Ambassadors, a Knoxville nonprofit that provides dance classes for individuals with disabilities, where Noonan worked as a “dance assistant,” attending rehearsals, choreographing dances and creating marketing material.
“My internship opportunity at Sunshine Ambassadors combined my passion for movement with my passion for providing social opportunities for those with disabilities,” Noonan said, “Seeing individuals with a variety of disabilities celebrate using their bodies to their fullest extent was absolutely wonderful, and I also got to learn how to provide accommodations for those who couldn’t quite verbalize the need for those accommodations themselves.”
A college career to be proud of
In addition to her internships, Noonan has done extensive volunteer work with individuals with disabilities; completed a Senior Study (a key component of the Maryville College experience in which degree candidates complete research projects in their programs of study with the guidance of faculty members) analyzing trends of mental health issues in women with autism; spent a month studying abroad in Spain, and currently serves as president of the Best Buddies chapter at MC — all while maintaining a 4.0 GPA, running several half marathons, and making it her mission to brighten the days of all who know her.
“I have had the privilege of working with Gabbie for the past two years in several different courses. She is a high-achieving student who makes it her mission to integrate her passions into everything she does, and she embodies everything that Maryville College stands for,” said Gregory, who also acted as Noonan’s internship supervisor. “As a division, we could not be more proud to call her one of our own, and we know she will represent Maryville College very well.”
This fall, Noonan will be attending the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, South Carolina, where she will be working towards an Occupational Therapy Doctorate.
“I chose MUSC because of its emphasis on community among its OTs, its renowned reputation (in the top 5% of OT programs in the country), and its CARES clinic, which is an on-campus clinic for PTs, OTs and SLPs (speech-language pathologists) to get hands-on experience with Charleston community members,” Noonan explained.
She will spend her days participating in immersive OT lab sessions, working directly with the community in fieldwork rotations, and completing a capstone project intended to help bridge a gap within the OT world for a specific population. She believes her time at MC has made her more than prepared to take on whatever graduate school holds for her.
“My professors and my thesis work are two of the main factors that have prepared me for my graduate school journey,” she said. “Having an all-female faculty for a typically male-dominated field has allowed me to feel empowered as a woman in the health sciences. All of these women have shown me what it means to be a leader in our field, and I adore all of them.
“I had incredible support from my thesis advisor, Dr. Katie Stephenson, and by conducting research during my undergraduate experience, I feel more than prepared for graduate-level coursework.”
Additionally, Noonan credits MC’s friendly and inclusive environment and the friends she’s made over the years, whom she says “have quickly turned into family,” with helping her grow into the person she is today and developing important skills she’ll take with her throughout her OT career.
“I have not only learned the necessary academic curriculum, but I have also cultivated my interpersonal skills that I need in order to be a solid healthcare provider,” she said.
The goal of the HWP program, Gregory says, is to prepare students to face the reality of health in local and regional communities, with a well-rounded understanding of all the nuances and external factors that influence the field of health promotion.
“I hope that students like Gabbie can walk away with a greater perspective on the health of individuals and communities, and along the way discover an interest or passion that allows them to do good on the largest possible scale after their time at MC,” Gregory said.
Noonan believes the program has given her all of this and more, and while graduating is a bittersweet transition, she says she will look back on her college experience with gratitude.
“When I think of Maryville, I think of home, so I would say that my time here has been everything I’ve hoped it would be,” she said.
Written by Julia Jeffress ’25
