Tucker Fellows Offers Exploration and Discovery

One way you can come to know Chattanooga is to be born to it. The city has families with stories that stretch back generations. GPS has welcomed the daughters of such families for over a century. Of course, Chattanooga is also a city of transplants, and GPS enrolls increasingly more of these families’ girls every year.

Those of us new to the city discover its history, stories (and secrets!), and delights of its complex landscape more gradually through inquiry, conversation by conversation, one surprising historical fact or anecdote at a time.

Helping our girls discover the stories woven into the landscape and to learn how to investigate the many layers that underpin current issues is at the heart of our Tucker Fellows program. 

Tucker Fellows is one of GPS’s signature experiences, a distinctive opportunity that allows students to pursue learning in ways that extend beyond a traditional classroom. It is named after former Headmaster Stanley Tucker, whom his daughter once described as wanting the girls to be “good citizens who would make a positive difference in the world.” The program seeks to give our girls the chance to do exactly that. 

In the past, the Tucker Fellows program focused primarily on the Tennessee River. While that work was meaningful, many girls had ideas for research and projects that reached beyond that single area of focus. And so, in its current iteration, the program expands the scope of student inquiry while maintaining the program’s original spirit. Reimagined, Tucker Fellows may now explore a wide range of issues within Chattanooga, including the river and watershed, while also incorporating expanded research training particularly in the use of artificial intelligence to support inquiry. 

The result is a year-long, honors-level experience, intentionally interdisciplinary and closely aligned with the ideas students encounter in their ninth-grade human geography courses. Chattanooga itself becomes both subject and classroom. 

This year’s cohort of eight Fellows has already begun to experience what that looks like in practice. In the fall, the girls conducted a field study of Frazier Avenue, analyzing the space through the lens of geography, design, and community use. What works well? What might be improved? How do people interact with their environment? From those observations, they began identifying problems and imagining possible solutions, followed by a series of discussions about how they could implement their ideas. 

Along the way, they practiced the essential skills of research, gathering both qualitative and quantitative data, interpreting patterns, and learning how to present their findings clearly and effectively. One of the culminating projects from the first term was laying the groundwork for a Teen Atlas of Chattanooga, a collaborative work that combines research, design, and the fellows’ own experiences of the city and which will continue to grow as future cohorts contribute to it. 

The girls have expressed appreciation for the chance to see how the material they encounter in class, whether from human geography or from the broader currents of world or American history, play out in the local landscape. Concepts that might otherwise feel abstract begin to take on real shape when viewed through the streets, neighborhoods, and stories of their hometown. 

Personally, one of my favorite aspects of Tucker Fellows is that it gives girls a strong grounding in Chattanooga just as many of them begin to explore the city more independently. As a nonnative, I remember how exciting it was to discover Chattanooga’s stories. I am often surprised when our students do not yet know some of them, and I greatly enjoy getting to share those stories along the way. 

Some of the most meaningful moments come when we talk about GPS alumnae who made their mark on the city, such as Mai Bell Hurley. Learning about figures like her reminds our girls that the story of Chattanooga is not only something to study. It is something they have the opportunity to shape. 

In the second half of the year, the Fellows have been taking this work even further. Each student identifies a specific Chattanooga-based issue that interests her and begins a semester-long research project. Drawing on the skills they developed in the fall, they investigate the background of the issue, evaluate potential solutions, and ultimately present their recommendations to a relevant audience. They are researching solutions to Chattanooga’s heat islands, microplastic pollution, reading deserts, and food insecurity, among other things! 

The goal for the girls is not simply to study the city, but to understand how thoughtful research, creativity, and collaboration can lead to meaningful impact. That connects directly to what Headmaster Tucker envisioned for the girls of his day: preparing young people who would make a positive difference in the world. By giving our girls the tools to understand their community, and the confidence to engage with it thoughtfully, the Tucker Fellows program aims to help them begin doing just that. 

As course selection is now upon us, I encourage girls who are curious about their city, interested in research, and eager to explore new ideas to consider applying for Tucker Fellows. It is a chance not only to learn more about Chattanooga, but also to discover how much impact thoughtful inquiry and engaged citizenship can have. 

After all, sometimes the most powerful classroom is the one just beyond our front door.