After 22 years as executive director of the Great Smoky Mountain Institute at Tremont, Ken Voorhis says the nonprofit charged with educating the public about the park and its ecology has matured and become increasingly balanced over time. The Institute is weaving itself into the fabric of the Great Smoky Mountains. Since its inception in 1969, it has served students of all ages and various nationalities, connecting them with the natural world. In fact, the Institute’s slogan is Connecting People and Nature and it has been a classroom for all kinds of studies from woodland flowers to wilderness medicine.

"Now, more than ever before, there is a greater disconnect between the natural world and the lives of everyday people," says Voorhis. "Seeing people fall in love with nature again is rewarding to me."

Obviously, a few things have changed. In the early days the Institute, which partners with the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, depended primarily on the federal tax dollar. Now it is highly dependent on fees from its own programs for its existence and, to a lesser degree, on fundraising activities.

"The Park is struggling," adds Voorhis, who cites heavy cutbacks, increased car traffic and rising costs as impediments to funding.

Roughly 75-80 percent of the Institute’s operating budget comes from educational programs. The remainder comes from fundraisers and the work of two groups—Great Smoky Mountains Association and Friends of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The GSMA oversees book publishing and in-park bookstore sales.

The Institute also serves as a research center for higher learning and various grants often fund specific projects and certain staff positions. However, the institute is not exclusively for scientists and naturalists. The year-round schedule of events and activities includes something for almost everyone. There are hiking weekends and adult fly-fishing workshops. Secondary school science teachers can take advantage of special courses during their summer sabbaticals. Rock hounds can study the geology of the Smokies plus a hundred other things related to the beautiful parkland stretching all around the Institute’s comfortable dormitories. It’s hard to believe that with all this activity, there are still big projects in the wings.

One of the current goals of the Institute is to design and build a new facility using advanced materials and green-building techniques to serve as a model of how humans can live compatibly in the natural world. A slightly more remote and technologically superior facility that will blend into its surroundings is what Voorhis and staffers envision. The new learning center will be integral to many of the programs. "We see that through on-site learning, while people are escaping from their hectic lives, they can recognize that there is not as great a separation between their world and the natural world as they might think."

See www.smokymountaininstitute.com