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A person with brown hair wearing a brown shirt smiles and leans against a bookcase.

From salon chair to theory: App State student uses feminist rhetoric to help people connect
Nov 6, 2026

BOONE, N.C. — Scissors snip close to an ear. A spray bottle hisses. Damp hair drifts onto the dorm-room tile, and the person in the chair laughs too hard to sit still.

GWS Student Profile, Gender, Women's and Sexuality Studies
Woolly Worm Festival Race in Banner Elk, NC. Photo by Reyna Drake, WFDD

Slow and steady wins the winter: what is the woolly worm tradition? [faculty featured]
Oct 29, 2026

Each October, thousands gather in Banner Elk, North Carolina, to use the woolly worm to predict the winter weather.

Appalachian Studies
Appalachian Journal, founded in 1972, is an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed quarterly featuring field research, interviews, and other scholarly studies of history, politics, economics, culture, folklore, literature, music, ecology, and a variety of other topics, as well as poetry and reviews of books, films, and recordings dealing with the region of the Appalachian mountains.
“Calls from Home” is produced by Appalshop and Working Films. The 34-minute film will be screened Wednesday, March 22, 2023, at 7 p.m. in Room 114 of the Belk Library and Information Commons.
Appalachian studies graduate students Camden Phillips, Kevin Freeman, Sammy Osmond, Megan Hall and Yndiana Montes met with MountainTrue's High Country Watershed Coordinator, Hannah Woodburn, as part of their microplastics project.
This badge signifies App State’s status as a Top Producer of Fulbright scholars and students for the 2022–23 academic year. The university is one of 18 schools nationwide to receive this honor. Image courtesy of Fulbright Program
Dr. Katherine Ledford, professor of Appalachian studies at Appalachian State University
LLC Building

GWS students and alumni earn academic honors, present research and pursue graduate studies
May 6, 2022

Students and alumni from Appalachian State University's Gender, Women's and Sexuality Studies (GWS) program are earning recognition for their... Gender, Women's and Sexuality Studies

College Photographer of the Year (CPOY) for the COVID Experience category as a Gold medal winner. Photo by Mike Belleme.
Appalachian State University alumna Julianna Roupas ’21, of Charlotte, earned a self-designed B.A. in interdisciplinary studies with a focus in studies of integrative health sciences, as well as a minor in Spanish. She graduated summa cum laude from App State in May. Photo submitted

App State’s Julianna Roupas ’21 designed her own path to medical school
Jul 7, 2021

Julianna Roupas ’21 wrote her own ticket for her journey to medical school with a self-designed major at Appalachian State University.

Interdisciplinary Studies
App State College of Arts and Sciences welcomes new department chairs to the Department of Anthropology, Dr. Krista Lewis; A.R. Smith Department of Chemistry and Fermentation Sciences, Dr. Petia Bobadova and Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences, Dr. Cynthia M. Liutkus-Pierce. In addition, Dr. Laura Ammon, from the Department of Philosophy and Religion will become the director of Watauga Residential College.