Southwestern Michigan College’s Tyhe Glenn has been selected from a national pool of applicants as a Summer Scholar for Chautauqua’s 150^th season this July.

Glenn, 19, an SMC Honors Program student from Benton Harbor, graduates May 4 with his visual arts associate degree.

After returning from his all-expenses-paid New York trip, he plans to begin his bachelor’s degree in animation and game art at Western Michigan University.
“I want to meet new people. I want to explore what’s out there,” said Glenn, who will be making his first flight traveling from Chicago to Buffalo.

He was “7 or 8” when he moved from Michigan to Georgia, and also lived briefly in Wisconsin.

“I went to St. Joseph High School,” he said. “I want to create my own TV show along the lines of anime. I was drawn to SMC by the dorms.”

Chautauqua “has a lot of professionals come in,” he said. “Political leaders. Religious leaders. Singers. Artists. Lectures, where we can ask questions afterwards. They select 24 people, 12 each week” for creative exploration, educational growth, relaxation and recreation.

Summer Scholars stay in a large house together, with two to three per room.

“Every morning we eat at the same table to talk and get to know each other,” Glenn said. “I was told most of them are college commuters and haven’t been in the dorm setting.”

He has two jobs lined up this summer, at Plank’s Tavern on the Water in St. Joseph and Capozio’s pizza restaurant in Harbert.

Glenn also wants to squeeze in time at his family’s Upper Peninsula cabin. “There’s a bear zoo. I want to feed the bears. I also might go to Canada for a couple of days.”

Chautauqua Institution, a 501 non-profit education center and summer resort for adults and youth, offers a combination of educational and cultural enrichment.

It is located on 2,070 acres in Chautauqua, N.Y., 17 miles northwest of Jamestown in the western southern tier of New York state.

The community celebrates, encourages and studies the arts and treats them as integral to all learning with an eclectic mix of symphony, opera, theater, dance, visual arts and a music school.

A July speaker is one of the world’s leading experts on demographic trends. Another is a former chief economist with the World Bank.

In honor of Chautauqua’s sesquicentennial, a professor will present “Kurt Vonnegut Unstuck in Time: His Chautauqua Lectures and Planetary Citizenship” focused on the author’s July 1989 residency.

Vonnegut visited Dowagiac in 1993 as the Dogwood Fine Arts Festival’s inaugural author.