A Love Letter to Covenant College
When I chose Covenant College, I knew I wanted something different.
I had just graduated from a giant public high school in southwest Florida, and I loved my experience there. I played sports, had lots of friends, never missed a football game, and even ended up homecoming queen. I had fully embraced the big, loud, fun high-school experience, but by the time college came around, I was ready for a different kind of fun. I didn't want to stop being social or adventurous; I just wanted something that felt a little quieter, a little deeper, and more real. I wanted friendships that went beyond the party, a community where faith was woven into everyday life, and people who genuinely invested in one another. I wanted a place where I could grow up a little without losing the fun of being young.
And, if I’m being completely truthful, I also wanted to play volleyball. I wanted to compete at a collegiate level where I could start, play all the way around, and be part of a team I loved.
So I found my way to Covenant, perched on Lookout Mountain, Georgia, with beautiful Chattanooga, Tennessee, at the foot of the mountain.
I knew I was going there to earn a degree in English Education and play volleyball. I had no idea how much of my life would begin there.
I found the volleyball experience I had hoped for, but what I remember most now isn't necessarily the wins or the time on the court. It's the people. I loved my teammates and the experience of being part of something together. Those relationships became part of the fabric of my Covenant years.
Right away I was matched with an amazing roommate, Kim, who was also our team’s setter.
And, of course, there was the guy I met who would eventually become my husband.
As if that weren't enough Covenant matchmaking for one story, my roommate and my husband's roommate ended up marrying each other, too. (Shout-out to Kim and Joe!) Apparently, Covenant wasn't just educating us. It was quietly arranging the rest of our lives.
But the relationships weren't limited to the friendships we made with one another. One of the things I appreciate most about Covenant is the intentional involvement of the professors. They knew us. They engaged with us outside of class. They invited students into their homes for meals. They cared about who we were becoming, not simply whether we could pass an exam.
In such a tight-knit community, faith couldn't easily remain something you talked about in a classroom or chapel and then forgot about. There was accountability. There was discipleship. There were people paying attention to how you lived, what you believed, and who you were becoming.
At that point in my life, that mattered tremendously.
Covenant also gave me something I didn't fully appreciate until I became a teacher: preparation. The Education Department was rigorous, and it didn't allow us to spend four years talking theoretically about teaching before finally walking into a real classroom. We were placed in local schools to observe from our very first semester. By the time student teaching arrived, the practicum experience was intense and immersive. Covenant made a deliberate effort to prepare us for different students, different communities, and very different classroom environments. I student-taught at Howard High School, an urban public school in Chattanooga. I taught at Whitfield Middle school, in rural Dalton, Georgia and at Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe High School in Georgia. I also spent time in a small local private Christian school. Those classrooms did not look the same. The students didn't have the same backgrounds, resources, needs, or experiences. That was precisely the point. Covenant wasn't preparing me to teach in one ideal classroom. It was preparing me to teach wherever I might be called to go.
Looking back, I realize that was true of Covenant in a much bigger sense. It was preparing me for a life I couldn't yet see.
Years later, my husband's younger sister decided on Covenant, where she also met her spouse. They stayed near the college and chose to raise their family there, not far from the mountain where so much of our own story began.
When you're 18 and choosing a college, you think you're deciding where you'll spend four years. You don't realize you may be choosing a place that will echo through the rest of your life.
Covenant gave me an education and a profession, teammates who I’ll never forget, professors who invested in me, and a faith that grew deeper through genuine community. It also gave me my husband. It gave Kim hers. And years later, it gave my sister-in-law hers.
Maybe there really is something in that mountain air.
I went to Covenant looking for something deeper. I found meaningful connection and growth in classrooms and on the volleyball court, around professors' dinner tables and in late-night conversations with friends, in stairwells filled with worshipful singing, and in quiet prayer time over mountain bluffs. I found it in hard work, faith, laughter, and relationships that became family.
So this is my love letter to the college on the mountain – to Lookout Mountain and Chattanooga below, and to the place I chose for four years that somehow became part of the rest of my life.
With love and gratitude,
A Scot forever
Katie Agate, Covenant College ‘02
#LoveLettersToThePlacesThatMadeUs
