Beginning in the 1830s Bishop James Otey of Tennessee led an effort to found an Episcopal seminary in the Deep South.

[12] Bishop Leonidas Polk commented that due to the access to railroads one could reach any point in the South from Sewanee within thirty-six to forty-eight hours.

As Otey put it: the new university will "materially aid the South to resist and repel a fanatical domination which seeks to rule over us.

Generals Edmund Kirby Smith, Josiah Gorgas, and Francis A. Shoup were prominent in the university's postbellum revival.

In 1866, building was resumed, and this date is sometimes used as the re-founding of the university and the year from which it has maintained continuous operations, though official materials and anniversary celebrations still use 1857.

Presiding was Charles Todd Quintard, vice-chancellor (chief academic officer) of the university, second Bishop of Tennessee and "Chaplain of the Confederacy" (compiler of the Confederate Soldiers' Pocket Manual of Devotions, 1863).

[19]A minor scandal ensued, with more conservative commentators insinuating that the change was intended to "distance" the university from its historic association with Southern culture.

[23] In the wake of several women coming forward with allegations of sexual harassment against television personality Charlie Rose,[24] many educational institutions revoked honorary degrees bestowed on him.

[30] It added that the university "categorically rejects its past veneration of the Confederacy and of the 'Lost Cause' and wholeheartedly commits itself to an urgent process of institutional reckoning ...".

[31][32] The university announced that it will utilize the findings of its Roberson Project on Slavery, Race, and Reconciliation (which began in 2017) to guide their current discussions and path forward.

Its most popular undergraduate majors, by 2021 graduates, were:[34] The Sewanee campus overlooks the Tennessee Valley and consists of 13,000 acres on the Cumberland Plateau.

Since Fall 2008, the university has held an annual Sustainability Week, which featured speakers, feasts of local foods, and environmentally themed documentaries.

Faculty and student members of the primary honor society and main branch of student government, the Order of Gown (changed after controversy surrounding the exclusivity of the title "order of the gownsmen"), may wear academic gowns to teach or attend class—one of the last vestiges of this historically English practice in North America.

[54] The university mace, an unsolicited gift dedicated to early Ku Klux Klan leader Nathan Bedford Forrest, which prominently featured a Confederate battle flag, has been a point of interest in the debate over the university's identity, because of its association with Forrest and its implications for attitudes toward African Americans.

The Sewanee Tigers were pioneers in American intercollegiate athletics and possessed the Deep South's preeminent football program in the 1890s.

By this time, however, its athletic program had declined precipitously and Sewanee never won a conference football game in the eight years it was an SEC member.

[55] When Vice Chancellor Benjamin Ficklin Finney, who had reportedly objected to Sewanee joining the SEC, left his position in 1938, the leading candidate was Alexander Guerry, a former president of the University of Chattanooga.

Guerry's stance is sometimes credited as an early step toward the 1973 creation of NCAA Division III, which prohibits athletic scholarships.

[57] Sewanee is now a member of the Southern Athletic Association (SAA),[58] offering 11 varsity sports for men and 13 for women.