Pauline Cheek spent her formative years in the Piedmont and Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina. Her degrees include an A.B. from Wake Forest, a M.A.T from Duke University, and a M. Divinity degree from Earlham School of Religion in Richmond, Indiana. Throughout her schooling she became increasingly interested in ecology, peacemaking, and experiential education, and participated in exchanges that involved interpreting Appalachia to people in Denmark, Belize, and Cuba.