Fifty years ago, UT Knoxville’s College of Architecture and Design opened in Estabrook Hall with 20 students. Now located in the Art and Architecture Building, the college has about 4,000 alumni and typically welcomes about 100 new students each year to study architecture, interior design and landscape architecture. The 2016 anniversary celebration helped raise funds to buy a building on North Gay Street in Knoxville that houses the college’s Fab Lab, which features a studio, gallery and state-of-the-art technology, such as 3D printers, laser cutters, water-jet cutter and robotics.
New Digs for Students
Two new residence halls open in fall 2016—White Hall opened at the beginning of the semester, and Orange Hall is scheduled to open soon after. The new buildings are part of an ongoing student housing makeover. The Apartment Residence Hall has been demolished to make way for three new residence halls, and Humes Hall is to close when Orange Hall opens. The Stokely Family Residence Hall, on the former site of Gibbs Hall, is scheduled to open in January 2017. Reese Hall is set to close at the end of fall semester, and its residents will be the first to occupy Stokely. North and South Carrick and Morrill halls also are to close in the future to make room for further student housing development.
Boyd Center Honors Alumni
The Boyd Center for Business and Economic Research has been renamed to honor UT Knoxville alumni Randy and Jenny Boyd. Established in 1937 and housed in the Haslam College of Business, the center is one of the university’s leading research enterprises, analyzing state and national economic trends for government and private organizations. Randy Boyd founded Radio Systems Corporation, which produces pet products under brand names such as PetSafe, Invisible Fence and SportDOG. As Gov. Bill Haslam’s special adviser on higher education, Boyd was key in developing the Drive to 55 initiative and Tennessee Promise program. In January 2015, Boyd became Tennessee’s commissioner of economic and community development.
