Educating students to succeed in the global workplace isn’t just a lofty slogan. Today it’s a necessity. Hundreds of UT Knoxville alumni work in China or travel there frequently. Tennessee Alumnus thanks the many alumni who sent information about their experiences. Unfortunately we couldn’t feature all of them. Here are a few that represent just what a small world our planet has become.
Three UT alumni, Carl Wolfson, Leanne Morgan, and Dale Henry, are making their livings by making others laugh.
America’s palate is becoming more sophisticated, and Alan Wilson is big into the business of supplying the spices to satisfy the nation’s taste buds. Wilson (Knoxville ’80) is the new CEO and president of McCormick & Company Inc., the world’s largest spice producer, headquartered in Baltimore with operations in such diverse locales as India and France.
In a retirement center near Minneapolis, three residents—all with a UT connection—get together to cheer on the Vols every time a UT Knoxville game is televised. They might not do the wave, toss Nerf balls around the room, or belt out “Rocky Top” after a touchdown, but their spirit and enthusiasm are always in high gear.
Wade Tosh put his UT education to work before he even finished it. Tosh was chosen as the new town administrator of Dover, Tennessee, by the Dover Board of Mayor and Aldermen in September 2007, 4 months before he finished his Master of Public Administration degree at UT Knoxville. Tosh had a leg up on a local government career thanks to a distinctive new on-the-job experience: he was the first Gary H. Hensley Municipal Managers Intern during the summer of 2007.
Some of the most generous people in the world are friends of the University of Tennessee. The university, always grateful for donor support, has initiated a trio of awards that formally recognize people who have made giving an art form. The first awards were presented at last fall’s meeting of the UT Development Council in Knoxville.
Recently, UT came calling on Ron Turner. Only months earlier, the Ripley, Tennessee, native had retired from the positions of chairman, president, and CEO of Ceridian Corporation, an S&P 500 company formerly known as Control Data Corporation (CDC). Turns out, his alma mater was looking for new ideas and fresh perspectives from top business executives across the country, and Turner signed up for a 3-year term on UT’s Development Council.
In 1997 the Davidson County alumni chapter started an endowment in the chapter’s name to help a student from the Davidson County area attend the UT campus of his or her choice. The first recipient was Hillsboro High School graduate Lisa DeBusk. Now 10 years later, DeBusk appreciates the significance of her scholarship and is returning the favor to the alumni association chapter that helped her by serving as its treasurer.
From my 24th-floor office in northeast Beijing, each day I survey the startling expansion and transformation of the city. Every morning brings either a new high-rise or a vacant lot where an old high-rise once stood, a situation accelerated by the $40 billion Beijing is spending in preparation for the upcoming Olympics. But the changes China is experiencing are far more profound than a few new skyscrapers, and the consequences of those changes reach around the globe.
Logan Durham is having a rough—or, maybe that’s “ruff”—year. And he’s enjoying every moment of it. Durham, a sophomore in communications from Cleveland, Tenn., is this year’s lead Smokey, the University of Tennessee’s costumed bluetick hound mascot. He’s assisted by two understudies and a junior Smokey; UT’s Spirit Office typically chooses multiple students to perform as Smokey since the performance schedule is very demanding.
Richmond taps Ayers as president, Mears dies in Knoxville, Geier joins university—these and other stories in this edition of UTopics.
Chad Holliday Jr. is full of enthusiasm as he surveys the crowd at the grand opening of the DuPont Tate & Lyle Bio Products Facility on a humid day last June in Loudon, Tennessee. No doubt this is a proud professional moment for the DuPont CEO and chairman, but Holliday (Knoxville ’70) is also glad just to be back home in the Volunteer State.
Tennessee business people, farmers, scientists, and political leaders have begun to rally around a shared vision of a statewide economy powered by ethanol, but this fuel has a distinctly Tennessee twist. What sets Tennessee’s vision apart from other states with an eye toward biofuels is the commitment to make that ethanol from sources other than corn—mostly from a hardy plant called switchgrass.
When you step through the doors of the Tennessee Governor’s Academy for Mathematics and Science in Knoxville, it’s clear you’ve entered a radically different kind of school. The walls are covered in posters singing the praises of science and scientists, and the mood during a calculus class is upbeat—to put it mildly.
In 1956, on a lark and with a lust for adventure, five UT students departed Knoxville for Alaska, where they spent the summer working in a gold mine. The Territory of Alaska, still 3 years shy of statehood, was a sparsely populated frontier of less than 200,000 people. The heaviest traffic on the only highway between Fairbanks and Anchorage occurred in July, when an average of 42 vehicles a day traveled the road. Oil would not be discovered at Prudhoe Bay for a dozen years yet.
