More than 80 people attended recent reunion events honoring past -members of the Alumni Association Women’s Council. During its 39-year history, the council has encouraged women to participate in the UTAA and other university activities. Nine Women’s Council members have gone on to become president of the Alumni Association.

Jennifer Holder, chair of the council, led the 16-member group in a recent evaluation of the organization that resulted in a revised mission statement:

“The University of Tennessee Alumni Association Women’s Council educates, supports, advances, and engages women leaders through relevant programs and activities. Going forward, the council will focus on engaging alumnae with new initiatives that promote higher education, providing educational programs for female students, and offering programs that appeal to working women and young women entering the workplace for the first time.”

An invasion of spiders keeps exterminators in business, but “spidering” technology should help UT alumni across the state find new jobs.

The UT Alumni Association is contracting with EmployOn Inc. to provide access to its broad job database to all UT campuses. EmployOn’s “spidering” technology goes onto corporate sites to pull job advertisements. Rather than requiring a job seeker to go to each corporate site, spidering technology brings it to you based on your search, says Russ Coughenour, director of the Career Services Office at UT Knoxville. UT Knoxville has contracted with EmployOn for the past 2 years.

He says expanding the service to all UT campuses is “a no-brainer. It’s nice that the [university] system steps in and says, ‘We’ll foot the bill for you.’ ”

Officials at UT Martin’s Employment Information Office are fielding more and more phone calls from alumni, says Candace Goad, director of employment information.

“We’re getting a lot of calls from alumni who are coming back to us because of the economy,” Goad says. “Now we’ve got something that will help these people.”

From January through May 2009, almost 600 people registered for the EmployOn service at UT Knoxville. Nearly 11,000 job opportunities were viewed through the website, and 1,006 job postings were automatically e-mailed to users. Online resumes were automatically blasted out more than 1,100 times, according to data provided by UTK Career Services.

The expansion fits right into the UT Alumni Association’s system-wide mission, says Kerry Witcher, assistant vice-president. “We’ve partnered with Career Services in Knoxville over the years, but this is the first opportunity to work with all campuses, and we feel this is providing a great service to everyone,” particularly in the tough economy.

Job seekers can’t beat the convenience of using a computer versus having to come into the Career Services office at their alma mater, Coughenour says. “You could be applying for jobs at two a.m. if that’s what works for you.”

Every now and then you need to take a good look at yourself in the mirror. For the UT Alumni Association, that will happen this year with a yearlong review of its structure, operations, and programs.

The 173-year-old association represents more than 300,000 former students from all campuses in the statewide system, and the alumni roster is growing fast. It took the association 131 years to reach 100,000 members in 1967, but only another 24 years to reach 200,000. In 2007, just 16 years later, membership topped 300,000.

“Our plans are not only to talk to people who have been involved but to talk to a lot of people who have never been involved,” says Lofton Stuart, executive director of the UT Alumni Association. “We’ll find out why they haven’t been involved and what it would take to get them interested.”

Former association president Debbie Diddle, a strong proponent of the study, says the push began 3 years ago when the university system’s strategic plan was presented.

“We want to make sure we take a look at how we do things and whether we are doing everything that needs to be done,” she says. Diddle will co-chair the study group with Henry Nemcik, UT vice-president for development and alumni affairs.

Nemcik says the UT Alumni Association exists to serve all alumni and the study will help do that more effectively.

“One of my goals is to ensure that the alumni association is relevant in the lives of our alumni,” Nemcik says. “From recent graduates to retired graduates, alumni associations should offer engagement opportunities and continue to be meaningful throughout the life of our alumni.”

Stuart says four areas will be of special interest: the alumni board, programs, communications, and funding. The structure and size of the board need to be reviewed, and programs must be studied to determine which to keep and what new programs the association might offer.

Funding needs to be studied because the UT Alumni Association is one of the few large associations in the country still funded with state dollars, “just like the History Department,” Stuart says.

In the communications area, Stuart wants to know how alumni want to hear from their association. A key point will be to clear up the roles of the campuses and the system. “It’s becoming very confusing as to what’s a campus or a system function,” Diddle says. “You get so many mailings; you don’t know what’s what.”

Stuart says the environment in which the association operates has changed drastically since he started working for UT Alumni Affairs 34 years ago. Increasingly, other activities and events compete for members’ attention.

“We’ve never stopped long enough to really evaluate that and see what the needs are,” he says.

A consulting firm will assist with the study, developing objective surveys and questionnaires to eliminate bias. Focus groups and one-on-one interviews will be conducted throughout the state and the nation. Researchers will go to campuses to gather information.

“Whoever we ask to be a part of this is going to be essential to our getting the big picture—essential to our making sure we don’t assume something we think people think but haven’t told us,” Stuart says.

“We’re very intent on trying to obtain basic and correct information from the people we talk to so that the final report can reflect that.”

September 5 (Western Kentucky)
Master Class-less: BeaUTy and the Beats
Carroll Freeman, music

September 12 (UCLA)
Computational Ecology: Environmental Problem-solving for the 21st Century
Louis J. Gross, ecology and evolutionary biology, mathematics

September 26 (Ohio)
UT Digs Greece: New Light on the Bronze Age
Aleydis Van De Moortel, classics

October 3 (Auburn)
The Intersection of Substance Abuse and Intimate Partner Violence
Gregory L. Stuart, psychology

October 10 (Georgia)
Building a Biological Camera: 3D Snapshots of a Protein
Cynthia B. Peterson, biochemistry and cellular and molecular biology

October 31 (South Carolina)
All “Stars”: UT Actors Seek Fame and Fortune on Stage and Screen
Jed Diamond, theatre

November 7 (Memphis)
HOMECOMING
Germs and Geology: Emerging Issues in Waterborne Pathogen Research
Larry D. McKay, earth and planetary sciences

November 21 (Vanderbilt)
James Agee at One Hundred: A Centennial Celebration
Michael A. Lofaro, English

The silence was deafening at UT Knoxville’s Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity house in 1995. The fire marshal had closed the place down. The chapter was in a world of hurt. But fraternity alumni stepped up to find a solution, and at the front of the pack was Dan Brown, who went on to champion a fund raising campaign that resulted in a handsome new house for the Phi Sigs.

What motivated Bown to donate time and money and encourage others to do the same? He did it because friends and brothers asked him to, he says. And that’s the way he got involved in the UT Alumni Association: friends in the Williamson County (Tennessee) alumni chapter asked him to. Brown and the UTAA obviously were a fit, because he’s now the association’s national president.

He delights in the big, happy family that is the UT Alumni Association. “When you’re in a roomful of UT alumni, it doesn’t take two minutes until you’ve found a mutual acquaintance.”

Brown represents two distinct generations of UT graduates. He earned his degree in 1984, but he first enrolled at UT in 1962. Marriage and family interrupted his education, but he realized the value of a college degree and earned it the hard way—driving once a week from his home in middle Tennessee to Knoxville to complete a degree in business administration. Later he earned an MBA at Middle Tennessee State University, closer to his Brentwood home.

Brown put his business education to work with more than two decades at McBee Systems and, for the past 19 years, owning his own business, Two Point Inc. Two Point is a distribution company for forms and labels for the healthcare industry. Brown is 64 but says he has no desire to retire.

His business instincts tell him the UTAA is a going concern:

• More than 300,000 graduates and former students of all the UT campuses—Knoxville, Martin, Chattanooga, Health Science Center, and Space Institute
• Commitment by the UT administration
• A dedicated and effective staff
• A network of strong UT alumni chapters throughout the U.S.

The association is beginning a self study process, and Brown is enthusiastic about moving that forward. He also wants to help alumni become better informed about the state political process as it affects UT. And he wants to get more people involved—just like he did when friends asked him to.

Brown, a Kingsport, Tennessee, native, says people at UT influenced him profoundly during his student days. Transportation professor Frank Hendricks and Ira Sliger in military science were memorable mentors. But Brown gives his highest praise to Phi Sigma Kappa house mother Betty Edington. “She taught us etiquette and responsibility. When things got a little too rowdy, she added structure.” Edington, now deceased, taught him at least as much as any professor, he says.

The plentiful UT connections Brown has found with alumni are also at work in his own family. Wife Linda, an interior designer, attended UT, as did both the couple’s children, Scott and Ashley. Ashley worked for UT for several years and now is an executive at the Frist Museum in Nashville. A grandson, Matthew, is carrying on the family tradition at UT Knoxville.

Brown enjoys golf, fishing, UT sports, art, and music. But leisure time will be scarce this year as he crisscrosses the country on behalf of the UTAA. Even though he’s already found plentiful connections with and among UT alumni, he’s hardly seen the tip of the iceberg.

2009-2010 UTAA Leaders

Joining Dan Brown on the 2009-2010 leadership roster of the UT Alumni Association are:

• Mike Moss (Martin ’63, Knoxville ’70) of Cordova, Tennessee, president-elect
• Kim Cross (Knoxville ’85) of Marietta, Georgia, vice president
• Steve Kennedy (Knoxville ’97) of Lansdale, Pennsylvania, treasurer
• Ford Little (Knoxville ’86) of Knoxville, chair of annual giving

Kristin, who works for the UT Alumni Association, is a Knoxville campus grad (’08). But a sizable contingent of family and friends are UT Chattanooga alumni. Her mom, Kim Coffey, holds degrees from both UT Chattanooga and the UT Health Science Center in Memphis. Her dad, Daryle, is a UTC grad, and her grandmother Betty Whaley, who graduated when UTC was still the University of Chattanooga, is a former president of the UT Alumni Association. Kristin’s sister, Kendall, will graduate from UT Knoxville in December. Kristin’s aunt, Lori Barton, as well as Lori’s husband, Bret, and their son, Tyler, are all UT Chattanooga grads.

Now that Kristin works for the alumni association, which includes graduates of all the UT campuses, she finds it “incredibly cool” that her efforts support all the parts of the university that have been so important to her family.

Growing up, Kristin recalls going to alumni association Women’s Council meetings with her mother. She was given to understand early on that UT was the family university. “I considered going to some other schools and even visited a few, but they didn’t have the right feel,” she says.

With her lifelong UT loyalty, Kristin couldn’t be better suited to her job as a fundraiser. She works in the telefund office, supervising students who call alumni to solicit gifts to the university — the entire university, Kristin emphasizes, not just Knoxville.

“The students have to know a lot about UT and be at ease talking to alumni. They follow a script at first but if they’re good at it, they leave the script behind and have real conversations. We are a liaison between UT and the alumni.” She says the student callers don’t ask exclusively for monetary gifts. “Some alumni who can’t afford to give right now are happy to volunteer their time to the university.

“We’ve called several alumni recently who’ve said they would give except they’re unemployed right now in this economy. Our student callers have given them contact information for the UT’s career services offices. Lots of alumni don’t realize career services is for alumni too — not just students.”

Kristin hires the telefund callers, some 60 a semester, and educates them about UT. She’s there every evening (calls are made Monday through Thursday) to oversee the students and help out if they get questions they can’t answer.

The telefund recently ended its first ever million-dollar year. The program started in January 1985 and has raised more than $8 million in support of UT. Student callers have completed over 765,000 telephone calls.

Kristin was a sociology/criminal justice major and a member of UT Singers. She interned in the alumni office in summer 2007, learning some of the basics of alumni work. During summer 2008, she helped run UT Knoxville freshman orientation, a “grueling” job that taught her a lot.

“I learned to walk that fine line between being a friend and being a boss to the students,” she recalls. “That prepared me well for this job.”

Kim Coffey, Kristin’s mom, is a physical therapist in Chattanooga. She serves on the UTC alumni board and is a past president of the Hamilton County UT alumni chapter. She’s a former member of the executive committee of the UT Alumni Association Board of Governors and served on the UTAA Women’s Council. Her mother, Betty Whaley, was president of the UTAA in 1980, and at the time was just the second woman to hold the position. Her husband — and Kristin’s grandfather — U. Kay Whaley, is also a graduate of the former University of Chattanooga and a former president of the Hamilton County UT alumni chapter. It seems fair to say the family support of UT is unanimous.

Jada Williams, who manages the telefund, says Kristin adds a lot to the organization.

“She is the third generation of a family that has been involved with the UT Alumni Association on many different levels. Kristin’s understanding of university history and her knowledge of the various campus relationships make her a perfect fit,” Williams says. “Our program has definitely benefited from Kristin’s hard work. We’re hoping there are more family members in the pipeline!”

The Eastern District handles about half of the state’s intermediate appellate case load and covers 25 counties plus the city of St. Louis.

“I didn’t intend to pursue a career as a judge,” the 1978 UT Knoxville communications graduate explains. “I started working at a television station in Knoxville when I was a student at UT. After spending about 13 years as a broadcast journalist in Knoxville, Memphis, and St. Louis, I decided to go to law school.”

She graduated from St. Louis University School of Law and then went to work in Memphis as a judicial law clerk for federal Judge Odell Horton. Horton was the first African American federal judge appointed in Tennessee since Reconstruction.

Baker was born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, to parents who were educators. Her father was on the faculty at Tuskegee Institute until the family moved to Liberia as part of a U.S. Agency for International Development effort to establish teacher training schools.

Baker recalls living “in the bush”—nowhere close to the nation’s capital of Monrovia. “We went to Liberia when I was five,” she says. “My mother home schooled me for the five years we were there.” Back in the U.S., Baker lived in Alabama and Tennessee and graduated from Father Ryan High School in Nashville.

Her first job out of law school was as a defense lawyer with the St. Louis firm Lashly & Baer, P.C., and she later moved to Schlichter Bogard & Denton, also in St. Louis, where she represented railroad workers who had suffered on-the-job injuries.

Beginning in 1999, she served five years as a circuit judge in St. Louis before being appointed to the Court of Appeals. She has been nominated twice for the state Supreme Court and says she hopes to be considered again. She also might be interested in pursuing a federal judgeship.
 
While she’s been making a name for herself in the judicial world, Baker has maintained ties to her alma mater as treasurer of the UT Alumni Association. Recalling her student days, she says she had wonderful professors in the College of Communication and Information and particularly enjoyed Volunteer athletics. “When I was in school, we had a great basketball team with the Ernie and Bernie show” (UT basketball greats Ernie Grunfeld and Bernard King).

She got involved with the alumni association as the result of her passion for Vol athletics. She went to football game watching parties hosted by the St. Louis UT Alumni Chapter and eventually became president of the group. She’s been a member of the Alumni Association Board of Governors for eight years and still serves as treasurer of the St. Louis chapter. Her brother, John Baker, also is a UT grad.

Among her judicial colleagues, Baker is in the minority as an African American and a woman. But she doesn’t consider that a problem.

“I believe once you put the black robe on, lawyers give you a level of respect regardless of your race or gender.”

The caravan will wind its way through Tennessee and visit several out-of-state locations (see the schedule at left). The events are coordinated through the University of Tennessee Alumni Association chapter program and the Volunteer Athletics and Scholarship Fund.

The Coca-Cola Big Orange Caravan is an opportunity for donors, alumni, and fans to gain insight on last season’s successes and hear predictions for the season to come. Events feature Tennessee coaches Pat Summitt, Bruce Pearl, and Lane Kiffin; the “Voice of the Vols” Bob Kesling; and assistant coaches.

Be sure to go to the Coca-Cola Big Orange Caravan website to get all the information and any last-minute changes. Reservations must be received no later than 2 weeks before the event that you have chosen. Due to a limited number of spaces, registration for all events will be first-come, first-served.

If you have questions, call the alumni association office at 865-974-3011 or the VASF office at 865-974-1218. Additional information about UT Athletics is available at www.utsports.com, and information about the UT Alumni Association and the Big Orange Caravan can be found at alumni.tennessee.edu.

Coca Cola Big Orange Caravan 2009

• Cleveland, TN: April 20
• Atlanta: April 20
• Tullahoma, TN: April 21
• Chattanooga: April 21
• Cookeville, TN: April 27
• Brentwood, TN: April 27
• Camden, TN: April 28
• Dyersburg, TN: April 28
• Memphis: April 28
• Sevierville, TN: May 4
• Greeneville, TN: May 4
• Kingsport, TN: May 4
• Charlotte, NC: May 6
• Cincinnati May: 13
• Jacksonville, FL: May 18

Almost 175 years ago the UTAA began a tradition of service to the University of Tennessee and its graduates. Today the UTAA serves more than 300,000 former students who have passed through the halls of our campuses.

The UTAA is one of the few major alumni associations that do not require dues for membership. As a result, the UTAA relies on state resources to fund programs and operational expenses and uses private gifts to support such educational initiatives as the alumni scholarship program, faculty awards, and student internships.

But as the number of graduates has increased, the UTAA’s financial resources have failed to keep pace. “Unfortunately, we’ve had to cut programs based on the reduced amount of money coming in,” says UTAA executive director Lofton Stuart Jr. “We’ve been forced to reduce funding for scholarships and expenditures for program content, alumni communications, and events.”

To address the challenges facing the UTAA and to provide the resources needed to fulfill its mission of service, the association is reaching out to alumni and asking them to support the organization that represents them and their alma mater. “For the first time since we disbanded our dues program more than 40 years ago, we’re asking all alumni to make a gift designated specifically to the programs provided by the alumni association,” Stuart says. “This organization has a proud tradition, and we need private support to be able to communicate with and serve our ever-­growing alumni population.”

Beginning this spring, the UT Alumni Association unveils its new Fund for the Future as a gift option for the Annual Fund Campaign. Alumni who support the new fund can be sure their gifts will have wide-reaching impact. Funds generated will first and foremost support the UTAA Scholarship Program, which provides scholarships for students on all UT campuses. The Fund for the Future also will help underwrite such systemwide award programs as the Outstanding Teacher Awards and Distinguished Service Professorships.

“It is our hope that through this effort, we can expand and enhance the programs of the Alumni Association and in turn provide a higher level of meaningful service to our alumni and our campuses,” Stuart said.

Kino Becton

Kino Becton (Chattanooga ’03) is young as alumni volunteers go. But he has wisdom beyond his years when it comes to service and leadership.

Becton is president of the Hamilton County UT alumni chapter, where he’s transitioned into a leadership role made familiar by two terms as student government president at UT Chattanooga. The Memphis native says it’s important for recent graduates to support the university.

“We can only make the university stronger by showing young people it’s worth it. My experience at UTC was so great that I wanted to get involved early in the alumni association.”

Becton says it’s true that many alumni who are active in the UTAA are “more mature” than he is. But that doesn’t change his desire to give back.

“Giving doesn’t have to be money. Young people who don’t have a lot of money can give time to the university. We need to be involved in some way, such as mentoring students or helping with student recruitment.”

The Hamilton County chapter is active in many ways, but Becton says he thinks the best thing the chapter does is its annual honors dinner, where the county’s premier high-school juniors are encouraged to go to college in Tennessee.

“We don’t specifically say ‘you should go to UT,’ ” Becton says. Rather, the message focuses on keeping Tennessee’s best minds in Tennessee.

“We say, ‘You’re the best of the best, and the best place for you is here.’ ”

Becton is a staff assistant to U.S. Representative Zach Wamp in Chattanooga. He recently earned a master’s in criminal justice and plans a career in public service. He credits UTC for giving him a solid foundation.

“Everything I learned, I’m using every day.”

Marty Begalla

Marty Begalla got involved with the UT Alumni Association by serving on the organization’s Women’s Council. That’s where she got her start, but today her UTAA work has expanded beyond the council, which works to involve women and promote them for leadership positions.

Knoxvillian Begalla says the association is a great group of people. “Alumni work is one of the most enjoyable things I do.”

Begalla (Knoxville ’76) was an assistant dean of women at UT Knoxville in the 1970s. She went on to work with TVA and Baptist Health Systems before retiring 7 years ago. Retiring from full-time work gave her more time to devote to UT.

“Next to your family and your church, I think where you went to school has the strongest effect on your life,” she says. “UT prepared me for wonderful career opportunities, and I think it’s important for me to give back.”

Begalla serves on the UTAA executive committee and the new Strategic Planning Committee. She is a former chair of the Women’s Council and chaired the committee that selects the faculty members who receive the annual UTAA Outstanding Teacher Awards.

“These awards are for good classroom teaching. Anyone can nominate a faculty member, and then the committee narrows the nominees down to 10. The members of the committee do actual classroom observations to select the winner.”

Begalla says sitting in on UT Knoxville classes convinced her that the university has a great faculty and that the quality of students has increased tremendously.

“Observing the faculty and students is so inspiring. It really makes you want to give.”