Dennis McGowan, former chief of operations for the Fulton County [Georgia] Medical Examiner’s Office, rises to a podium, faces 40 or so members of the U.S. Department of Energy’s protective forces, and gives a rather unorthodox introduction to the course he’s about to teach.

“With any luck, you’ll serve out your entire careers and never have to deal with the stuff we’re going to cover over the next three days,” he says.

McGowan is deputy director of the National Mass Fatalities Institute (NMFI) of Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. NMFI’s course “Mass Fatalities Incident Response Planning” was created in 2002 to help mental-health workers, emergency responders, physicians, law enforcement personnel, funeral directors, clergy, coroners and medical examiners, and disaster-relief organizations deal with the aftermath of catastrophic events. Since 2002 the course has been offered nearly 30 times across the nation.

The University of Tennessee’s Institute for a Secure and Sustainable Environment (ISSE) co-sponsors the course offering.

McGowan and his colleagues are in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to instruct Department of Energy security personnel on the finer points of dealing with incidents that produce enough fatalities to overwhelm local emergency resources. Such incidents, despite the attendant frenzy, demand a thoughtful and methodical response to dealing with the dead and the families that survive them.

The Example of September 11

McGowan’s credibility is solid, even if his resume tends a bit toward the macabre. He was summoned to New York City in the days following the attacks of September 11, 2001. His skills were tapped previously after Egypt Air Flight 990—with 217 souls on board—plunged into the Atlantic 60 miles south of Nantucket Island in 1999.

“The goal of the program is to train a diverse group of professionals in the local community to perform specific tasks and help them develop their mass-fatalities plans,” says UT’s Sheila Webster, director of ISSE’s Innovation for Education and Environment Program. “At the end of the workshop, participants understand the special circumstances associated with a mass-fatalities incident.” In summer 2003 at UT, ISSE’s predecessor organization, UT’s Energy, Environment, and Resources Center, co-hosted one of the first of the mass-fatality workshops with NMFI.

NMFI was founded in 2000 with a congressional grant administered through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In a bit of dark irony, Douglas Feil, executive director of Kirkwood’s Environmental Health and Safety Training Programs, was discussing the grant on the phone with CDC personnel at the instant the first plane crashed into the World Trade Center in 2001.

The odds are good that McGowan’s audience members will, indeed, enter retirement without ever having to deal with a mass-fatality event. But should an incident occur, McGowan assures his audience, “you’ll face the ultimate chaos,” with scores of wounded scattered among the dead but with only a vague idea of what has happened and an even more tenuous grasp on why. With incidents involving terrorist acts, response personnel must also contend with the possibility that the initial event was only the beginning of a multipronged attack.

NMFI’s promotional materials feature the headline If Only You Knew It Was Coming. Though predicting the where and when of such events is nearly impossible, course participants are equipped with the training and tools they’ll need to respond quickly and appropriately.

“Within the planning and responder organizations, we strive for awareness of the need to prepare for and respond to a mass-fatality event with a cooperative mindset,” says Rex Short, manager of ISSE’s Environment, Safety, and Health Education Programs. “The fewer counterproductive walls and barriers, the more expediently and smoothly we can accomplish the hard work of recovery.”

Mass Fatalities Incident Response Planning

Short coordinates the Mass Fatalities Incident Response Planning course. A 10-module document on CD complements the instructors’ presentations and offers additional resources.

One of the course presenters, Warren Hamlin, supervisor of the Knox County [Tennessee] Police Department’s Forensics Unit, discusses law enforcement’s approach to managing a crime scene and the complications that can arise when local, state, and federal agencies converge on the scene in the tense moments following an event.

“Law enforcement’s primary mission is to identify victims and perpetrators and to protect evidence,” Hamlin says. “But it may take a while for law enforcement to arrive, so those first on the scene need to help make sure no one tramples on evidence.”

As law enforcement personnel work the crime scene, others begin the process of establishing temporary morgues and locating and identifying decedents. In many cases, identifying remains poses a difficult task.

“In some instances, the incident destroys every trace of an individual,” McGowan says. “In other cases, the only remains of an individual are needed for DNA testing, leaving the family with nothing to bury.”

Day two of the course begins with an elaborate training exercise. Three men in protective suits move methodically around a mangled black SUV, a casualty of a roadside improvised explosive device (IED). A partially dismembered body [a mannequin]—one of several involved in the incident—spills from one of the doors of the disabled vehicle. Severed body parts—hands, legs, and feet—litter the roadside. The men chart the locations of the ersatz human remains and photograph the scene, gathering evidence.

What if . . .?

In essence, the mass-fatalities course trains participants to respond to a welter of questions that begin with “What if . . . ?”

What if these remains were real flesh and blood, instead of molded plastic? What if a roadside IED had actually detonated here in the Tennessee countryside? What if the community’s emergency-response resources were stretched well beyond the breaking point? What if the incident was but the first event in a chain of related attacks? What if the protective armor, shielding radioactive materials, had been breached, spreading contamination throughout the scene and leaving victims dead and radiologically hot?

NMFI was founded on the belief that exploring the cascade of “what if?” questions is essential for contending with those cataclysmic events that defy comprehension but nonetheless have happened—and will happen again.

Consider, for instance, that Oklahoma City was a vastly different community on April 18, 1995, from what it became at 2 minutes after 9 a.m. on April 19, when Timothy McVeigh’s rented Ryder truck detonated in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Building.

At 8:45 a.m. on September 11, 2001, workers in the North Tower of the World Trade Center went about their daily routies, unaware that within a minute, American Airlines flight 11 would plow into their building, triggering a scale of destruction and chaos never before witnessed on American soil.

Likewise, on August 28, 2005, residents of New Orleans and other cities dotting the southern coast of the U.S. braced for the arrival of Hurricane Katrina, but few anticipated that the category-5 hurricane and resultant storm surge would leave some 1,800 of them dead.

On those respective dates, the Murrah Building, the World Trade Center, and New Orleans joined a relatively short—but profoundly affecting—list of American mass-fatality sites, which includes Waco, Virginia Tech, and Columbine, along with a number of deadly plane crashes.

In all these cases, emergency response personnel first focused their attention on assisting survivors, but once the injured had been treated and removed from the scene, responders faced the even more daunting task of contending with the dead—80 persons in the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, 168 in Oklahoma City, and 2,752 at the World Trade Center. Cause of death for the World Trade Center victims is officially listed as homicide. The number does not include the 10 hijackers who died in the incident, who are listed as suicides.

After the Twin Towers collapsed in New York City it became evident that local hospitals would not be overwhelmed by incoming patients. In fact, few victims survived. The event did, however, strain the ability of responders to recover and handle the remains of the victims. On top of the huge emotional impact of the devastation, Ground Zero was a crime scene, and human remains were considered evidence.

While the focus of a mass-fatality response is on the dead, McGowan makes it clear that the effort is undertaken essentially “for the living.”

One component of the NMFI workshop is designed to help responders deal sensitively and respectfully with victims’ remains, survivors, and family members amidst potentially chaotic situations.

Jim Coyle, a trained counselor and founding member of the Department of Homeland Security response teams, and Lisa LaDue, NMFI co-founder and skilled clinical social and mental-health worker, explore the emotional challenges that confront responding personnel as well as the families of the victims.

“Okay, you all are dead,” says Coyle, addressing the DOE participants. “Think about the people who love you, how they’re responding to your death, and how you would want them to be treated.”

Coyle continues the hypothetical. “Let’s imagine a scenario with four hundred fatalities,” he says. “For each fatality, ten family members will show up at the scene, and fifteen more will make contact via the phone.”

In many cases, these bereaved family members must be housed, fed, counseled, and kept informed of developments in the recovery effort, for example, the longer-term efforts to identify the remains, often through dental records, fingerprints, and DNA testing.

According to McGowan, the cost of DNA testing for the World Trade Center victims reached $20 million fairly early in the operation. Collection of remains continued actively for more than 10 months and is still an open process.

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David Brill is managing editor for the UT Institute for a Secure and Sustainable Environment in Knoxville. For more information, contact Rex Short, ISSE, 865-924-1619, or e-mail rashort@utk.edu.

Jan Simek: The University of Tennessee has been very productive during the last decade. We have built relationships with key partners, including the state legislature and the governor, and have become a managing partner of Oak Ridge National Laboratory. We have produced statewide initiatives with real potential for economic impact, but we’ve also cultivated a new faculty and a new student body.

We are a much better university than we were a decade ago. We have the best faculty and students we’ve ever had. We are doing things at a level that we have never been able to do before.

While it’s important for the state’s land-grant university to be an economic engine, the university more directly affects economic growth by creating a cultural and contextual engine for the state, creating an environment in which business can prosper.

It does that by training a highly qualified work force and improving the standard of living—not just in the jobs available and the money people make from those jobs, but in the music they hear when they go to the symphony, the artwork they see in museums, and in architecture and the theater.

The university creates the landscape in which business operates. The best businesses today want creative and productive landscapes for their people because they know their workforce will be more likely to stay with them and be more productive if they and their families are in a dynamic environment. A university is pivotal to that.

The University of Tennessee does that very, very well. We have one of the best theater programs on a U.S. campus at the Clarence Brown Theatre in Knoxville. The music program at UT Martin, with its young, talented faculty provides a cultural milieu that a town like Martin wouldn’t have otherwise.

In Memphis, the UT Health Science Center is developing wellness programs for the community and providing basic healthcare. UT Chattanooga is deeply involved in community affairs—with art programs, for example, and with the architecture and design of the community.

So the university is not just about the economy but also about the environment.

Alumnus: How has UT managed its successes?

Simek: The university’s recent successes are part of the success we’ve had all along, such as the agricultural extension program, and the College of Education at UT Knoxville—the depth of its penetration into the education community in Tennessee is huge. UT’s current initiatives, such as our pursuit of alternative energy sources, are today’s versions of what this university has been doing all along.

Why energy [as a UT research priority]? Quite frankly, because I think our governor and legislature have been visionary. Energy is the problem of our country today and into the future.

The university is engaged because we recognize that basic research and the understanding to address that fundamental problem are central to the survival of our economic system. Our legislature and governor also realize that. That’s what land-grant universities do—educate people and work on society’s fundamental problems.

Alumnus: How did UT get where it is today?

Simek: I think lottery scholarships had a lot to do with getting better students. To be quite honest, the evolution of American education contributed to our ability to attract great faculty prospects. We have an advantage—and have always had, in our ability to attract good faculty—in the place we live. The standard of living is very high compared with some other university communities.

We can offer a lifestyle to our faculty that is really attractive, and we’ve used it, frankly. As a department head and a dean, I used it all the time to attract the best people.

Alumnus: How did the convergence of so many competitive resources and large-scale initiatives come about?

Simek: The faculty was already improving. By the whole nature of the academic world, there are more and more Ph.D.’s because there are more institutions granting them, so you have a better selection, and you can get better people. All of the best chemists don’t go to the Princeton faculty anymore. Because Princeton doesn’t have enough places for all the good chemists, we get some of them.

Student quality began to improve because of the faculty that was in place when the first lottery scholarship students enrolled. These really good students realized they were getting as good an education as they might have gotten if they’d gone off to another school, which is what many of the better students did in the past.

Now the university’s reputation is attracting more good students and faculty. We had that excellent core faculty, and now because the students are good, we are getting better faculty recruits. It’s a snowball effect.

This snowball started ten or fifteen years ago. As we’ve attracted more and more distinguished faculty members, the university’s reputation has risen and we have a better shot at things like National Science Foundation grants.

Alumnus: Does the UT–Oak Ridge partnership mark a significant point?

Simek: Yes, but bear in mind, the collaboration with Oak Ridge—while it’s really important—is only a piece of what a comprehensive university does. It had a profound impact on certain segments, but we have had longstanding collaborations with Oak Ridge, including careers that resulted in national academy memberships, before we became a managing partner of ORNL.

This has always been a good university. As time has gone on, we have built more visibility. It’s not something that happens overnight.

Today we’re considered for programs and possibilities by agencies like the Department of Energy, like the National Science Foundation, that we may not have been considered for before. Reputation is important, and we’ve been building a reputation for a couple of decades.

Alumnus: Will the university develop new Ph.D. programs with ORNL?

Simek: We’re working to develop some joint programs. A closer educational relationship would benefit both institutions. We already have one interdisciplinary degree program within the UT–ORNL Joint Institute for Biological Sciences. More possible programs include a Ph.D. in the Joint Institute for Computational Sciences that might be focused on climate change, and we may do one in the Joint Institute for Materials Sciences. I think we’re very close to having a joint program in neutron science.

Alumnus: What are the benefits and challenges of this?

Simek: The benefits are that we can attract very high quality students interested in the opportunity to work with the wonderful facilities and staff of the national laboratory as well as the faculty here.

Our faculty is already engaged, so these joint Ph.D. programs would give them more opportunities to undertake the research they’re interested in. It’s what they came here to do, in many cases. It’s fulfilling the promise that we made to our younger faculty members when we brought them here.

It gives the lab the ability to interact with some powerful scientific minds at the university.

The lab has an aging workforce. So they will, in the next five to ten years, be looking for a highly trained scientific staff that can replace those that are there now. It’s an obvious step for us to collectively train those people. The lab, the federal government, the Department of Energy, and the state of Tennessee have invested a tremendous amount in the facilities. They must be productively used.

I think it helps both entities in their reputation. It helps the national lab by bringing an academic component to what they do. And for the university, it makes use of remarkable scientific capabilities to address fundamental scientific issues. Many of these issues ultimately will be solved by the development of new materials and structures, and this partnership provides the brain power and the instrumentation for that development.

Alumnus: What kind of opportunities does the best student body create? What does it do to change the university?

Simek: As a teacher, I can tell you that when your students are better prepared and more engaged, you can do more, go farther. The day-to-day activity in the classroom is stronger, and that is exciting for faculty members. It gets them energized. And it pushes students to levels they might not otherwise attain. It raises the bar for everybody. You can feel it in the classroom. It’s a different place than it was five years ago.

Alumnus: What will be the relationship between UT Knoxville and Cherokee Farm?

Simek: I think Cherokee Farm will be a center for scientific development and innovation. There will be partnerships among private enterprise, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and the university. It’s not going to be a factory or an industrial park. It’s going to be a place where people think problems through and find solutions. The UT Knoxville campus will be deeply ingrained in that. That’s part of its land-grant mission.

Alumnus: When there’s discussion of achieving top-twenty national standing, what effect do visionary projects like those that are supposed to come out of Cherokee Farm have?

Simek: A project like that won’t do it, except insofar as it generates research dollars. What really matters in terms of moving up in standing is to be a comprehensive university of very high quality in all aspects—to have great students and a great faculty publishing at a high rate and being competitive across the board. Big projects help, but they can’t do it alone.

Alumnus: If UT is aspiring to be best, for the trajectory to continue upward, what about those who argue that the state may not be able to afford that kind of university, that perhaps we should simply be more practical?

Simek: That is practical. The economic realities of the world in which we live demand quality in a land-grant university. High-paying jobs will not come to a state that doesn’t have that.

One of the most successful states in terms of high-paying job generation is California—by a long shot. Why? Because the University of California system has five of the top ten public higher education institutions in the United States. Florida has done very well because it has great universities. North Carolina and Virginia have extraordinary land-grant institutions. [Other states] struggle.

States that do well economically do well because there is a university that provides the landscape and the context for productivity, for innovation. It teaches the young people of those great companies, teaches the children of the staff. They want their children to go to a good school, and they’d rather not have to send them off to Princeton because it’s really expensive. Texas, Arizona, California, Illinois, Ohio—every place where there’s economic strength has great public universities.

Alumnus: How do we keep this momentum going?

Simek: These are tough economic times, but as long as we thoughtfully approach problems and deal with them to position ourselves for the future, we’ll be fine, because the trajectory is on a steep upward climb and has been for years. It would take a lot more than a budget [obstacle] to turn that around.

We’ve been through budget downturns before. It’s a cycle. We’ll come out of it.

Interviewer Gina Stafford (Knoxville ’07) is UT assistant vice-president and director of communications.

As the economy changes, service organizations are looking for the best ways to assist the growing number of citizens who need help. Alumni and students of UT Chattanooga are working creatively to ease the burden of individuals and families.

Michael Cranford

B.A. in sociology and human services; president, Boys & Girls Clubs of Chattanooga

The Boys & Girls Clubs of Chattanooga is an after-school youth development organization that annually serves more than 3,000 children between the ages of 6 and 18. Michael Cranford is responsible for the finances, program, personnel, facilities, and resource development of the organization, while also ensuring the children’s safety at four locations.

“I started working at the Boys & Girls Clubs of Chattanooga part time as a college work-study student, and it has been a job that has helped to fulfill that interest of working with and helping others,” Cranford says.

As the number of children attending the clubs grows, Cranford spends a lot of time working with board members and raising money for the organization. “It’s a tremendous competition to raise funds for the many different not-for-profit causes in our community,” Cranford says. “Increasingly it’s about expanding your name and mission, building a donor base of friends, securing grants, and having effective collaborations to make the clubs meet the needs of the children we serve.

“I believe this is not just a job but a mission in life. Creating opportunities for children has been a very rewarding experience.”

Cynthia J. Wallace

B.S. in psychology; director, UTC Educational Opportunity Center

The UT Chattanooga Equal Opportunity Center is an outreach program serving eight counties surrounding Chattanooga. As many as a thousand low-income adults are recruited annually and assisted with college access.

A U.S. Department of Education grant funds the program. Cynthia Wallace says it costs $263 per student to help an adult climb out of poverty with education. “We save the state, federal, and local governments a lot of money. Welfare checks, public housing, food stamps, and public assistance are unnecessary with education and a meaningful and rewarding career. The cycle of poverty changes forever—the children of our students attend college after their parents achieve their degree.

“I am the first in my family to graduate from college. I earned my degree as an adult while juggling work, family, and household demands. It’s very rewarding for me to help others change their lives by completing the education needed to obtain the career of their dreams.”

In the past, the center has been challenged to persuade adults that college is worthwhile. No more, Wallace says. “Due to our dire economy, we no longer need to convince. Many come to us for help after losing their job. We have been doing this work for eleven years and never have we seen so many desperate people who need our assistance.”

Zachary Schmidt

UTC senior; director, Salvation Army School of Music and Arts

The Salvation Army School of Music and Arts provides youth from the Chattanooga area an opportunity to study music, regardless of their socioeconomic situation. The program provides instruction on brass and percussion instruments, where students learn to work together cooperatively in a band and choir. It also gives each student the opportunity to focus on other curricula in the arts, such as ballet, visual art, piano, and percussion and guitar ensembles.

Zachary Schmidt’s work complements his double major in music education and trumpet performance. He is also a trumpet instructor for the Cadek Conservatory of Music and a cornet player in the Jericho Brass Band. He plans to graduate in 2010 and further his education.

“I want to allow students to experience music outside the traditional school setting,” he says. “I also have the desire to provide students with the chance to build lasting and growing relationships with one another.

“With the unpredictable and changing economy, I see the Salvation Army having to provide scholarships to some students’ families in order for them to participate,” Schmidt says.

“Enrollment is on the rise due to the program’s affordability, and this makes the program more desirable and appealing.”

LaDonna Guffey

B.S. in social work; case manager, Supplemental Assistance for Facilities to Assist the Homeless, a Housing and Urban Development Program that works through the Chattanooga Community Kitchen

The Chattanooga Community Kitchen provides food and clothing for the homeless and provides access to other area agencies with a new Day Center.

LaDonna Guffey helps homeless women and children who have been victims of domestic violence, securing rent for the first month and providing support with life-skills classes, home visits, and transportation.

The kitchen has seen an increase in families needing assistance with electric bills, gasoline to drive to work, and rent payments, Guffey says. More families are becoming homeless through foreclosure.

“With the increase in those seeking assistance, we’ve become more diligent about avoiding duplication of services, so that more individuals have access to services,” Guffey says. “Our program helps families with budgeting and money management skills and connects them to other agencies that offer services.

“I love my job and feel that I am privileged to be working with these families. I have found, even when working in the private sector, that individuals and families have great difficulty achieving their goals if their basic needs are not met.”

Clare Sawyer

B.S. in sociology, M.S. in public administration; president and CEO, Chattanooga Area Food Bank

The Chattanooga Area Food Bank is a nonprofit organization that solicits, warehouses, and distributes donated food to those in need. Nearly 400 nonprofit social service organizations and churches help the Food Bank, which last year distributed 8.6 million pounds of food.

The Food Bank has the ability and the structure to be responsive to community needs, Clare Sawyer says. “The board is very concerned with good stewardship and the staff very committed to service. I truly enjoy working in the nonprofit realm. My role is to manage our mission, articulate our goals, and plan for the future. No two days are ever the same or without challenge.”

Economic changes affect the organization in several ways, according to Sawyer.

“Competition for donor dollars is stiff. Service nonprofits seem to be faring better than arts or education groups, for example. In our case, where we depend heavily upon the food industry for support, the usual sources have declined somewhat. But community support, in the way of food drives, has grown. We are constantly trying to spread the word of our need,” Sawyer says.

Over its more than 200-year history, the University of Tennessee has seen its share of turning points—times that marked transitions to new eras of progress and higher standing among its peers. Now just may be one of those times.

“The University of Tennessee is the best it has ever been. We’re doing education better than we have ever done it,” UT’s interim president Jan Simek says. Simek has observed the university as professor and administrator since 1984. “We have better students and a better faculty.

“The product is better prepared for today’s world in terms of understanding innovation and understanding in depth what the problems and issues and prospects are. We’re more powerful than we’ve ever been.”

What propelled the university to this place? Tennessee Education Lottery scholarships, a determination to recruit top faculty prospects, a shared vision for launching initiatives of unprecedented scope and impact, the UT–Oak Ridge partnership, and like-minded state leadership are just a few of the influential factors cited by Simek and other leaders.

“You cannot underestimate the value of the leadership at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the university, and the state government all being on the same page, with the same vision, the same aspirations for this state and this university,” says UTexecutive vice-president David Millhorn.

Millhorn says Governor Phil Bredesen understands the roles of the university and the national lab and “understands that together they’re pretty formidable.”

UT Knoxville’s chancellor Jimmy Cheek says the faculty has much to do with UT’s standing. “Our faculty is committed to research, committed to outreach, and committed to graduate education,” Cheek says. “But they have a uniform commitment to undergraduate education, and that’s a real positive for a university like this.”

Across the state, UT campuses are teeming with the most highly qualified students in the university’s history. In 2008 the average ACT scores of incoming freshmen at UT Knoxville, UT Chattanooga, and UT Martin were the highest of the previous decade. At UT Knoxville, the high-school grade-point averages of incoming freshmen increased every year from 2001 through 2008.

Acknowledging the role of lottery scholarships in keeping Tennessee’s best students in state, Simek argues that the university’s quality has now become UT’s draw. Students are telling their brothers, sisters, and friends about what UT offers, he says.

“We’re at a place where our reputation is doing it. We had good faculty already, and now because the students are good, we’re getting better faculty. You can feel it in the classroom,” Simek says. It’s a different place than it was five years ago.”

The UT faculty is challenging those bright minds, pushing the classroom experience into new realms. The result is an increasingly better-educated Tennessee population—UT produces about 9,000 graduates annually—that promises lasting impact statewide and beyond.

Kraken, UT’s Supercomputer

Faculty members and researchers also are pursuing real-world solutions using such world-class resources as UT’s supercomputer, Kraken. Kraken was declared the world’s fastest university-managed supercomputer and sixth-fastest overall in the most recent Top 500 list, the global standard for ranking supercomputers. Kraken resulted from UT’s winning a $65 million National Science Foundation grant in 2007—then the largest research grant to UT in history. The supercomputer represents the fruit of a vision shared by Bredesen and the leadership of both the university and ORNL.

During his first term as governor, Bredesen began supporting funding for a series of joint institutes to be operated by UT and ORNL, for nanophase materials, biological sciences, computational sciences, and advanced materials. The expanded partnerships andjoint institutes helped UT and ORNL pursue bigger, more significant projects.

The Kraken supercomputer and the Tennessee Biofuels Initiative are two examples of how UT and ORNL competed—and won—because they did so as partners, says ORNL’s director Thom Mason. For instance, the supercomputing grant probably could not have been awarded to the national lab because NSF primarily funds academic research activities, Mason said.

“On the other hand, it would have been very hard for UT by itself to win that proposal because the infrastructure requirements, the technological expertise—a lot of the capabilities—draw on the resources here at the lab,” Mason says. “Together we make a great team.”

Tennessee Biofuels Innitiative

In 2007, Bredesen requested and the Tennessee legislature appropriated $70.5 million for the Tennessee Biofuels Initiative, a farm-to-fuel project to develop a commercially viable nonfoods biofuels industry. Private partner DuPont Danisco contributed matching funds, and a pilot-scale biorefinery in Vonore is expected to begin pumping out cellulosic ethanol by the end of 2009.

Complementing the Biofuels Initiative, the Ag Extension Service, through UT’s Institute of Agriculture, has developed a switchgrass-growing program to provide feedstock for the biorefinery. “That’s something only the state land-grant institution has the ability to do,” Mason notes.

There’s confidence that major investments like these will bring about tangible results. “I can assure you that in the next ten years the university and Oak Ridge will be able to transform what happens in fields such as solar materials,” says Thomas Zacharia, deputy director of science and technology at ORNL and former vice-president at UT.

Bringing Business and Innovation to Tennessee

DuPont Danisco is among an impressive group of companies making new or additional significant investments in Tennessee. Others include Nissan, Hemlock Semiconductor, Wacker Chemie AG, and Volkswagen.

UT played a part in helping to attract Volkswagen to the state, according to Millhorn and Zacharia. “As the university becomes even more of a research organization, even more of a top-tier university, it will have an even greater role in attracting major companies to Tennessee,” Zacharia says.

UT and ORNL are capitalizing on their partnership at a time when world events have turned the collective attention toward science and energy—an agenda the UT–Oak Ridge partnership is ideally suited to pursue. Bredesen indicated his backing by proposing the $31.5-million Tennessee Solar Institute be housed at UT’s new Cherokee Farm campus.

Located adjacent to UT’s flagship campus in Knoxville, Cherokee Farm will be home to private and public partners, including ORNL, tackling research in materials sciences, biomedical sciences, supercomputing, climate and environment, and renewable energy.

“The governor trusts us. He’s seen what we’ve done with biofuels,” Millhorn says. “He’s seen what we’ve done with Oak Ridge. He’s seen what we’ve done with Cherokee Farm, seen progress being made, and now when the solar thing comes up, guess who he calls first? Us.”

Dr. Joe DiPietro, UT vice-president of agriculture, credits a collaborative effort by the university and ORNL, with key support from the governor’s office, with making the $70.5-million biofuels initiative happen. “It was the circumstance of having the right group of people who pushed very hard and worked very hard. The team exuded a great deal of confidence about the ability to deliver,” DiPietro says.

Millhorn agrees that the can-do attitude makes a difference. “It’s part of this ongoing change in the view that the university is not just an East Tennessee enterprise, it’s not just a state of Tennessee enterprise. It’s a Southeastern enterprise, and in many ways, it’s national.”

Millhorn says the new attitude has UT going after bigger prizes. “We’ll compete with anybody. We don’t back away because somebody says, ‘Oh well, MIT is in this.’ Bring ’em on,” Millhorn says. “It’s just like football. There’s no difference. It’s all competition. You can go in there either to place or to win. We compete.”

As a university partnering with a national lab, UT is already among an elite group. The other U.S. universities with relationships with national laboratories are the University of California—Berkeley, University of Chicago, Stony Brook University, and Stanford University.

“That’s pretty heavy company,” Zacharia says. “My experience with UT is it has a great cadre of faculty and administrators that are striving to transform the university into a major research institution.”
Zacharia predicts that combining new effort with competitive resources will enable UT to generate its own success. “The best people are attracted to the best program, and the best people create the best program.”

When both the best students and faculty members are attracted to the university, where they are equipped with world-renowned resources, they can find themselves on the cutting edge of science. And these accomplishments can profoundly impact the state.

“The value proposition is these students are trained in new interdisciplinary areas,” Zacharia says. “Because of the fact they are in-state, they are likely to stay here and be entrepreneurs and create new jobs, or maybe a new company will transfer here because there’s an educated workforce trained here.”

“The Silicon Valley Model”

Speaking from his experience in the Knoxville area, Knoxville Chamber of Commerce CEO Mike Edwards says business site consultants who help companies find new locations are noticing the area’s educated populace and potential for job growth.

“It’s not our impression. The site consultants are telling us this. They’re bringing us companies that we would not otherwise see,” Edwards says.

Mason calls it “the Silicon Valley model.” “The investment of federal dollars is coming to Tennessee. Jobs are created in Tennessee. The intellectual property associated with them is generated in Tennessee, and therefore the economic benefit that will flow from that research will land in Tennessee.”

Contact between researchers and entrepreneurs benefits the area as well, he says.

How is the momentum sustained? Administrators of the UT system, of UT Knoxville, and of ORNL have begun discussing an educational component to the UT–Oak Ridge partnership. Discussions center on graduate programs in fields like climate change that would take advantage of the resources of the UT–Oak Ridge partnership.

“Imagine having graduate students trained by ORNL and UT. Imagine the impact on the reputation of the university with students going to the best companies,” Zacharia says.

Through the efforts of its leaders and its partners, the University of Tennessee will continue to stand apart from its peers. “The status quo is not acceptable,” Cheek says. “In five years, this will be a better university than it is today.”

UT Students: Best Ever

Average ACT test scores and high-school grade-point averages of incoming freshmen increased steadily at the Knoxville, Chattanooga, and Martin campuses in the last decade.

UT Knoxville
High-school GPA: 3.34 (1999) : 3.66 (2008)
ACT: 23.8 (1999) : 26.6 (2008)

UT Chattanooga
High-school GPA: 3.20 (1999) : 3.22 (2008)
ACT: 21.9 (1999) : 22.4 (2008)

UT Martin
High-school GPA: 3.15 (1999) : 3.38 (2008)
ACT: 21.1 (1999) : 22.4 (2008)

Cherokee Farm at a Glance

• UT Board of Trustees approved the master plan in June 2009
• UT will collaborate with public and private partners on a variety of interdisciplinary science initiatives
• 77 developable acres along the Tennessee River in Knoxville
• 15 research buildings, 4,000 parking spaces
• $32 million in state 2007 appropriations for infrastructure construction
• First building will be the UT–Oak Ridge Joint Institute for Advanced Materials (JIAM), built with $30 million in federal and state funds
• JIAM will house the $31.5 million Tennessee Solar Institute
• Building design standards recommend LEED-Certified Silver energy efficiency
• Pedestrian- and bike-friendly pathways and greenways
• Vegetative, or “living,” roofs, solar panels, and geothermal systems expected

For more information: www.tennessee.edu/cherokee

Enrollment 2007/2008 Comparisons

Knoxville: 27,077 (2007) : 27,544 (2008)
Space Institute: 231 (2007) : 225 (2008)
Health Science Center: 2,655 (2007) : 2,671 (2008)
Chattanooga: 9,557 (2007) : 9,807 (2008)
Martin: 7,171 (2007) : 7,574 (2008)
Total: 46,691 (2007) : 47,821 (2008)
Source: UT System Fact Book

Alumni Living in Tennessee

Chattanooga: 26,936
Health Science Center: 15,992
Knoxville: 104,864
Martin: 23,533
Total: 171,325
Source: University of Tennessee ANDi Reporting

Tennessee Biofuels Initiative, 2009

• 38 farmers will grow more than 1,900 acres of switchgrass in 2009 as part of the farmer incentive program
• 2 of the 38 farmers took part in the program in 2008 and are adding acreage
• Total acreage enrolled over the last 2 years exceeds 2,600 acres
• The pilot-scale biorefinery in Vonore, Tennessee, is expected to produce cellulosic ethanol by the end of 2009

Sprawled on the floor, studying pictures of mummies while other children splashed in the pool, Jan Simek discovered his life’s goal. “I’ve never wanted to be anything other than an archaeologist,” he says, recalling his childhood in California. He achieved that career dream, and he’s done a lot more.

A Distinguished Professor of Anthropology in Knoxville, Simek has been internationally honored for his work in human evolution and cave archaeology, stemming from his more than 20 years of research in southern France. And since coming to Tennessee in 1984, he has become the go-to expert on prehistoric cave art in the U.S. Southeast.

But Simek was plucked from the classroom and his research in dark caves several years ago to take on what has become a series of administrative positions within the university, several of them on a temporary basis. (He’s had so many interim titles, he jokes that interim is actually his middle name.)

Now, Simek is UT’s interim president for the next 2 years—during one of the most difficult economic periods in recent decades. When the 2-year stint is over, he says, he’s going back to his caves.

Facing Challenges

When Simek was introduced as the acting president to succeed John Petersen in February, the university was planning for a cut of $66 million from its state appropriations, but it later got a temporary reprieve. The state is offsetting the shortfall with one-time federal stimulus money over the next 2 years. After that, the university will again face large budget cuts.

Besides dealing with harsh budget times and a pending search for a new president, Simek has been charged by the Board of Trustees with leading a reorganization of the UT system administration. The reorganization better defines the functions the system performs as opposed to those to be performed by the campuses and will lead to streamlining and cost savings. Outside UT, Simek is part of an ongoing state-level discussion about higher education in Tennessee, and he is making sure that whatever steps are taken, the university maintains its high quality.

Simek is facing all this with realism and optimism, making student welfare his top priority. “We will strive in all of our endeavors through these difficult times to focus on the students. We will focus on the resources they need to pursue their dreams,” he says.

Simek wants to see the university through the hard times and have it in good shape for the next president. And maybe it’s not a bad thing to have an interim like him at this particular time. “I believe [the interim president] needs to be somebody with institutional memory and affection and connection who’s grounded in the university to get through this,” he says. “It’s one of reasons I was willing to do it.”

Simek’s passion for UT after 25 years has not waned but grown.

“I will do my very best in these two years to keep the University of Tennessee on the upward trajectory we have been on and to protect its core values,” he says. “I am motivated in this simply by a deep and abiding love for the university. I have been in Knoxville for 25 years, and I love it here.”

A Lifetime Love of Learning

Simek was born in Glen Cove on New York’s Long Island, but he grew up in California. His family lived in Santa Monica, where his grandfather was a composer. As a child, Simek got to meet stars like John Wayne and Bob Hope.

He remembers visiting a friend of his grandparents who lived in the San Fernando Valley. Orange groves blanketed the area then, and the lovely aroma of orange blossoms in the spring often mixed with the less-delightful tarry smell of oil burning in smudge pots in the groves to keep frost at bay. At the woman’s Spanish-style hacienda, Simek was drawn to her library and her wonderful books.

“Everybody would be out in the pool, and I’d be looking at pictures of mummies,” Simek recalls. “I knew then I wanted to be an archaeologist.”

It was a dream he followed through high school and college, eventually narrowing his focus to caves and the drawings left behind by early modern humans.

After completing a bachelor’s degree in anthropology at the University of California—Santa Cruz, Simek was introduced to well-known archaeologist Jean-Philippe Rigaud and went to work with him in the Dordogne region in France. The area is a gold mine for the evidence of hundreds of thousands of years of human civilization.

Simek will tell anybody Tennessee was not his dream destination. He finished a master’s and a doctorate in anthropology at the State University of New York—Binghamton and then went to the University of Washington to teach. Perhaps as a hint of things to come, Simek’s title was “acting assistant professor.”

A permanent job at Washington didn’t materialize, and Simek was offered positions in California and at UT. A friend at the University of Washington who came originally from West Virginia encouraged Simek to give UT a chance. “He said this to me: ‘You’ll love it,’” Simek recalls. “He was right.”

Despite his increasingly time-consuming roles as interim chancellor of UT Knoxville and now interim president of the statewide university, Simek still finds time to lecture about cave art, mentor his graduate students, and even crawl down a cave or two.

But working in caves didn’t blind him to what else he could do for UT. “We are going to get better. That’s the goal. The people of Tennessee deserve a great university. The students who come here deserve a great university. The teaching faculty deserves a great university,” he says. “I have been given opportunities to help that.”

Top Photo by Alan Cressler

Thirty years ago Afghanistan was a leading agricultural exporter. Agriculture accounted for nearly 80 percent of its economy. That was before the Soviet invasion, though, and the Taliban’s ongoing fight for control, both of which have taken their toll on the country’s farming capabilities, along with all other aspects of the nation’s infrastructure.

Today three University of Tennessee alumni are helping to overcome those losses and allow the Afghanistan economy to thrive once again. The alumni are part of a   National Guard Afghan Agribusiness Development Team (ADT). The team, part of the Guard’s Afghan Agribusiness Institute, was started last year to capitalize on the farming knowledge that many Guard soldiers have from their civilian jobs.

Tennessee is one of only a few states chosen to participate in the program, according to unit commander Colonel Jim Moore (Knoxville ’81). To prepare for their mission, Moore and unit members were trained by UT Extension on how to work with farmers in another country to improve agricultural productivity. Methods of conducting rapid agricultural assessments were emphasized, as were such Afghan cultural topics as land ownership patterns, irrigation water control, and the role of religion. Fruit-tree and vineyard pruning and management were also demonstrated.

With the workshops behind them, Moore, Staff Sergeant Roger Broach (Martin ’82, ’86), Staff Sergeant Donald Novotny (Martin ’95), and other members of the agribusiness team arrived in Afghanistan in March. Their unit is on a 1-year deployment serving the Paktya and Paktyka provinces in eastern Afghanistan.

Broach is one of 15 agricultural experts with the mission. As a youth, he was active in Tennessee 4-H Youth Development, attending the National 4-H Congress in Chicago as a state winner. He has years of experience in vegetable production, having grown up on a small farm.

Broach is employed with the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development. His experience in initiating contracts and working with various types of computer software has benefited the team’s work, as contract origination and negotiations with Afghanistan businessmen and contractors are a critical part of each project’s implementation.

Broach says the Guard Agribusiness Development Team can help Afghanistan help itself.

“If we can show the people the potential of their own capabilities to provide food and income for themselves, they will accomplish it. ADTs have the potential of assisting the Afghan people to improve their overall quality of life through more modern agricultural technology and time-proven techniques of successful farming.

“Another key aspect will be to merge the minds of the Afghan people with Western water management techniques, such as irrigation, flood control, and water retention.”

One of the Tennessee ADT’s responsibilities is to include the various levels of the government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in every activity. This starts at the national level and goes down through the provincial, district, and village governments.

As commander, Moore is responsible for everything that the unit does and does not accomplish, as well as for the health and welfare of the Tennessee National Guardsmen. He helps direct livestock projects and serves as the lead on all agricultural finance projects.

Moore’s background includes a B.S. in agriculture with a major in agriculture education. He was active in FFA and 4-H, was state FFA president in 1977, and received the Torchbearer award, UT Knoxville’s highest student honor, in 1980. As a civilian, he works for a privately owned community bank in central Georgia as the senior commercial lender and a member of its executive team. He uses this knowledge of banking in building the financial aspects of every project.

“Successful business owners—and agriculture is a business—spend as much time on marketing and gross sales opportunities as maximizing production yields.” Moore says. “Also, a growing business must have access to loans and/or banking institutions.” The farmers in eastern Afghanistan are located close to more than 3 billion potential buyers of their agricultural products. They need to understand and produce for the needs and wants of Central Asia’s customers, and that is what is required to make the Afghan farmers successful.

To date, the National Guardsmen have made at least two visits to each of the 14 districts within their territory and conducted assessments of the agricultural situation in conjunction with the local leaders. As a result, nearly a dozen projects for funding through the military’s Commander’s Emergency Response Program have been created and submitted.

Several of these projects are in conjunction with the Paktya University’s School of Agriculture, which was once equal to the schools of agriculture of international universities but is now in the process of rebuilding itself after devastation. The team hopes to implement 50 projects before its duty tour ends and it is replaced with another ADT from Oklahoma, which will assume the projects that are underway.

Some of the projects already launched are:

• a furniture manufacturing training course for local military-aged males
• a livestock association training course
• a beehive construction training course, important to the many apple and apricot producers across the region
• a para-veterinary training program with the Afghan Veterinary Association, viewed as critical to increasing veterinary support for the region
• local training courses on poultry, sheep, and goat husbandry for disadvantaged women and youth

“Living at 7,600 feet elevation with average annual rainfall of 12 inches isn’t like anything in the Southeast,” Moore says. “But the farmers in Afghanistan are similar to U.S. farmers, interested in production quality and quantities, producing enough to feed, clothe, and educate their families.

“They also respond to smiles and firm handshakes.”

Sergeant First Class Mike Winters is the public affairs officer for the Agribusiness Development Team, Tennessee Army National Guard.

With more than 40 addresses in two decades, Renee Haugerud said “my second sense kicked in.” Coming to Chattanooga to live with her husband John Murphy “just felt right.”

Those same deep-seated instincts emerged when the couple decided to contribute $1.5 million to develop the Renee Haugerud and John H. Murphy Global Finance Center in the College of Business at UT Chattanooga. They also have given $500,000 to support the UTC football program.

“Here in Chattanooga, we met the right people at the right time,” Haugerud says. “We believe in UTC and its ambitions.” Haugerud is founder and chief investment officer of Galtere International Fund, a $2 billion commodity hedge fund based in New York City.

“Many people may not realize just how good UTC and the Chattanooga community are,” says Murphy, a former Mocs football player and 1982 UTC graduate. “UTC is a great university that embodies great traditions.”

UTC appreciates Haugerud and Murphy as well. Athletics Director Rick Hart says, “Renee and John are special people who have a passion for making things and people better.”

The Renee Haugerud and John H. Murphy Finance Center will offer innovative programs with a focus on globalization, global finance, ethics, and brain chemistry. While the center will serve all business students, its faculty and staff will keep in mind the needs of UTC’s female business students.

“The chemistry and psychology of the male and female brain are different, so I think it is necessary to create a trading school that thinks and teaches outside the box so female students can be just as successful in the world of finance and business as men are,” says Haugerud, one of the few women to head her own hedge fund. “The finance center will focus on teaching trading from a right brain perspective, incorporating the best of emotional intelligence and IQ, so that all portfolio managers have the skill set to produce superior returns.”

The global finance center also will include a live financial trading facility where students will be able to use the same tools as finance professionals.

“I always have thought outside of the box when it comes to training and education,” says Haugerud, who knew from a young age she wanted to leave her mark in the business world.

She attended several universities—one of which was on a world-traveling, seagoing vessel—before she focused on the University of Montana where she earned a degree in forestry. After creating a never-before-seen profit center in foreign and domestic sunflower seeds when she worked at Cargill, a multinational corporation based in Minnesota, Haugerud went on to international postings in the United Kingdom, Australia, and Hong Kong. Today Haugerud is at the helm of Galtere, the largest female-owned hedge fund in the world.

“Geography is destiny,” says Haugerud, who spoke at UTC’s spring 2009 commencement. “In the trading world, I always say pretend that a billion dollars is yours and take the risk and own it. Let the trade carry you away.”

It was a football scholarship that carried Murphy away from his hometown of LaGrange, Georgia, to attend UTC. He pursued a career in hospital management and subsequently spent 20 years at AXA Financial in retail distribution. Now he is chief development officer at Galtere.

The couple says they are called to give back to places that have influenced them and made a difference in their lives. “For us, UTC is that place,” Murphy says. “We consider it an honor to be able to give back.”

There was something familiar about the way Rocky Top wafted through the pillars and beams of Thompson-Boling Arena, with thousands of students tacking the obligatory “woo!” onto the chorus.

But for all the familiarity of the scene, it was part of a day unlike any other in the history of UT Knoxville. On May 8, Dolly Parton, known worldwide not only for her musical and songwriting talent but for her philanthropic work, was granted an honorary doctorate of humane and musical letters. In the process, she gave a speech and performance that are already the stuff of campus lore.

The news that Parton would be honored at the commencement ceremony of the College of Arts and Sciences had created a buzz across the state, country, and world. A CNN International crew followed Dolly’s every move on campus, and media coverage of the event that led to what was surely UT’s first mention by infamous celebrity blogger Perez Hilton (his was a kind note of congratulations). In fact, interest in the event was so high that tickets were distributed in advance to graduates and their families – another first.

While her performances of Rocky Top brought the house down, her remarks to the crowd that day provided a particularly poignant reflection on the importance of education in her own life. She built her remarks around the mission statement of her Dollywood Foundation, encouraging graduates to “dream more, care more, do more, and be more.”

You’ve probably heard of Dolly’s signature philanthropic work, the Imagination Library. It provides a new book every month to children from birth to five years old, and in her remarks, Parton’s passion for learning and the power of literacy was clear.

“I learned to love reading when I was just a tiny little thing,” said Dolly. “It’s my belief that if you can read, even if you don’t get a chance to have an education, you can learn about everything.”

That passion has led to her Imagination Library program providing books to hundreds of thousands of children, including young people in all 95 Tennessee counties. In addition, she’s worked tirelessly in Sevier County, even creating a program in the 1990s to reduce high school dropout rates. How did Dolly do it? By offering students a $500 check, in person, no questions asked if they and a buddy made it from 8th grade to graduation. The program reduced dropout rates at the high school from 30 percent to just 6 percent.

As UT Knoxville Chancellor Jimmy G. Cheek put it just before Dolly received her degree, “Because of her career as an entertainer, musician, and songwriter, and for her role as a cultural ambassador, philanthropist and lifelong advocate for education, it is fitting that she be honored with a degree from the flagship educational institution of her own state.”

It’s that commitment and passion for education – at all levels – that made this honor for her so fitting and appropriate. Dolly never had the chance to attend college, instead moving to Nashville after graduating high school. A career like Dolly’s is perhaps the textbook case of a life’s work that is worthy of an honorary degree.

The raucous applause for Dolly as she was formally granted the degree spoke just as loudly as the response for Rocky Top did. We love Dolly not just for her entertainment, but for her life, for her passion, and for her story. The graduates, faculty and their families – many UT alumni in their ranks – made it official: Dolly’s now a proud citizen of Big Orange Country, and we couldn’t be happier to have her.

You can find video of Dolly’s performance and speech along with the formal presentation of her degree at http://www.youtube.com/UniversityTennessee.

Even before the 7 a.m. start time, dozens of orange-clad women waited outside Neyland-Thompson Sports Center for the inaugural Lane Kiffin Football Clinic for Women. More than 200 of them traveled to Knoxville June 12 from as far away as Illinois and Florida, and they were pumped about learning the Xs and Os of Tennessee football.

Before getting down to business, the women waited in line to have their photos taken with Lane Kiffin, the Vols’ 21st head coach.

“I think Lane Kiffin has hugged the neck of every woman here this morning,” said Sandie Fancher (Health Science Center ’70), chair of the UT Alliance of Women Philanthropists, which co-sponsored the day-long clinic with the UT Athletic Department. “These coaches have died and gone to heaven.”

With one of the nation’s top-rated football recruiting classes practicing and conditioning nearby, it was the women who were in heaven as they listened intently to Kiffin and his coaching staff. Along with a handful of other Tennessee coaches, defensive coordinator and former NFL defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin (Lane Kiffin’s father) and assistant head coach and defensive line coach and recruiting coordinator Ed Orgeron reviewed the Volunteers’ recruitment efforts, defensive and offensive plays, and rules of the game.

The season opener against Western Kentucky was Judy Brown’s 154th consecutive game. “You go to game after game, but you never really know what goes on behind the scenes,” she said.

The women’s football clinic fed her curiosity. “To get a small glimpse of all the work the coaches and team put in before a game was eye-opening. Everything from listening to the coaches to running out on the field — it was all special,” said Brown, who recorded notes from the day to share with her husband Earl (Chattanooga ’88). The Louisville, Tennessee, couple has had season tickets since 1972.

Kiffin’s wife, Layla, offered her perspective of what it means to be a coach’s wife during a question-and-answer session. She shared the story of how she met her husband-to-be in 2000 while working in the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ office.

“Lane came in my office and pretended he needed help finding the marketing director,” she said. “And I thought ‘I better be nice to him’ because I knew he was the son of Monte Kiffin [who spent the last 13 years with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers].” Three months later they were engaged and have since added three children to the clan.

She said, “We have lots of orange and are so proud to be here and be part of the UT family.”

With shouts of “Go Big Orange!” and “Go Vols!” the women reveled in what the football team experiences on game day with a police-escorted Vol Walk across campus to the Peyton Manning Locker Complex.

After being schooled on state-of-the-art protective football gear in a locker room demonstration by the equipment staff and Vol players Eric Berry and Montario Hardesty, the women yelled their best cheers and huddled for pep talks and game day speeches.

Cynthia Robertson (Knoxville ’97) managed to get Monte Kiffin to hold a piece of paper that wished her mother-in-law “Happy Birthday” while she snapped a picture. Her mother-in-law, Judy Robertson, wanted to attend the clinic but was not able to because of a mission trip in Florida. “I wanted her to feel like she was part of this experience,” Cynthia Robertson said.

Robertson came with her girlfriends Beverly Bacon and Karen Fultz. They said they would bring a bandwagon of friends next year because “this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”

Chanting “War time! Take it outside!” the women did not let their memorabilia-stuffed goodie bags and purses bog them down as they burst through the locker room doors and ran to the 50-yard line where Lane Kiffin ended the day by thanking the women for their passion for Tennessee football.

Cynthia Robertson called her mother-in-law on her cell phone, then handed the phone to Kiffin.

“We’re standing out here on the 50-yard line. We miss you. Why aren’t you here?” the coach asked after he offered birthday greetings.

“You’ll be here next year, right? I want to see you then.”

The clinic is planned again for next June. You can get information from the Tennessee Fund Office at (865)974-1218.

Long nights at the library. We all remember them. And no matter where we went to school, “the library” is fixed in our memory, preserved just as it was in our day.

This just in: libraries have moved on. Like our entire society, they’ve been transformed by technology. The physical facilities are different too (think comfy chairs, think snacks), and so are the staff (think information specialists, think answering student questions via instant messaging).

What’s the world coming to—or at least the library part of the world? It’s changing so fast that some librarians have adopted the slogan: If it works and you know how to use it, it’s obsolete.

It’s been alleged that, in the age of near-universal access to Google, the library reference desk is about as relevant as a fully stocked Rolodex. But librarians who talked to Tennessee Alumnus say they’re as busy as ever; their jobs have just morphed. And by and large, they’re enjoying the ride.

“In the last 10 years, the number of questions we get from students has gone way down,” says Rita Smith, associate dean of UT Knoxville libraries. “Now the questions are much broader and take more time.” True, students can find easy answers via Google. But Smith says the information explosion has actually upped the need for reference librarians’ expertise, since they’re trained to not only help discover hard-to-find facts but also to manage the information.

Jane Row in UT Knoxville libraries research services says librarians have access to databases that contain information not freely available on the web. “Teaching students how to use these resources is a critical part of the educational mission of the library.” Reference librarians, she says, understand how to access information efficiently and “how to ask the right questions so a student can focus a research question and come out with information that’s on target.”

Kay Cunningham (Knoxville ‘88), a librarian at the University of Memphis, says even though plentiful information is available online, librarians have to understand how it all works.

“Having online access to many databases doesn’t excuse the librarian from having to understand how all those databases work. Otherwise, who is the frustrated user going to ask for help?”

New Responsibilities

Technology may look seamless to the user, she says, but it’s the librarian’s responsibility to understand what’s happening behind the scenes.

Today’s students have grown up with technology, but just because they have the latest gear doesn’t necessary mean they know how to use it, Row says. “They may have an iPod, a fancy phone, and a great laptop but still not know where to go to find the information they need to satisfy an assignment.”

At the University of Memphis, Cunningham has the title of electronic resources librarian. She indeed helps students with questions related to assignments, but her job involves much more. Cunningham says she has had to take up the slack of positions lost to budget cuts, and she’s certainly not twiddling her thumbs due to the decreased volume of student questions at the reference desk.

“I tend our databases, keeping up with what’s new and promoting additions and changes. I edit web pages and maintain wiki pages. I download and archive usage statistics. I set up training schedules and conduct training for library staff and users.” She also teaches and logs time on the reference desk.

Even though students can submit questions by email or instant messaging, they still are more likely to walk up to the reference desk. At UT Knoxville libraries, about 80 percent of inquiries are face-to-face.

“We do a lot of consultation by appointment,” Smith says, noting that graduate students are particularly heavy users of library reference services.

At UT Chattanooga, Beverly Simmons (Knoxville ’05) sees similar student usage patterns: “About 20 percent of student questions are submitted electronically via phone, instant messaging, and email, and 80 percent of our questions come in person at the reference desk.

“I work every day with students to help them find information. The biggest change I’ve noticed has been the tremendous increase in the number of students who come to the library itself—numbers have doubled in the last seven years—and their willingness to ask us for help at the reference desk, through one-on-one research appointments, or via phone, IM, and email.”

A More Relaxed Atmosphere

Libraries in general are more welcoming places than in years past. At UTC, library instruction classes familiarize students with the facility and the staff. “Over 6,000 students attended a library instruction class last year out of a total student population of 9,800,” says Simmons, a UC Foundation assistant professor as well as reference librarian. The atmosphere is much more relaxed than in the past. At UT Knoxville’s Hodges Library, the Commons provides a “welcoming atmosphere for digital natives,” Smith says. (“We older people are digital immigrants,” she smiles.)

“The Commons is a very social place, not quiet, the furniture is movable, and it’s open 24 hours,” Smith says.

At UT Chattanooga, Simmons says students can take food and drinks “nearly anywhere” in the Lupton Library. “We’ve purchased overstuffed chairs, coffee tables and end tables, upholstered chairs with a swing-away desk for laptops and books, and cushioned rockers.”

Some of the demand for flexible seating arrangements is driven by a change in the style of learning, Smith says. “Students work in groups much more. They have to seek out more information now. Learning isn’t as passive as it used to be.”

Reference librarians play a big role in helping students seek knowledge. Many student questions, Cunningham says, are complicated, “involving more time and expertise on the part of the reference worker.”

“They come to us when they’re stumped. Most often these students are using resources inappropriate to their questions, relying on the tools they may have learned to use as freshmen.” Upper level and graduate students may be aware of multidisciplinary databases but may need specialized ones. Even if they are familiar with databases, they may not know how to use them to maximum advantage or can’t find exactly what they need. “They’re still wading in through the shallow end of the information pool when they need to be diving” – a plunge reference librarians are trained and willing to take, Cunningham says.

“All librarians in one way or another should be electronic resources librarians now. The electronic resource is as standard as the book or the print journal,” she says. “The most difficult aspect of technology for librarians to cope with is the rapidity of the change that comes with it.” But, she says, “Technology is simply one of the tools of my job, something I have to understand.”

A New Day for Marian the Librarian

Even as libraries have changed, so have the careers available to information science professionals. Certainly libraries still employ many of them, but others take jobs in database design, web design, digital publishing, and competitive intelligence.

Bonnie Carroll, a member of the UT Knoxville College of Communication and Information board of visitors, used her library science degree from Columbia to found Information International Associates, an Oak Ridge, Tennessee, information management and technology company that, among other things, manages libraries.

At heart, it’s all about the fundamentals, she says—understanding the structure of knowledge and knowing how to manage it. “Librarians have to know the best technology to manage information. Even a fully electronic library would need a librarian to organize it.”

Carroll employs several UT graduates, including Randy Hoffman, who manages libraries. Today’s reference desk is wherever people are, she says. “The reference desk is mobile. It’s on home computers or on PDAs. Librarians are working hard to get the information people need to them. The end user doesn’t necessarily interface with the librarian, but a librarian has made the information they need available.”

Carol Tenopir, professor of information sciences at UT Knoxville, says technology is introduced early in course content in the School of Information Sciences. “Digital resource creation, use, and management are a part of many classes,” she says. “Some courses focus on technology, including digital libraries, information access and retrieval, database management, and network applications.” And all students take at least some of their classes online to experience digital delivery first hand.

The job of librarian isn’t what it used to be, and where it’s bound is anyone’s guess. The profession includes specialties that would have been unimaginable a couple of decades ago, says Carroll. “Every one of us is part of that reference desk of the future.”