If you’re looking for UT Knoxville’s famous Rock, just glance diagonally across the street from where you remember it. The 97.5-ton hunk of Knox dolomite—a beloved landmark and venue for student self-expression for decades—was moved over the summer to make way for the construction of a new Student Health Center.

The Rock now sits at the intersection of Volunteer Boulevard and Pat Head Summitt Street, near the Music Building.

Dozens of UT students, alumni, and members of the faculty and staff turned out to watch the historic move on July 15. The task took more than 12 hours. After workers dug out around the Rock, exposing the large section underground, a 2-ton crane hoisted the behemoth out of the hole and loaded it onto a flatbed truck.

The work proved trickier than anticipated.

Steel cables had to be brought in to lift the Rock, and three flatbed trucks were summoned separately to the scene before one large enough was found. The truck bearing the oversized load then had to negotiate a trench—quickly filled with asphalt—that had been dug down the middle of Pat Head Summit Street for utility work.

The Rock arrived safely at its new home, but a violent thunderstorm erupted just as workers were hoisting it up by the crane to place it into the hole prepared for it.

Finally, a little after 9 p.m., the Rock was in place, and by early the next morning final shoring up was completed.

Campus administrators said they tried to avoid the move. “But we finally concluded that moving the Rock was our only choice,” Jeff Maples, vice-chancellor for finance and administration, said. Student leaders helped choose the new location.

“The Rock’s new site is an equally high-profile area,” Maples said. “In fact, the new location will enhance our plan to extend the pedestrian walkway, add green space, and develop a gathering place for students in an ‘arts quad’ concept.”

Share photos and stories about the Rock at www.utk.edu/therock.

It’s a safe assumption that girls who play basketball have probably heard of Lady Vols coach Pat Summitt and dream about meeting her. That goes even for girls living in Iraq.

Through Sport 4 Peace, two doctoral students at UT Knoxville made this dream come true for 10 Iraqi girls last summer. Sarah Hillyer, co-founder of Sport 4 Peace, and Ashleigh Huffman, assistant researcher and assistant camp director, helped bring the girls and three of their coaches to the U.S. last June.

As part of the trip, the girls attended basketball camp at UT and got to meet Summitt.

“We wanted them to see the opportunities we have here in the States for young girls and young women and teach them life skills through the game of basketball,” Summitt said.

The girls and their coaches were grateful for the opportunity to visit the U.S. They also visited Washington, D.C., attended a WNBA game, and hiked in the Smokies.

“My players are playing on the courts in America, and it is just like a dream,” said the team’s head coach. “I hope that other people, not only me, can come here and share their dreams just like I did.”

The team’s trip was made possible by SportsUnited, a U.S. Department of State program, in partnership with Sport4Peace/Global Sports Partners and the NBA.

The idea to host the girls was born after Sport 4 Peace conducted an Olympic basketball training camp for girls and women in Iraq. Summitt sent the girls a videotaped message, and the Lady Vols provided some basketballs.

“One day at camp last year, we spread the girls out, gave them blank 4×6 note cards, and said ‘Please write down your biggest dream.’ Each one wrote that her dream was to visit the United States of America, to attend a WNBA game, and to meet Coach Pat Summitt and tell her ‘Thank you for the video, the basketballs, and the message she has sent us.’ Today, you are seeing the reality of these girls achieving their dream,” Hillyer said.

The players, ages 14 to 16, were selected to represent different regions, religions, and socioeconomic groups. They were also judged on leadership qualities, positive attitude, and a spirit of solidarity.

Tennessee Alumnus featured Sport 4 Peace in its winter 2009 issue.

Rowser received her Ph.D. in nursing last December–three years after she earned her doctorate in nursing practice (DNP). That makes her the only known nurse in the world to hold both degrees.

“Dr. Mayola Rowser has amazed us all,” says Dr. Kathleen McCoy, assistant professor in the College of Nursing. “She has become exactly what she intended: a fully developed integrative advanced practice registered nurse, teacher, leader, grant writer, researcher, advocate for the underserved, and policy influencer.”

In the DNP program, Rowser achieved dual preparation as a family nurse practitioner and a psychiatric family nurse practitioner.

“Her blend of expertise opens doors to areas of care in very special ways; this is what her DNP gained,” McCoy says. “Her Ph.D. furthered her skill set to apply nursing process and scientific reasoning, obtain the support for research and program development, while affecting politics.

“She can work in any setting with any set of patients and optimize their health because of her clinical and intellectual mastery. The faculty and students of the College of Nursing are proud to claim her as our own.”

Rowser is reaping the benefits of her advanced degrees at the University of Southern Indiana School of Nursing and Health Professions, where she was promoted to director of graduate nursing after earning her Ph.D. She achieved the rank of assistant professor after completing her DNP.  With a 28-year nursing career, Rowser’s focus is in psychiatric/mental health nursing.

“Mayola recognized that her educational and clinical preparation was not enough to meet the complex needs of the underserved, which is Mayola’s passion,” says Dr. Patricia Cunningham, associate professor in the College of Nursing. “Mayola’s DNP capstone project highlighted for her the need to pursue the research doctorate, too.”

“As I progressed through the DNP program, I realized that I had an interest in research as well,” Rowser says. “I understood the advantage that having both degrees would afford me as a practitioner and a researcher.”

The mother of two sons, Rowser received her BSN and MSN degrees from the University of Southern Indiana and began her doctoral studies at UTHSC in 2002, balancing work, school, and family life. Successfully defending her dissertation last year, Rowser studied the “Predictors of Depressive Symptoms and Obesity in African-American Women Transitioning from Welfare to Work.”

Never one to turn up her nose at a good medical mystery, Dr. Melissa Kennedy—along with her lab mates at the UT College of Veterinary Medicine—has helped identify herpes virus in Asian elephants, was the first to publish that equine herpes could affect gazelles, and now is the first to diagnose influenza in giant anteaters. And that’s nothing to sneeze at.

Kennedy, a veterinarian and clinical virologist with a UT Ph.D. in comparative and experimental medicine and an associate professor at the college, received a call from Nashville Zoo veterinarian Dr. Sally Nofs, who was concerned about a 12-member colony of giant anteaters, a near-threatened species. An outbreak of respiratory disease had swept through the group, affecting all 11 adults. They suffered severe nasal discharge and congestion, poor appetite, and lethargy. Kennedy’s lab needed samples for testing. Nasal samples. From the giant anteaters.

The virology lab at the veterinary college utilizes an electron microscope, a piece of expensive equipment usually only found in academic and research institutions used to identify unknown viruses. Since performing diagnostic work for exotic species is not a moneymaker, not many commercial laboratories are equipped to do it. Kennedy says it’s part of the responsibility of a land grant institution. “We service communities locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally helping them with infectious disease problems. Otherwise, they might not have anyone else to turn to for assistance.”

Once the samples from the giant anteaters reached the lab, the hunt was on and history was made. After isolating the virus from the samples, extensive testing with the electron microscope as well as genetic sequencing showed the anteaters were infected with a human influenza virus–they had the flu. Kennedy says the impact on civilization is minimal, but it shows how adaptable the wily viruses are.

“Just when you think you’ve got them figured out, they’ll do something different.”

Kennedy admits she harbors a healthy respect for viruses. “I think they are way cool, but I’m weird,” she laughs and then explains they are the ultimate survivors that become intimately involved in the cells they target. “Viruses don’t set out to kill their host because they are so dependent upon the cell. They’re opportunistic and design ways to elude the host’s defense systems and use the cell to their advantage. It’s amazing.” Kennedy says all they’re really trying to do is survive and reproduce.

As word of the discovery spreads, management of giant anteaters is changing. “Given the contagious nature of the influenza virus, caretakers with respiratory disease should be restricted from caring for giant anteaters,” Kennedy says. And advice to humans with the flu, in addition to the standard “cover your mouth when you cough and remember to wash your hands,” now includes a third admonishment: “Stay away from anteaters.”

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By Rita Mitchell

Van Jones isn’t likely to forget 2008. He scored a New York Times bestseller with The Green Collar Economy, was named a Time magazine Environmental Hero and one of the George Lucas Foundation’s Daring Dozen, and received the San Francisco Foundation Community Leadership Award. It also was the year his father died, his ­second son was born, and he turned 40.

Jones—a Jackson, Tennessee, native who lives in Oakland, California—is an environmental, civil-rights, and human-rights activist. He is founding president of Green for All, a national organization that promotes green-collar jobs and opportunities for the disadvantaged. He is promoting a plan to put people to work retrofitting the country and making it more environmentally sound. He also is a senior fellow for the Center for American Progress, a Democratic Party think tank. In 1996 the UT Martin and Yale Law School graduate co-founded the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, which advocates for juvenile justice reform, police reform, youth violence prevention, and green-collar jobs.

Also last year, Jones and his ideas were featured in Tom Friedman’s book Hot, Flat, and Crowded. He appeared on CNN’s Feature #1, Fox News’s Your World With Neil Cavuto, National Public Radio’s Living on Earth, and Steven Colbert’s The Colbert Report. He’s been featured in Good magazine, Newsweek, and the New York Times. He helped develop policy papers for presidential candidates and gained endorsements of his book from former vice-president Al Gore and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

It was a momentous year, but Jones says, “We’re just getting started.”

“I’ve always been passionate about positive change, and I think we need a lot of it in this country.” During the next decade he hopes to see America “getting back to being America” and taking “a leadership role in clean energy.”

Jones says Americans are supposed to be the innovators and problem-solvers of the world. “We’ve got a big problem with global warming and our reliance on oil, and I believe we can fix it. I believe we can do it in a way that gives everybody a shot at a better job and lower energy prices.” Jones isn’t talking about high-tech solutions; he says skilled labor is what’s needed to weatherize buildings and put up solar panels.

He says the buzz his ideas have created in the national media has been gratifying, but it’s the ideals his father taught him, the values he wants to teach his sons, and his hope for the future that fuel his passions—helping to save the environment, lifting people out of poverty, promoting juvenile justice reform, and combating youth violence, among others.

He credits UT Martin for preparing him for life on a global stage. “I left UT Martin confident that I could take on any challenge and do well at it if I studied hard and worked hard and kept my nose clean. I really do think you can get absolutely anywhere from UT Martin . . . because of the quality of caring and individual attention.”

Jones said he could imagine “being a volunteer” serving on a federal commission on clean energy or green jobs.

“The role that I think I can play is primarily helping mayors and governors get on board with the new agenda and do well. In other words, just because the president wants something to happen or Congress passes a law doesn’t mean that people at the local level can or even want to implement it.” Jones maintains there is a real need for the “ ‘bottom up’ to meet the ‘top down,’ and I’m more of a bottom-up person. That’s the role I’ve carved out for myself with Green For All. We work with the U.S. Conference of Mayors. We have agreements with them to do green jobs in multiple cities.”

Jones says the U.S. needs to get away from “borrowing from Asia, and start relying on U.S. creativity to power our economy again. It’s a breakdown, but it can become a breakthrough.” He says the premise of his book and the desire to try to cure several of society’s ills stemmed from a personal experience in 2000. He was working with poor, troubled youths who had been jailed for nonviolent crimes, trying to help them turn their lives around. Jones says he burned out and needed to restore his health in order to continue the work. In the process of adopting a healthier lifestyle, he met a number of people who were promoting solar and organic companies, and he could see the job-creation potential in those markets, besides their environmental and health advantages.

“I just had a flash of insight. I said, ‘What if these kids I’m working with have green jobs and not jail?’ So that became my slogan—‘green jobs, not jail.’ That was in 2000 and 2001, and when I said ‘green jobs’ no one knew what I was talking about.” Still, he persisted and envisioned how the very people who needed jobs the most could benefit from companies promoting clean energy products, as well as other environmentally friendly and healthful ideas. “I said, ‘We can fight pollution and poverty at the same time by creating some of these jobs and making sure the people who need those jobs get them.’ ”

When Congress held hearings in January on green jobs and the economic stimulus, Jones was invited to testify. “We can power America through this recession by repowering America with clean energy,” he said. He proposed that the Obama administration form a Clean Energy Corps to do community service and job training and put people to work retrofitting buildings.

Jones has been committed to social issues, especially helping children out of poverty, for a long time. “My father grew up in poverty, and he always gave back.” So in working with youth, Jones believed “If they get that chance at the right moment, they can go out and become anything. I’ve been thinking about this for almost a decade.”

He says his personal conviction helped convince such people as Gore and Pelosi to support his book. “They could see I had thought this through.” An e-mail–based people-to-people networking effort helped The Green Collar Economy debut last fall at the number 12 spot on the New York Times bestseller list.

“That was eye-opening and mind-blowing,” he says. “Ordinarily, if you are a first-time author on a kind of strange topic, you have to either be on Oprah or spend a million dollars [to be successful]. Now technology takes networking to a different level. And if a network can elevate a book to the bestseller list, it can propel a law, a concept, an issue to the forefront.”

Jones says his faith and upbringing spur him to remain hopeful, learn from his mistakes, and apply that knowledge and experience to help people. They also provide a strong foundation for how he and his wife, Jana, raise their two sons. First and foremost, he wants them to be honest and hardworking.

What will he tell them about his passions when they’re older? “I think every gift that you’ve been given is a loan to give someone else, and that whatever you do, don’t hoard it. Find a way to pass it on to other people. That’s going to give you a better life, and it’s going to make a better world.”

The University of Tennessee, Knoxville’s supply chain and logistics graduate program continued its upward trek in U.S. News and World Report’s 2010 graduate rankings, rising one spot to ninth in the nation and fifth among all public institutions.

UT’s engineering, law and education programs also were ranked among the best in the nation. Each spring, the magazine ranks graduate programs in a variety of academic disciplines among public and private colleges and universities in the United States.

UT’s College of Business Administration’s supply chain and logistics graduate program now has been listed among the best of its kind by U.S. News for four consecutive years. The college’s overall graduate program was ranked 54th nationally and 27th among public universities in the 2010 report.

College of Business Administration Dean Jan Williams said this ranking speaks to the quality of all levels of business programs.

“We have one of the foremost supply chain and logistics graduate programs in the world because of the quality of our faculty, students and curriculum,” he said. “This ranking recognizes both the innovative curriculum and strength of our graduate program, but also our strong supply chain and logistics program across all levels of education, from undergraduate through executive education.”

The College of Engineering’s nuclear engineering graduate program was ranked 12th nationally and 11th among all public institutions. Engineering’s overall graduate program was 68th nationally, up one place from last year, and 40th among public universities.

The College of Law’s clinical training program moved to 15th nationally and fifth among public universities, up one spot from last year. The overall law program ranked 59th nationally and 29th among all public universities.

“We are particularly pleased and proud of the excellent national reputation the College of Law enjoys for its outstanding clinical programs,” said Douglas Blaze, dean of the college. “Our clinical programs represent the best of what we do — training future attorneys through a unique connection between legal theory and practice. We will continue to build on our strengths to improve our standing as one of the best public institutions for training lawyers.”

The College of Education, Health and Human Sciences overall graduate program ranked 41st nationally and 28th among public institutions, in the new 2010 report.

Each year, U.S. News ranks graduate programs in the areas of business, education, engineering, law, and medicine. These graduate rankings are based on two types of data: expert opinion about program quality and statistical indicators that measure the quality of a school’s faculty, research and students. For the rankings in all five areas, indicator and opinion data come from surveys of more than 1,500 programs and some 11,000 academics and other professionals that were conducted in 2008.

Other UT graduate programs that appear in the new report for their most recent rankings include:

• The School of Art’s MFA in printmaking ranked fourth nationally and its overall graduate program was ranked 50th nationally in 2008.
• The College of Social Work’s graduate program ranked 26th overall and 15th among public universities in 2008.
• The College of Nursing’s graduate program ranked 72nd in 2007.

Last year, U.S. News ranked UT Knoxville 51st among public universities and colleges in its list of best schools for undergraduate education in the 2009 report.

The 2010 graduate rankings are now online at http://www.usnews.com and will be published in the May edition of the magazine, which goes on sale Tuesday, April 28. U.S. News also will feature the material in its annual America’s Best Graduate Schools guide book.

The University of Tennessee Board of Trustees in October 2008 approved the shift, which was then OK’d by the Tennessee Higher Education Commission.

The Department of Audiology and Speech Pathology was one of three programs recommended for phased closure by the Knoxville campus administration in response to an $11-million budget cut for 2008–09.

At Interim Chancellor Jan Simek’s request, the Board of Trustees in June agreed to table the matter to allow the campus and system more time to study the issue and address concerns raised by faculty members, patients, and the public.

A group representing the president, the chancellor, the College of Arts and Sciences, the Audiology and Speech Pathology Department, the UT Health Science Center, and others proposed the new arrangement after studying alternatives that would allow the program to continue to meet the educational and clinical needs of Tennesseans.

For UT Knoxville, cost savings will be realized because the department will no longer be part of the College of Arts and Sciences.

To help the UT Health Science Center with front-end costs, UT Knoxville will use proceeds received under the 1999 UT Hospital Lease and Transfer Agreement with University Health Systems Inc. The board approved a resolution to use that source of funds.

Memphis officials say they plan to aggressively seek alternative sources of revenue to support the department’s needs. Ken Brown, executive vice-chancellor and chief of staff at the Health Science Center, said the program will be a great asset for UTHSC.

“The addition of the speech and audiology program to the College of Allied Health Sciences at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center not only serves to strengthen the college as we recruit for a new dean but also serves to facilitate our statewide presence in the delivery of clinical care, community service, research, and education,” he said.

Simek said the changes are good for everyone.

“It’s more appropriate for the audiology and speech pathology program and its clinical programs to be a part of the College of Allied Health Sciences at UT Health Science Center. This plan offers an increased potential for graduate work and increased opportunities to provide much-needed services to communities around the state,” he said.

As for undergraduates, those who declare their majors in audiology and speech pathology by August 2010 will be able to complete their degrees.  After 2010 all courses will continue to be offered through UT Knoxville’s College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences, and students will be able to earn a degree in special education with an emphasis on communication sciences and disorders. Students also can take these courses as prerequisites to graduate work or as components of other majors.

Cheek came to UT from a 33-year career at the University of Florida, where he was senior vice-president for agriculture and natural resources.

The new chancellor is a Texas native and graduate of Texas A&M University. He joined the Florida faculty in 1975 and advanced from assistant dean to dean of the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences before becoming vice-president in 2005. Cheek and his wife, Ileen, have two adult children and one granddaughter.

Dr. Jan Simek, who served as interim chancellor for about a year following the departure of Chancellor Loren Crabtree, has returned to his duties as professor of anthropology.

Cheek is enthusiastic about tackling his new job and plans to proceed with an “aggressive strategic agenda.”

“This is one of the best public universities in America,” with a commitment to be even better, Cheek said. Noting the university’s impressive faculty, students, academic priorities, and strong statewide support, he predicts a bright academic future for the flagship state institution.

“I look forward to this new chapter of my life,” he said, “and this wonderful opportunity to serve the people of Tennessee.”

Named Kraken, after a mythical Norse sea monster, the new machine clocked in at a seemingly supernatural peak speed of 166 teraflops, or 166 trillion calculations per second, in just its first few months of operation, which also makes it the world’s second most-powerful academic supercomputer.

More upgrades in the coming months will make it even faster, with a final estimated power that would place it in what is known as the peta­scale—1,000 trillion calculations per second, and a major milestone in high-performance computing. The system is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and part of UT’s National Institute for Computational Science (NICS). “This latest upgrade greatly enhances Kraken’s ability to confront some of science’s most-daunting unanswered questions in a number of fields from astrophysics to climate change to biology,” said Thomas Zacharia, UT vice-president for science and technology and an associate laboratory director at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Kraken also will support all types of climate simulations, such as carbon dioxide cycles and the role of ocean currents. Just as previous modeling efforts in East Tennessee contributed to the research for which the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was awarded a recent Nobel Prize, Kraken will contribute to an understanding of the impacts of human activity on climate change and global warming.

Kraken and NICS (www.nics.tennessee.edu) stem from an NSF Track II award of $65 million to UT and its partners. NICS won the award in an open competition with leading computing institutions across the country.

The Top 500 list is created every 6 months by UT Knoxville Distinguished Professor Jack Dongarra and colleagues at other institutions.

The Princeton Review ranks American colleges based on undergraduate academics, affordability, and financial aid for its annual “Best Value Colleges” list. The list features 50 public and 50 private colleges and universities. UT was the only university in Tennessee to make the public colleges list.

The 100 “best value” choices were selected from among more than 650 public and private colleges and universities using most recently reported data.

The Tennessee Pledge and Tennessee Promise scholarships target students from high schools that have not traditionally sent many of their graduates to UT Knoxville. They also allow students to graduate debt-free by paying for mandatory college costs not covered by other federal or state aid.

In addition, the university has launched the Achieve the Dream Program for fall 2009 that makes grant money available to Tennessee students from lower-middle–income families whose incomes are too high to qualify them for Pell Grants or the Pledge Scholarship, but who still need financial help with college costs.