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.

A high-beam smile and the complexion of a 20-something fashion model are the first things you notice about Anne Holt. She reaches out to hug you, and her dark eyes telegraph warmth. This Nashville icon has looked her audience in the eye for 30 years from behind the anchor desk of WKRN news, so she’s quite good at focusing directly on you. You’re powerless to dislike her.

The beautiful exterior is the outer shell of a determined woman. She’s no ingénue TV newsreader fresh out of j-school. She’s worked her way from the cotton fields of West Tennessee, through UT Knoxville, and through the TV news ranks. Her persistence is hidden deep, like a tendon that flexes but holds steadfast.

“As I look back over my journey, my work ethic stemmed from having very little,” she muses.

The daughter of sharecroppers in Lauderdale County, Holt learned important lessons early: hard work, consisting of 2 days a week in the cotton fields, 3 days in school (“My father would build a fire for me to warm my hands when we were picking in ice and snow”); responsibility (she was the oldest girl among 13 children); and resilience (“Our parents never let us feel sorry for ourselves”).

Ready for Anything

“When I got to UT, I was ready for anything!” she laughs.

Holt graduated from segregated Lauderdale County High School in 1969. She still remembers her teachers’ nurturing. “I think they saw potential in me. But most important, they showed faith in us—they made us believe in ourselves.” Holt and one of her sisters came to UT Knoxville; three siblings went to UT Martin. College was her ticket to a better life.

“I knew there was something out there for me, and I was going to get it,” she says. She chose UT Knoxville because it offered the best financial aid package. She enrolled as a speech and theater major, but that lasted only a few months.

“I saw there weren’t any job prospects,” Holt recalls. “I thought, ‘I’ve got to do better than this. I’ve done the poor side of life.’ ” Blessed with a talent for public speaking, she transferred to the broadcasting curriculum. The faculty, particularly her advisor, Darrell Holt, and longtime professor Herb Howard, gave her support and guidance.

“I would ask for help if I needed it because I didn’t have time to repeat courses,” she says. She worked several part-time jobs and began work at Knoxville TV station WATE while she was still in school. She graduated in 1973 and moved to Nashville and to WKRN (then WNGE) in 1976, starting as a reporter and weekend anchor. She and Nashville began to get to know each other, and they both liked what they saw.

“This job has brought me into contact with so many people,” Holt says. She reads to schoolchildren. She serves on boards of nonprofits. She speaks to civic clubs. She raises money for good causes. For 25 years, she has helped in the fight against hunger by working with Second Harvest Food Bank. “What more basic can you give than food?” she asks. Though she grew up poor, Holt says she never knew hunger. “We always had food because we grew our own.” A sorting room at the Nashville Second Harvest is named in her honor.

All the time she spends out and about in Nashville solidifies Holt’s reputation as a trusted news source.

“People can see that I care and have compassion. I think my connection with viewers is because I show them who I am—that I’m believable and caring.”

A Sea Change in News

But all the belief and caring in the world can’t change the fact that local newscasts, once a go-to source for information, are now just one of many outlets audiences can select for news. Holt is well aware of the sea change.

“There’s a whole new generation of viewers and so many other options for news now,” she says. “All we have is what’s in our backyard”—events of strictly local interest.

“The challenge is to embrace change but always be accurate, fair, and relevant and to still inform and educate,” Holt says. She says it’s important for her to be familiar with the news she’s delivering. “I try to research stories on my own and feel comfortable with the information. We live in a time of uncertainty, which makes it really important for viewers to feel like we’re shooting straight with them.”

Apparently Holt gets high marks as a straight shooter; few anchors survive three decades in one market. When she goes out, she’s instantly recognizable.

“Being recognized is a kind of measure of how well you’re doing professionally. I’m used to the stares and whispers.” The public isn’t shy about giving her feedback either. “People will tell me what they think—and it’s not always good!”

Holt and her husband, Kenny Blackburn, are quite a power couple. He is vice-president of external affairs at AT&T and serves on the Nashville Chamber board and in the leadership of many other civic organizations. Holt says each supports the other’s career.

“My husband is so supportive. And the street runs both ways. I think he’s very good at what he does.”

Holt’s son, Kyle, chose television journalism as his career too and also graduated from the College of Communication and Information of UT Knoxville. Now embarked on his first job at a Knoxville station, Kyle picks his mom’s brain by phone and discusses stories he’s covered.

Holt was proud to speak at the spring 2008 College of Communication and Information commencement ceremony when Kyle graduated. Among her many honors is the college’s Distinguished Alumni Award.

Others include four Emmys, the Jerry Thompson Communicator’s “Lifetime Achievement Award” from the National Conference for Community and Justice, and the Distinguished Service Award from the Tennessee Association of Broadcasters. She was the first woman, the first African American, and the first news anchor to receive the latter.

Serving the University

A different kind of honor came her way in 2006 when Governor Phil Bredesen appointed her to the UT Board of Trustees.

“It was a huge cramming process” to get up to speed on university background and issues. “But I’m really enjoying it. We face tremendous challenges to provide education and serve the citizens, and I will give my best.”

She’s especially interested in making a UT education accessible and affordable to as many qualified students as possible. “And once we have those students, it’s crucial to provide them quality programs and faculty.”

Holt is no stranger to UT boards. She’s previously served on the Athletic Board, the board of visitors of the College of Communication and Information, and the UT Alumni Association board of governors.

At WKRN, Holt says she’s still working as hard as ever. “I haven’t scaled back on work. I have to wait until my son’s [professional] legs are steady. So I’ll see where the journey leads. I want to write a memoir, but I’m not ready yet.”

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

If it had not already been on another Vol fan’s vehicle, Marianne Leech’s license plate would read like part of her e-mail address: tnvol. Although she never earned a degree from the University of Tennessee, Leech was born a Vol, a birthright she inherited from her parents Walter Lee and Mary Morris.

As the owner of motion picture theaters in Knoxville and surrounding areas, Walter, who attended UT from 1924 to 1926, took great pride in hauling film equipment to the football field to record the Volunteers’ practices and games, dating back to the General Robert Neyland era.

For Marianne, growing up in Knoxville translated to growing up in Big Orange Country. “My mother and father would get on the train and travel to football games all over the country,” she recalls. “The love for UT and its football program has always been there by osmosis for me because I grew up in it.”

She passed the contagious Vol spirit on to her husband, John Leech, a native of Pittsburgh and alumnus of Robert Morris University and the University of Pittsburgh. His blood now runs orange, so much so that one would never know he did not grow up in Knoxville. The Leeches live in Loudon, Tennessee.

On game days, the couple act as a virtual scoreboard for Marianne’s brother, Lee (Knoxville ’62), and his wife, Peggi (an alumna of East Tennessee State University), who live in St. Croix, Virgin Islands. When the native East Tennessee couple cannot see the game, “We become their eyes and ears,” Marianne says. “We call them every ten minutes if we have to so they know the score. We are a Vol family, no matter where we are.”

Game days account for only part of the passion Marianne and John feel for Tennessee athletics. At the heart of their gifts to athletics are scholarships for student–athletes. “We have a profound desire to give back to a cause that has brought us so much joy over the years,” they say.

“Student–athletes have a golden opportunity to play the sport they love and gain an education. Without the athletic opportunities and scholarships at the University of Tennessee, many of these kids would never have a chance to attend college, let alone one as prestigious as UT.

“Everyone needs to support our university no matter how little or how big the amount. These contributions make a difference in the lives of our kids and ensure that young people have a chance to further their education and promote their success.”

The Leeches say life has been good to them, and it is only right that they give back. “Neither of us have degrees from the University of Tennessee, but we believe in the university, its mission, its students, and their futures.”

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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