From transforming the way UT approaches diversity and inclusion to championing biomedical research, recipients of the 2020 President’s Awards embody excellence throughout the UT System. Richard Robinson (UT Martin), Robert Williams (UTHSC), Karen Armsey (UTIA), Ashlie Czyz (UT System) and Davis Rash (UT Martin) received this year’s awards.
Minimizing Biased-Based Policing in Law Enforcement
The UT Law Enforcement Innovation Center (LEIC) developed a training program to minimize biased-based policing in the law-enforcement community. The program rolled out beginning with campus law-enforcement agencies across the UT System this fall. The training also is offered to law-enforcement agencies across Tennessee and the nation. The UT Institute for Public Service, through LEIC, provides first-class training to local, regional and national law enforcement in areas such as homeland security, forensic science, command and leadership, cybercrime and many others.
U.S. Department of Energy Awards ORI $20 Million
The U.S. Department of Energy awarded $20 million to the Oak Ridge Institute at UT to expand the university’s partnership with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) to train the next generation of American scientists and engineers.
“The Oak Ridge Institute will be a pipeline for a new supply of American-trained scientists and engineers, which our country sorely needs in this competitive world. It will also combine the resources and experience of the nation’s largest science and energy laboratory and a major research university,” U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) says. “Already, the UT-Oak Ridge partnership has 250 joint faculty, five joint institutes and 250 PhD students in jointly administered energy and data programs. With such a strong foundation and such strong current leadership, I am betting that, during the next 80 years, the Oak Ridge Corridor brand and the Oak Ridge Institute will be recognized as one of the most important science and engineering alliances in the world.”
In the five-year program, students will be recruited and enrolled in UT Knoxville and ORNL’s joint graduate programs.
“We are thankful to the Department of Energy for its support of this program that will deliver a top-tier interdisciplinary workforce talent in emerging fields for industry, government and academia,” UT President Randy Boyd says. “This is the first step in establishing ORI as a force to change our state and nation.”
Board of Trustees Approves 0 Percent Tuition Increase
During the annual meeting of the UT Board of Trustees, trustees approved a $2.5 billion operating budget for fiscal 2020-21 that includes no increase in tuition for students at all of the campuses—a first in UT’s history—and follows a record four years of increases at or below Tennessee Higher Education Commission’s recommendations. Not increasing tuition this year was important, even though the university’s budget is tight for the coming fiscal year, UT President Randy Boyd says.
“We think it’s important for our families and the state of Tennessee,” he says. “It’s the right thing.”
