Spring Update: Pursuing Big Ideas and Creating Big Impact
The end of this academic year is in sight, and as I reflect on the trajectory of our university, I continue to be inspired by the talent, creativity, and dedication of Volunteers.
When we gathered for the fifth annual Flagship Address in September, I shared a mantra from a management book I read years ago: “Good is the enemy of great.” It has been moving to see the way so many of you have adopted this idea in your work.
Pursuing academic excellence
We are thinking creatively about how to elevate our programs and engage students.
A new Department of Applied Engineering and Technology in the Tickle College of Engineering will expand the opportunities for both first-year students and community college graduates who plan to enter the workforce with a four-year applied degree.
New collaborative degree programs in applied artificial intelligence, innovative transdisciplinary studies, and music advertising and public relations bring together skills that span colleges and disciplines, re-imagining how we prepare students for a rapidly evolving economic landscape in Tennessee and beyond.
Deans, department heads, and faculty are innovating new ways to bring real-world experience to our students. The College of Communication and Information welcomed alumni Peyton Manning and Gene Wojciechowski as faculty members to share with students their firsthand experiences in sports media. Assistant Professor Kimberly Mitchell in the College of Architecture and Design pitched a collaborative project for her graphic design class to help East Tennessee Children’s Hospital reimagine a healing playroom for its patients and caregivers. These are the types of experiences that make being a Volunteer so special.
Conducting research that solves problems
The impact of our research continues to grow as we focus our resources and expertise on discoveries that solve problems and create economic prosperity. This year, UT researchers again broke university records in both expenditures and sponsored project awards.
UT research continues to move forward the frontiers of knowledge, an impact we see when peers cite the work of our faculty members in their own research. Six faculty members were named to Clarivate’s 2023 list of highly cited researchers—placing them among the top 1 percent of researchers in their fields worldwide—and 183 faculty members were included in Stanford University’s annual list of the top 2 percent of scientists cited.
Our renowned Forensic Anthropology Center was awarded two grants from the National Institute of Justice to develop essential knowledge needed to solve critical forensic challenges, including locating hidden graves and understanding how relic DNA affects forensic investigations.
An interdisciplinary team of researchers is using artificial intelligence to help doctors more quickly detect sepsis in patients, improving outcomes for what is often a deadly condition. It’s the kind of collaborative problem-solving that could revolutionize our understanding and treatment for millions of patients.
Bolstering the innovation ecosystem
The same collaborative environment that sets the stage for faculty to make advances in critically important challenges like sepsis detection also creates a fertile ecosystem for high-tech innovation and entrepreneurship.
The inaugural Chancellor’s Innovation Fund this spring awarded $250,000 in grants to five faculty members and their teams developing exciting new technologies. From safer sports playing surfaces to reducing waste through bioplastics, from data engine visualizations to quantum computing, we want to move the solutions from our laboratories into the marketplace.
By placing greater emphasis on deepening industry partnerships, investing in collaborative place-based innovation, and pursuing more ambitious multidisciplinary research projects, we will continue this momentum.
Providing more opportunities for more students
We are expanding opportunity and providing more pathways to a UT education as part of a transformational new partnership with Arizona State University. We will be expanding our online degree offerings and make it easier for students in Tennessee and beyond to access our world-class education and top-tier faculty.
This partnership will change the lives of thousands of future graduates and their families, and it is a step toward supplying our state with the workforce to build the economy of the future. Workforce development is a critical part of attracting high-tech industries and high-paying jobs to Tennessee.
We’re also investing in our campus infrastructure. A UT education has never been more in demand, and we know our state needs more graduates. New classrooms and residence halls will meet the needs of our growing enrollment, while we are also making investments in faculty hires and student support.
It’s not enough to enroll more students—we want them to succeed. The momentum from a record 91 percent retention this fall has carried into this semester, with more than 97 percent of first-year students returning this spring. This doesn’t happen without the network of support built by our Division of Student Success, the care provided by our academic advisors and coaches, and the engagement and mentorship of our faculty.
Choosing great
These are things great land-grant research universities do. We support communities. We create and share knowledge. We provide new opportunities to the people we serve.
Great people make great universities—people who think creatively and act boldly, who work across industries and disciplines to find solutions, who listen to the needs of their community and respond with courage and compassion.
Thank you for continuing to choose great.
TRANSCRIPT
Hello, I’m Chancellor Donde Plowman and today I join you from the office of the late Senator Howard H. Baker Jr., in what is now the Baker School of Public Policy and Public Affairs.
This time last year, the Baker School did not even exist.
Today, it is delivering degree programs, housing The Institute of American Civics, and helping launch the institute’s flagship lecture series on civic leadership.
It’s remarkable to see what began as an idea to rethink our structure actually turn into three new thriving Colleges and Schools.
The College of Music has already collaborated with the College of Communication and Information, also known as CCI, to create a new degree in music advertising and PR.
The College of Emerging and Collaborative Studies is launching three new degree programs, data sciences, applied artificial intelligence, and innovative transdisciplinary studies.
It is inspiring to watch leaders across our university relentlessly pursue big ideas and set ambitious goals. At every level and in every role on campus, I see Volunteers constantly push for better, especially for our students.
In September when we gathered for the fifth annual Flagship Address, I told you that good is the enemy of great.
It was a caution, a reminder that when we stop striving for better simply because we think good is enough we’re only holding ourselves back.
Since then I have heard many of you talk about the ways that choosing great has resonated with you.
I’ve heard how important it is that your college, your unit, your department is pursuing great, that it inspires you.
Not only have you told me this but I’ve seen it in your work.
This is what a great university does, especially a great public, land grant, R1 university.
I hope you go to my website to read more about the incredible work happening across the campus and the ways we are all choosing great.
I’m so proud of what we have accomplished together.
Thank you for believing in the University of Tennessee, the work we are doing, and the lives we are impacting.
Thank you, and go Vols!