It’s been six months since we came together for the fourth annual Flagship Address in September. Just as we do every year, we used that time to reflect on our successes and consider where we’re headed as an institution. This year, as part of the speech, I laid out the disruptions facing higher education and […]
Every year, UT leaders head to our three local Flagship high schools to surprise a handful of students with news of their admission to the state’s flagship land-grant university. It’s a big deal for these students and their families—not just because of the opportunity to attend the state’s top public institution but also because their […]
UT faculty are at the forefront of their fields and creating solutions that will transform industries and the world we live in. They are creating new lightweight composites to build bridges and cars, developing the next generation of artificial intelligence technology, and finding new strategies for improving literacy skills of young students. The discoveries taking […]
Just weeks after starting my tenure as chancellor in 2019, I held my first office hours—an opportunity for members of our campus community to drop by and talk about anything on their mind. In those early days I was looking to hear directly from people across campus and gain a better understanding of their interests […]
Tennessee is poised to be the next great American innovation hub, Chancellor Donde Plowman posits in an editorial that ran in the Nashville Tennessean and the Knoxville News Sentinel.
Chancellor Donde Plowman of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and Clemson University President Jim Clements celebrated their universities’ shared mission as land-grant institutions in a guest editorial that ran in the Miami Herald the day before the schools competed in the Orange Bowl in South Florida. The editorial notes that while the leaders may disagree […]
I knew former governor Bill Haslam would share meaningful wisdom with our graduates when we asked him to speak at our fall commencement ceremony, where he was also awarded an honorary degree. But when he asked our graduates to consider an important question, it was one that also made me stop and think: Do you want […]
As we wrap up the semester and head into the break, I want to take this opportunity to thank you for your extraordinary work and to provide you some updates as we all prepare for 2023. Everywhere I go, I talk about the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, as a university on the rise. More students […]
I want to keep the campus updated on new leadership and structure in the Division of Finance and Administration. In addition to appointing an interim senior vice chancellor for finance and administration following Chris Cimino’s retirement, I am elevating the Office of Information Technology to a stand-alone unit and have created a new cabinet-level position […]
The Volunteer experience we are creating for our students has been a key driver of enrollment growth at UT Knoxville—both attracting new students and helping those already here to succeed. In fact, roughly half of our enrollment growth is from returning students who are persisting toward their degrees. Our innovative approach of leveraging students’ strengths […]
