Advisory Board
The seven-member board is composed of five members appointed by Tennessee’s governor, one esteemed faculty, and one selected student.
The board submits recommendations to the University of Tennessee System president on campus-level strategic plans and operating budgets. The president then brings these recommendations to the Board of Trustees, the governing body of the UT System, prior to a vote on any annual operating budget or strategic plan.
Membership
The advisory board meets twice a semester. Agendas and minutes are linked after membership information.
The public members of the Advisory Board are Allen Carter of Niota, Alexia Poe of Nashville, Tomi Robb of Knoxville, Tom Smith of Nashville, and John Tickle of Bristol.
The Faculty Senate appointed Joan MacLeod Heminway, the Rick Rose Distinguished Professor of Law, to serve as the faculty appointee to the board.
The student appointee is Jessica Barfield, fourth-year Ph.D. candidate in the School of Information Sciences. Student Selection Process
Allen Carter
A 1995 graduate in finance, Carter is the owner of Athens Insurance Agency in McMinn County, one of the largest individually owned insurance agencies in the Southeast. He currently serves on the board of directors for the Pat Summitt Foundation and the University of Tennessee President’s Council.
Alexia Poe
A 1995 graduate of the College of Communication and Information, Poe is a public relations consultant for the Nashville-based Ingram Group. She has previously served as director of communications for former Governor Bill Haslam, director of economic and community development for Nashville Mayor Karl Dean, and communications director for former Senator Lamar Alexander.
Tomi Robb
An Equal Justice Works Legal Fellow at the Tennessee Alliance for Legal Services working in housing and reentry, Robb has both a bachelor’s in political science and a law degree from the University of Tennessee. She currently serves on the board of directors for KnoxCAM and WordPlayers.
Tom Smith
A 1980 graduate of the Haslam College of Business, Smith is chairman of Smith/Hallemann Partners, a Nashville-based real estate firm. He was previously chairman of Mission Property Company and served on the board of directors of Highwoods Properties Inc.
John Tickle
A 1965 graduate of what is now the Tickle College of Engineering, Tickle is chairman of Strongwell Corporation, a manufacturing firm based in Bristol, Virginia. He was president of the company from 1972 to 2011 and served on UT’s Board of Trustees from 2015 to 2018.
Joan MacLeod Heminway
Heminway is the Rick Rose Distinguished Professor of Law and interim director of the Institute for Professional Leadership at the College of Law. She left a 15-year career in the private practice of transactional business law in 2000 to begin her teaching career at UT. She has served the UT campus in a number of roles, including as Faculty Senate president, Mic/Nite coordinator, and co-chair of the Chancellor’s Commission for Women. She earned her JD from the New York University School of Law and her AB in international relations and history from Brown University.
Jessica Barfield
A fourth-year Ph.D. candidate in the School of Information Sciences with a research interest in human-robot interaction. Barfield is a recipient of the 2023-2024 Southeast Conference Emerging Scholars Award, the Karl and Madira Bickel Scholarship, the ASIS&T SIG Social Informatics: Emerging Scholar Social Informatics Researcher Award, Reeder-Siler Fellowship in Communications, and recipient of a UTK Graduate School Fellowship. Her UTK service has included working on the UT Chancellor’s Commission for Women, the School of Information Sciences Faculty Search Committee, the Graduate Student Senate (member of the Equity and Diversity Committee) and she is a member of the College of Communication Graduate Teaching Association Community Group.