This clinic will be open to all UT Knoxville-area students, faculty, staff and their immediate family members including children age 14 and older. Vaccines will be given free of charge. Due to the limited amount of vaccine available, doses will be given on a first-come, first-served basis. The campus will hold future vaccine clinics as additional shipments are received.

Both the flu mist nasal spray and the injection vaccine for H1N1 — also known as swine flu — will be available. Individuals between 14 and 49 years old who are healthy and not pregnant can choose which form of the vaccine to receive. Those age 50 and older are not eligible to take the nasal spray.

The H1N1 vaccines are being produced using the same technology as the seasonal flu vaccines, with a similar safety profile. Seasonal flu vaccines have a very good safety record, and the H1N1 vaccines are expected to have comparable results. More information about H1N1 flu vaccines can be found here.

The UT Knoxville campus already has seen many cases of H1N1. Symptoms of H1N1 are similar to those of the seasonal flu. They include fever, cough, sore throat and body aches. In most people, the illness tends to be relatively mild, and they do not need to seek medical care. UT Student Health Service has asked students who suspect they have H1N1 not to come to the clinic unless they are pregnant, have a chronic illness or suffer complications, such as difficulty breathing, fever that does not come down with medicine, or the inability to keep liquids down.

To minimize the risk of contracting or transmitting colds, seasonal flu and H1N1:

• Wash your hands often with soap and warm water, especially after you cough or sneeze. If soap and water are not available, use an alcohol-based hand gel.
• Cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze. Throw the tissue in the trash after you use it. If a tissue is not available, cough into your shirt sleeve.
• Avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth. Germs spread that way.
• Wash your hands before eating.
• Do not share your food or drink with others.
• Avoid close contact with sick people.
• Stay home if you are sick and restrict contact with others until you’ve been symptom-free for 24 hours. A mild, lingering cough may occur and, barring any other flu symptoms, this shouldn’t prevent resumption of normal activities.

For more information about influenza-like illnesses, contact UT Student Health Service at (865) 974-3135 or visit http://studenthealth.utk.edu.

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C O N T A C T :

Amy Blakely, (865-974-8304, amy.blakely@tennessee.edu)

Rebekah Winkler, (865-974-8304, rwinkler@utk.edu)

From the traditional Friday afternoon parade to the pre-game Party in the Park, all members of the UT community can celebrate UT traditions at events for all ages. Homecoming’s anchor event will be the Volunteers’ football game against the Memphis Tigers at 7 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 7. A limited number of football tickets are still available to those registering for Homecoming events. After registering online, attendees will receive a confirmation e-mail with instructions on purchasing football tickets.

At 4 p.m. Friday, Grand Marshal and legendary bluegrass musician Bobby Osborne will lead the campus parade from the Rock, at the corner of Volunteer Boulevard and Pat Head Summitt Street, east on Volunteer towards Neyland Stadium. Osborne is perhaps best known to UT fans for the Osborne Brothers’ 1967 recording of “Rocky Top.”

Also on Friday, UT will celebrate 140 years of the Pride of the Southland Marching Band at an event featuring the band at 5:30 p.m. at the Knoxville Marriott.

Friday Night Live at the Square will begin at 7:30 p.m. at the Square Room on Market Square and feature nationally known comedienne — and UT alumna — Leanne Morgan and Wendel Werner, director of the UT Singers, who will offer his own humorous history of rock ‘n’ roll.

Saturday’s Party in the Park will bring past, present and future Vol fans together for tailgating at 4 p.m. in Circle Park. Members of the pep band and cheerleading squad will be on hand as fans enjoy music, door prizes, face painting, games for the kids and more.

Student organizations will engage in a week-long competition, with relays and challenges that highlight UT spirit. Fraternities, sororities and student associations will earn points for finishing in the top three of each contest as they vie for the Madge Harrison Trophy, which will be presented to the group with the highest overall total during halftime of Saturday’s football game.

Registration is required for some activities and the deadline for the larger weekend events is Monday, Nov. 2. Online registration for the Pride of the Southland Band celebration, Friday Night Live at the Square, Party in the Park and more is available here.

Additional events include:

Sunday, Nov. 1

• Anything Goes — 5:30 p.m., Fiji Island. Students participate in games and relays.

Monday, Nov. 2

• 3-on-3 Basketball Tournament — 4 p.m., HPER. Student teams.

Tuesday, Nov. 3

• Soapbox Derby — 3:30 p.m., Volunteer Boulevard in front of Stokely Athletic Center.

Friday, Nov. 6

• WUTK and College of Communication & Information Alumni Reception — 6 – 9 p.m., Patrick Sullivan’s in the Old City.
• Homecoming Kickoff Show — 7 p.m., Knoxville Civic Auditorium. Sponsored by the Black Cultural Programming Committee. Features comedians Bruce Bruce, Dominique and Steve Brown. Tickets are on sale at the UT Central Ticket Office and at Tickets Unlimited. Tickets for UT students, which include admittance to Saturday’s step show, are $22. Tickets for the general public are $17 and do not include other events.
• The Knoxville Wine Down — 7 p.m., SOBU Restaurant & Lounge, 6213 Kingston Pike. Sponsored by the Black Alumni Council. Tickets are $20 per person and include admittance to the Black Alumni Party at 9 p.m.
• Black Alumni Party/Homecoming After Party — 9 p.m., SOBU Restaurant & Lounge, 6213 Kingston Pike. Sponsored by the Black Alumni Council. Tickets are $10 per person at the door. Admission is free with the purchase Knoxville Wine Down tickets.

Saturday, Nov. 8

• Daily Beacon Open House and Buffet — 3 p.m., Daily Beacon office, 5 Communications Building.
• Army ROTC Picnic — 3 p.m., Knoxville Marriott. The suite reopens approximately one hour after the football game ends.
• College of Engineering Annual Alumni Homecoming Barbecue — 4 p.m., courtyard of Ferris and Perkins halls. $12 per adult; $8 per child.
• College of Communication & Information Open House — 4 – 6 p.m., Communications Building lobby. Tour renovated areas of the school and meet with faculty.
• College of Law Barbecue — 4 p.m., College of Law front patio. $15 per person.
• 20th Anniversary Pre-Game Faculty Showcase — 5 p.m., University Center Ballroom. “Germs and Geology: Emerging Issues in Waterborne Pathogen Research,” featuring Larry D. McKay, Jones Professor of hydrogeology and head of the Earth and Planetary Sciences department.
• 10th Annual Black Cultural Center Festival — noon, Black Cultural Center.
• Homecoming Football Game — 7 p.m., Neyland Stadium. UT vs. Memphis.
• 10th Annual Stompfest — 8 p.m., Knoxville Civic Center. Sponsored by the Black Cultural Programming Committee. Tickets are on sale at the UT Central Ticket Office and at Tickets Unlimited. Tickets for the general public are $17. Tickets for UT students, which include admittance to Friday’s Homecoming Kickoff show, are $22.
• Black Alumni Reunion — 9 p.m., Jubilee Banquet Hall, 6700 Jubilee Center Way. Join the Kappa Chi Chapter of the Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, the Black Cultural Programming Committee, the Pi Epsilon Chapter of the Zeta Phi Beta Sorority and the class of 1989 as we unite for one celebration. $15 per person.

Sunday, Nov. 9

• Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity Farewell Gathering Brunch and Program — 11 a.m., Panhellenic Building.
• Zeta Phi Beta Sorority Farewell and Recognition Lunch — 1:30 p.m., Mt. Olive Baptist Church. Lunch will immediately follow the 10:45 a.m. worship service. Sisters are invited to meet at the Black Cultural Center at 10:20 to carpool to the church.

For more information about Homecoming events, including registration and R.S.V.P. details, visit the Office of Alumni Affairs’ Homecoming Web site.

Additional details on events sponsored by the Black Alumni Council, Black Cultural Programming Committee and the Black Cultural Center also can be found on the Minority Student Affairs Web site. Details on UT student events can be found on the All Campus Events Web site.

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C O N T A C T :

Rebekah Winkler, (865-974-8304, rwinkler@utk.edu)

For more information on campus security, crime prevention tips and programming needs, visit www.utpolice.org.

When Apollo astronauts returned from the moon 40 years ago, they brought back souvenirs in the form of moon rocks to be used for scientific analysis, and one of the chief questions was whether there was water to be found in the lunar rocks and soils.

The problem they faced was complicated by the fact that most of the rock boxes containing the lunar samples had leaked. This led the scientists to assume that the trace amounts of water they found came from Earth air that had entered the containers. The assumption remained that, outside of possible ice at the moon’s poles, there was no water on the moon.

Forty years later, a team of scientists including Larry Taylor of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, has found evidence that the old assumption may be wrong. To do so, they used a high-tech instrument on a satellite in orbit around the moon.

“To some extent, we were fooled,” said Taylor, a distinguished professor of earth and planetary sciences, who has studied the moon since the original Apollo missions. “Since the boxes leaked, we just assumed the water we found was from contamination with terrestrial air.”

The team of researchers used a NASA instrument called the Moon Mineralogy Mapper – M3 for short – housed on the Indian Chandrayyan-1 satellite, India’s first lunar expedition, which was launched into orbit around the moon late last year.

M3 analyzes the way that light from the sun reflects off the lunar surface to understand what materials comprise the lunar soil. Light is reflected in different wavelengths off of different minerals, and scientists can use those differences – mostly imperceptible to the human eye – to know what is present in the thin layer of upper soil – so-called reflectance spectrometry.

In this case, the instrument detected wavelengths of reflected light that would indicate a chemical bond between hydrogen and oxygen. Given water’s well-known chemical symbol, H2O, which represents two hydrogen atoms bonded to one oxygen atom, this discovery was a source of great interest to the researchers.

The instrument can only see the very uppermost layers of the lunar soil – perhaps to a few centimeters below the surface, but what it saw, according to the scientists, was water, previously theorized but not proven to exist only in permanently shadowed craters at the lunar poles. What scientists did not understand, though, was where this newly observed water came from.

There are potentially two types of water on the moon: exogenic, meaning water from outside sources, such as comets striking the moon’s surface, and endogenic, meaning water that originates on the moon. Taylor and his colleagues suspect that the water they’re seeing in the moon’s surface is endogenic.

Since the rocks and soils that compose the moon contain about 45 percent oxygen, mostly combined in silicate phases, the question before researchers is where the hydrogen component of the water they’re seeing with M3 came from. In this case, they believe it may have come from an astronomical phenomenon called the solar wind.

As the sun undergoes nuclear fusion, it constantly emits a stream of particles, mostly protons, which are positively charged hydrogen atoms. On Earth, the atmosphere and magnetism prevent us from being bombarded by these protons, but the moon lacks that protection, meaning the oxygen-rich minerals and glasses on the surface of the moon are constantly pounded by hydrogen in the form of protons, moving at velocities of one-third the speed of light.

When those protons hit the lunar surface with enough force, suspects Taylor, they break apart oxygen bonds in soil materials, and where free oxygen and hydrogen are together, there’s a high chance that trace amounts of water will be formed. These traces are thought to be about a quart of water per ton of soil.

“The isotopes of oxygen that exist on the moon are the same as those that exist on Earth, so it was difficult if not impossible to tell the difference between water from the moon and water from Earth,” said Taylor. “Since the early soil samples only had trace amounts of water, it was easy to make the mistake of attributing it to contamination.”

Taylor and other M3 team members believe their findings will be of particular significance as mankind continues to plan for a return to the moon. The maps created by M3 could provide mission planners with locations prime for extraction of needed water from the lunar soil.

The M3 team, made up of scientists from the U.S. and India, reported its findings in this week’s edition of the online journal Science Express. The team, funded by NASA, is led by researchers at Brown University, which collaborates with Taylor and UT Knoxville’s Planetary Geosciences Institute.

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C O N T A C T :

Larry Taylor (865-974-6013, lataylor@utk.edu)

Jay Mayfield (865-974-9409, jay.mayfield@tennessee.edu)

Charles Primm (865-974-5180, charles.primm@tennessee.edu)

In his forthcoming book, to be titled “On Photographing in the South,” Lee, a photography professor in the School of Art at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, will provide a visual tour of the Southeast, including some of the poorer areas of the region.

Lee is sharing these same photos with his students this year to help them understand poverty — and to help them learn to look beyond poverty to see people. It’s appropriate timing since this year Ready for the World, the campus’ international and intercultural initiative, is focusing on “Our World in Need,” with a particular emphasis on poverty.

Lee spent a large portion of his early career photographing themes of poverty. His book is an album of the photos he began taking in the early 1980s when he embarked on a trip around the Southeast photographing anything and everything.

Because Lee — who was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., and educated on the East Coast — had never been to the Southeast, it was a very eye-opening excursion into the realities of rural and urban poverty.

He remembers being especially touched in Augusta, Ga., when a man in a van drove up beside him on the street and asked him if he would mind going with him to take a picture.

“I had no idea where he was taking me. I had no idea what I would be photographing either,” Lee said. “We finally ended up at a funeral home.”

When Lee walked up to the coffin, he saw a baby lying there. After talking to the mother and father, he found out the couple could not afford a crib. The baby rolled off of their bed and got tangled in the sheets.

“My wife and I were about to have our first child, and I remembered shopping for cribs,” Lee said. “I remember having the ability to do or see something these people couldn’t.”

During the next decade, Lee continued to travel to places including Texas, Kentucky and Florida to take photos. More recently, he photographed the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

By sharing the photos from his book with his students, Lee hopes to open their eyes to the issue of poverty.

“In photography, as an art form, I have a tremendous amount of leeway on the content I show my students,” Lee said. “I don’t think it’s my job to advocate a cause, but instead to show these causes exist.”

He wants students to learn to use their photography to delve into the lives of the people around the world and look at the person instead of the role a person plays in society.

“I hope the students venture a little bit into where the people really live,” Lee said. “It’s easier to look at the person serving you in a restaurant as just a server. The servers and maids live real lives.

“The poor may be poor, but they have and want the same things as everyone else,” Lee said. “It’s important to remember that we’re all still brothers with the same hopes, and we all still suffer similarly.”

Photography can be used as a tool for change, he said.

“When I do and talk about photography, I’ll make the assumption that the audience doesn’t have a particular sympathy to the subject,” Lee said. “In the ones who are unconvinced or unaware lies the possibility of doing something of value.”

In his classes, he said, he tries to enlarge a student’s view of a subject, which ultimately enlarges their view of the world.

“I don’t want to just talk about how pretty the composition is, but you can talk about those lives,” Lee said. “A greater awareness of suffering and poverty will allow people to rediscover their passion. Then they realize both intellectually and morally that a little bit can help.

“Regardless of as many degrees you get and the amount of intelligence you acquire, the world outside is always bigger than that.”

Lee received his bachelor’s degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his graduate degree from Yale School of Art where he studied under the famous photographer Walker Evans, who photographed sharecroppers in the 1930s. Lee’s work has been displayed in prestigious venues like the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and he has received many awards and fellowships for his contributions to photography.

Beginning in April 2010, Lee’s photographs of the South will be showcased at the Knoxville Museum of Art in an exhibit to be called “A Sense of Place: Southern Photographs by Baldwin Lee, Walker Evans and Eudora Welty.

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C O N T A C T :

Amy Blakely (865-974-5034; amy.blakely@tennessee.edu)

Baldwin Lee (865-974 9388; blee@utk.edu)

Bridget Hardy (865-974-2225; bhardy4@utk.edu)

Shots will cost $20 — $5 less than last year — and all proceeds will go to the Knoxville News Sentinel Empty Stocking Fund, which provides food and toys to needy families during the winter holidays. Sponsors include the UT Student Health Service, the UT School of Nursing, the Knoxville News Sentinel Charities and Dr. Charlie Barnett.

“This year our campus community will be facing both H1N1 and the seasonal flu,” said Student Health Service administrator Jim Boyle. “Therefore, it is especially important to get vaccinated for both. We’re encouraging all students, faculty and staff to get the seasonal flu shot now, as well as the H1N1 shot when it becomes available later in the fall.”

College campuses are particularly susceptible to both viruses because of large numbers of people in close proximity in classrooms and residence halls. The UT Knoxville campus already has seen many cases of H1N1.

Symptoms of seasonal flu include high fever, headache, extreme tiredness, dry cough, sore throat and a runny or stuffy nose.

Symptoms of H1N1 are similar; they include fever, cough, sore throat and body aches. In most people, the illness tends to be relatively mild, and they do not need to seek medical care. UT Student Health Service has asked students not to come to the clinic unless they are pregnant, have a chronic illness or suffer complications, such as difficulty breathing, fever that does not come down with medicine, or the inability to keep liquids down.

To minimize the risk of contracting or transmitting colds, seasonal flu and H1N1:

• Wash your hands often with soap and warm water, especially after you cough or sneeze. If soap and water are not available, use an alcohol-based hand gel.
• Cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze. Throw the tissue in the trash after you use it. If a tissue is not available, cough into your shirt sleeve.
• Avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth. Germs spread that way.
• Wash your hands before eating.
• Do not share your food or drink with others.
• Avoid close contact with sick people.
• Stay home if you are sick and restrict contact with others until you’ve been symptom-free for 24 hours. A mild, lingering cough may occur and, barring any other flu symptoms, this shouldn’t prevent resumption of normal activities.

For more information about influenza-like illnesses, contact UT Student Health Service at (865) 974-3135 or visit http://studenthealth.utk.edu.

—

C O N T A C T :

Rebekah Winkler, (865-974-8304, rwinkler@utk.edu)

Each year, UT’s Black Cultural Programming Committee selects an individual who has made significant contributions to society to speak as the Legends Lecturer. Lee will give his lecture, “America Through My Lens,” at 7 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 14, in the Cox Auditorium of the Alumni Memorial Building. The event is free and open to the public, and parking will be available in Staff Lot 9, along Phillip Fulmer Way. Following the lecture, a brief question-and-answer session will be moderated by WATE TV’s Tearsa Smith.

Past Legends Lecturers include Debbie Allen, Ruby Dee and Harry Belafonte.

Lee’s production company, 40 Acres & A Mule Filmworks, has produced more than 35 films since 1983. His movies are known for examining race relations, the role of media in contemporary life, urban crime and poverty and other political issues. Some of his popular works include “Inside Man,” “He Got Game,” “Michael Jackson: History on Film,” “Malcolm X,” “She Hate Me,” “Love and Basketball” and “The Original Kings of Comedy.”

Lee’s 2006 documentary “When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts,” about the devastation in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, won a 2007 Emmy for exceptional merit in nonfiction filmmaking. Two of his films, “4 Little Girls” (1997) and “Do the Right Thing” (1989) were nominated for Academy Awards.

The event is sponsored by the Black Cultural Programming Committee with support from the Charlie Lemmons Endowment, which provides for programs that engage UT students in becoming aware of their heritage and inspire their future.

*Editor’s note: Media are welcome to attend the lecture, though Lee will not have time to speak directly with media, and recording of the event is prohibited.

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C O N T A C T :

Rebekah Winkler, UT Media Relations (865-974-8304, rwinkler@utk.edu)

Dawn Norwood, UT Black Cultural Center (865-974-6861, bcpc@utk.edu)

Kickoff is scheduled for 12:21 p.m. for the Volunteers’ game against Western Kentucky University. Gates open at 10:15 a.m. ESPN-SEC Sports will televise the game.

The start of the traditional Vol Walk has been moved closer to Neyland Stadium and closer to game time this year. The walk will begin at 10:35 a.m. at the Torchbearer statue on Volunteer Boulevard, then proceed down Peyton Manning Pass, then left onto Phillip Fulmer Way.

Immediately following, the Pride of the Southland Marching Band will march down the Joe Johnson-John Ward Pedestrian Walkway and proceed along Andy Holt Avenue to the stadium.

“These changes in game-day events allow more fans the opportunity to experience the traditions and build excitement closer to kickoff,” said Jeff Maples, UT Knoxville senior associate vice chancellor for finance and administration. “Anyone with a ticket to the game can go to the new observation deck on the third floor of the west side of Neyland Stadium and get a great view of the Vol Walk and band march.”

Fans also can attend the College of Arts and Sciences’ Pregame Faculty Showcase, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. Held two hours before each home game kickoff in the University Center Ballroom, the showcase is a free 30-minute presentation by a UT faculty member, followed by a 15-minute question-and-answer session. This week, Carroll Freeman, director of opera and associate professor in the School of Music, will dispel common myths about opera in “Master Class-less: BeaUTy and the Beats.”

Due to the time changes involving the Vol Walk and the band march, it is more important than ever to arrive for the game as early as possible, Maples said.

During the duration of the Vol Walk and the band march, fans should enter the campus from Lake Loudoun Boulevard, Joe Johnson Drive or the western end of Volunteer Boulevard at Cumberland Avenue and avoid the entrances on the north and east sides of the campus.

Only fans with permits can park on campus. UT encourages fans to use shuttle buses from the Knoxville Civic Coliseum, the Old City area of downtown Knoxville, and Farragut High School in west Knoxville. Limited public handicapped parking spaces and handicapped shuttle service to the stadium are available on the UT Agriculture Campus, off Neyland Drive.

Many area hotels also offer shuttle service to the game. Check with your hotel’s management for details.

For the first time in years, no major interstate road construction is taking place in Knoxville at the start of the football season. Tennessee Department of Transportation overhead signs and radio broadcasts will advise motorists which interstate exits to take to get to campus. The signs also will advise through-traffic on Interstates 40 and 75 to take the I-640 bypass around downtown Knoxville.

UT reminds visitors that all items, including purses, are subject to search at the gates. Certain items remain prohibited inside the stadium, and those items cannot be stored at any stadium gate.

Prohibited items include the following:

• alcoholic beverages, cans, bottles or coolers
• radios without headphones
• open umbrellas
• video cameras
• stadium seats with arms
• large bags or parcels, including backpacks and large purses
• weapons of any kind, including pocketknives

Fans are allowed to bring the following items inside the stadium:

• cushions and seats without arms
• diaper bags that accompany infants
• small cameras, pagers, cell phones and binoculars

In an effort to reduce wait times, the university is offering express entry lanes at Gates 10 and 21. Those fans with no items subject to search may utilize the express lanes for quicker access to the stadium.

Under state law, no smoking will be allowed anywhere inside the gates of Neyland Stadium. No one inside the gates will be allowed to leave and then be re-admitted.

A no-fly zone extends over the stadium from one hour before the game until one hour after it ends, prohibiting flights within a 3-nautical-mile radius and lower than 3,000-feet altitude, except as authorized by air traffic control.

Solicitation near stadium gates and along Phillip Fulmer Way is prohibited.

For those driving on campus, Peyton Manning Pass, Middle and Lower Drives, Estabrook Drive and Phillip Fulmer Way from Middle Drive to Tee Martin Drive will be closed 30 minutes before kickoff. Directional parking will be used in Area 9 and Lots 4, 5A and 5B.

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C O N T A C T :

Jeff Maples (865-974-3061, maples@utk.edu)

Brian Browning (865-974-3061, brian-browning@utk.edu)

Charles Primm (865-974-5180, charles.primm@tennessee.edu)

Genteel and pretentious, Blanche DuBois, having lost her teaching job and the family plantation home, comes to stay in New Orleans with her sister, Stella, who is married to brutish Stanley Kowalski. Blanche, full of airs and graces, is looking for a husband but Kowalski exposes her life as a small town prostitute and seducer of young boys to her sole suitor, Mitch. In a final power struggle over the loyalty of his wife, Kowalski rapes Blanche and she is taken away to an asylum.

A Streetcar Named Desire premiered in New York in 1947. The play cemented Williams’ reputation as one of the greatest American playwrights, winning him a New York’s Critics Circle Award and a Pulitzer Prize.

“Streetcar not only brought fame to its author and principal actors, but it helped to bring definition to the post-war American character—or at least a significant aspect of the character,” said director Calvin MacLean. “Blanche and Stanley, Stella and Mitch are as American as apple pie—as close to you and me as Hamlet is still to the English, or Oedipus was to the ancient Greeks. Blanche and Stanley’s story puts the latter part of our last century into a deeper perspective—and our current time into a fresher one.”

MacLean is UT Theatre Department Head and CBT Company Artistic Director. Lucas Richman, who has served as Music Director for the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra (KSO) for the past seven years, composed the original music for this production. UT Theatre Department alumna Dale Dickey will star as Blanche. Chicago resident Peter DeFaria will play the role of Mitch. Playing the roles of Stanley and Stella Kowalski are Graduate Acting students Matthew Ventura and Jessica Ripton.

A preview of the show is Thursday, Sept. 3, followed by opening night Friday, Sept. 4. The show runs through Sunday, Sept. 20. For tickets, call the Clarence Brown Theatre box office at 974-5161 or visit www.clarencebrowntheatre.com.

Welcome Week kicks off Saturday, Aug. 15, as new and returning students move into residence halls and many social and academic-based activities begin. Classes start Wednesday, Aug. 19.

UT’s Welcome Week provides incoming students with the opportunity to start their college careers on the right foot. As students make their first impressions on their classmates and professors, UT makes its own first impression on the newly arrived.

Activities ranging from the annual freshman picnic and sorority and fraternity recruitment to more academically minded Light the Torch sessions.

This year’s freshman class is 3,723 strong and is one of the most academically accomplished and diverse UT has seen.

“We want our new students to know we are vested in their success, and we want to encourage them to take advantage of the many resources to get the most of their experience both in and out of the classroom,” Provost Susan Martin said.

“Light the Torch: The First-Year Experience at UT” is designed to provide new students with a solid foundation:

• “Life in the Class Lane” introduces students to Blackboard, the campus’ online course management system.

• “Passport to Success: Travel Times” guides students through UT facilities and key resource locations.

• “Life of the Mind” book discussions bring together small groups of students and faculty group leaders to discuss an assigned book. The 2009 Life of the Mind book is “The Glass Castle” by Jeannette Walls, who visits campus on Monday, Aug.17.

Other Welcome Week activities include:

• Big Orange Goodbye with Bruce Pearl, 11 a.m. – noon Sunday, Aug. 16, in Presidential Courtyard for parents and students.

• Freshman Picnic, 5 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 16, in Circle Park, featuring football coach Lane Kiffin, UT cheerleaders, Smokey and the pep band.

• Caribbean Splash Jam Pool Party, 8 p.m. Monday, Aug. 17, at TRECS.

• Celebrate the Rock 11 a.m. – 2 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 18, at the landmark’s new location with free food, entertainment and plenty of paint.

• Film Flashback 1992: “Wayne’s World,” 9 – 11 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 19, Humanities Amphitheater. First-year students can enjoy free popcorn and a movie from the year they were born.

• Comedian Vidur Kapur performs 7:30 – 9 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 20, in the University Center Auditorium.

• Hypnotist Gabriel Holmes performs at 7 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 22, in the University Center Auditorium.

For a complete schedule of Welcome Week events and additional information for students and parents, visit http://welcomeweek.utk.edu.