For some perspective, Tennessee Today sat down with Bill Fox, a professor of economics and the director of the UT Center for Business and Economic Research (CBER). Fox is an internationally known expert on taxation, finance and economic development.

Dr. Fox, how bad is the economic situation in Tennessee as compared to other low points in our history?

This is the worst fiscal crisis in the modern history of Tennessee.

It’s the first time where we’ve had an actual decline in tax collections. We’ve had numerous recessions, but never one that was severe enough to cause us to have a decline in the amount of dollars collected. At this point we’re at -7 percent, so it’s not even just a little bit down. So that’s the best evidence of how serious this is. The unemployment rate has already exceeded what we experienced in the last recession, and we’re still early in this recession. So from an economic perspective, we’re in a very serious environment.

How does this affect UT Knoxville and the UT system?

The university is sensitive to tax revenue collections in Tennessee, but we’re also sensitive to national conditions that impact universities as compared with other state agencies. That’s because universities are seen as being able to replace some of that lost funding with tuition increases, while other agencies simply cannot replace revenue as we can. So higher education experiences relatively larger cuts.

State leaders have to look at what’s important, and what’s essential, even in a downturn. Higher education is highly valued in Tennessee, but when you absolutely don’t have enough money and have to make cuts, then in choosing among K-12, health care for low-income residents, prisons and higher ed… then among the tough choices, higher education tends not to fare well in the short term.

But this reevaluation isn’t just happening in Tennessee, is it?

Universities around the nation are going through the same thing. There have already been furloughs, pay cuts and layoffs at universities.

And there are political limits to raising tuition in Tennessee. I think there’s a recognition among politicians that it’s a difficult economic environment for everyone, and they’re expecting universities to share in some of the cutbacks and not simply pass it forward to students by increasing tuition to make up for lost revenues from the state.

So what’s the outlook for this year?

The CBER released its annual Economic Report to the Governor, and the forecast is for Tennessee’s economy to continue deteriorating throughout 2009. I think it’s important to keep in mind that tax revenues don’t immediately respond as soon as the economy bottoms out, particularly keeping in mind the tax structure we have in Tennessee. Historically, Tennessee has made up for these times of slow revenue growth with sales tax rate increases. I don’t believe that’s going to happen here, so revenue recovery will be very slow, and as a result, 2010 and 2011 will also be rough for Tennessee.

Fox has held appointments as a visiting scholar for the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, as a visiting professor at the University of Hawaii, and as Distinguished Fulbright Chair for American Studies at the University of Frankfurt, Germany. Fox also has served as a consultant on finance, taxation and economic development in a number of states and developing countries. He is a member of the American Economics Association and a past president of the National Tax Association.

That’s not to say there isn’t a competitive mood from time to time, especially at the big bingo game.

Another reason I like Fall Festival so much is that it relies on the help of many volunteers from across the campus. You can expect administrators from many Knoxville-area departments to attend, give out prizes, and make new friends. This is one way administrators can express their appreciation for the hard work of employees throughout the year.

The event also serves as a reminder that UT is one of the largest employers in the region, with 7,000 regular employees.

Carol Raxter, main organizer, and the entire Fall Festival team work for several months to pull together an event of this size. Facilities Services employees and TRECS staff always do a great job of preparing the site and breaking down equipment after the festival.

Employees are UT’s greatest asset. Fall Festival underscores the truth of that statement. Friday will be a great opportunity for new employees to meet longtime staff and faculty, and begin to understand just how deep UT pride goes.

As a member of the faculty and staff, you play a key role in ensuring the safety of our campus. In working closely with students, colleagues and visitors, you’ll often be the first to notice a condition or circumstance that could affect safety.

While police on university and college campuses receive the same training as our city and county counterparts, the people we serve and the unique territory we cover make our jobs different, but in my opinion even more rewarding.

Our sworn and civilian employees have the opportunity to interact with students and impact their lives in a positive way. While we must enforce state laws and campus regulations, we take just as seriously our role in helping students have a good experience at UT. We strive to make interactions with students and all the people we serve as positive as possible.

We depend on you to let us know about unsafe conditions or other potential threats. We also work closely with the Dean of Students office and others to identify members of our campus community who may need counseling or mental health assistance.

This month UT had the honor of being a kickoff site for National Safety Campus Awareness Month. We take safety very seriously, and we are glad to be recognized on the national level for taking proactive measures, such as the UT ALERT notification system and the 16th Street Corridor project.

Education and outreach are key factors in promoting a safe campus environment, and staff and faculty play a large role in utilizing and promoting the many resources available. Our Community Relations Unit has increased in staffing and outreach efforts to provide more education and crime prevention programming. We are involved in freshman and new employee orientation, personal safety and workplace violence programming, Rape Aggression Defense (RAD) training and drug/alcohol abuse programs.

We appreciate the opportunity to work closely with all members of the campus community. We are here to serve everyone. I urge faculty and staff to not be afraid to call us at 974-3114 whenever you need assistance or want to share information with us.

As freshmen arrived on campus this semester, they (hopefully) came prepared to discuss this year’s Life of the Mind book selection, Ishmael Beah’s A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. The book is Beah’s eye-opening account of getting caught up in–and then escaping–the civil war that has engulfed his homeland of Sierre Leone.

Beah will visit UT Knoxville on Oct. 17 with Alusine Kamara, former director of a child soldier rehabilitation center in Sierra Leone, where Beah was sent. A discussion and book signing will take place at 1:30 p.m. in the Cox Auditorium. Beah and Kamara are both on the board of advisers of UT Knoxville’s Center for the Study of Youth & Political Violence. Next month’s event will be their second appearance together on the campus.

We’ve also put together a film series that looks at the war experiences of children from many times and places. For a complete schedule, pick up a Ready for the World passport or keep an eye on the campus calendar.

A few other special events I’d like to mention:

This Saturday, the Knoxville campus will hold the world premiere of "APPALACHIA: A History of Mountains and People," a four-part documentary series narrated by Sissy Spacek and featuring several current and former UT faculty members. Although the world premiere is already booked, you can see this spectacular film at a second showing from 1 to 6 p.m. on Sunday at the University Center.

The film is free. To sign up, go to http://appalachia.utk.edu/. Complimentary parking will be available in the UC Parking Garage.

And if you haven’t yet visited the Ready for the World Café, you’re in for a treat. The café is open Monday through Thursday from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. in the University Center Hermitage Room. The international buffet is run by students in the advanced food production and service management class. The cost is $10 to eat in the dining room, and $8.50 to get a box of food to carry out.

As the semester progresses, I encourage you to take advantage of all that RFTW has to offer. Keep an eye on www.utk.edu/readyfortheworld for upcoming events and programs.

If taken to heart by the entire campus community, these steps would save UT Knoxville an estimated $1.2 million annually.

I believe passionately in the Switch Your Thinking initiative—it makes sense in the heart and the pocketbook.

First of all, it is the right thing to do. We are, despite all of our differences, stewards of the Earth. Secondly, in the larger context of global warming, it is the practical path for all nations and their citizens. It is no exaggeration to say we are in a planetary crisis.

In addition, I would argue that all of us who want to see UT prosper must do this. Given the economic realities in Tennessee, we must tighten our belts. The taxpayers expect no less.

Our biggest advantage is that we have already started to get ahead of the environmental curve—to, in a phrase, "Make Orange Green."

We can find many examples of how we’re already on the right path: student environmental fees, an active recycling program, a light bulb exchange, practices that avoid waste altogether, national green cleaning awards, and the Environmental Stewardship Fund supported by faculty and staff and other donors. You can read more about these remarkable efforts at http://environment.utk.edu/.

"Switch Your Thinking" is the opportunity for each of us to take very specific and active steps to do our part.

But our efforts cannot stop there. There is much more we can—and must—do. A new commuter program is already here: UT employees can get use of a van and, by riding to work together, drastically reduce commuting costs. The KAT bus system offers great rates. And by signing up online with the SmartTrips program, employees (and students) can find carpools.

I urge you to wholeheartedly embrace Switch Your Thinking. It is the next big step towards dramatically reducing UT’s energy bills, and it places the flagship university squarely where it ought to be on this issue—out in front.

This year’s freshman class arrived with an average GPA of 3.76 and a 26.6 average ACT score. Both scores are the highest ever for an entering class.

As UT Knoxville becomes more a school of choice for our state’s—and nation’s—best and brightest students, we must increase our efforts to maintain a diverse student body and increase accessibility for all qualified students.

To that end, this year we dedicated an additional $1 million to expand the Pledge and Promise Scholarship programs. We also launched UT LEAD, a program that assists students through academic counseling, first-year seminars, leadership development programs and other learning opportunities.

Fifty-five students—most of them Promise Scholarship recipients—just attended the first LEAD Summer Institute. They lived on campus and got a taste of college life and a chance to develop a support network of friends before the semester started.

The Pledge Scholarship, approved by the UT Board of Trustees in the summer of 2005, provides for the cost of attendance, including tuition and fees and room and board, for low-income Tennessee residents.

This fall, the income eligibility guideline was adjusted so more students could benefit from Pledge, which now covers books, too.

The Promise Scholarship has succeeded in recruiting students from high schools that have traditionally been underrepresented at UT Knoxville. Last year, applications from Promise high school students were up 46 percent over the previous year. Applications from Promise are up another 10 percent this year.

We have also increased the number of seats set aside for students whose admission was deferred until spring; and we are allowing those students and Tennessee Board of Regents Community College graduates who transfer to UT to remain eligible for both the Pledge and Promise scholarships.

We look forward to a great year, and we will continue to search for innovative ways to ensure student access and success.

As chairman of the Chancellor Search Committee, I was pleased to announce last week that we have invited five highly qualified finalists to campus.

During the finalists’ visits, you will have a chance to meet each candidate, ask them questions and provide the search committee with your feedback.

Here are the finalists:

• Jimmy G. Cheek, senior vice president for agriculture, University of Florida
• Jennie Hunter-Cevera, president, University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute
• Howard Johnson, former provost/vice president and now a math professor, University of North Texas
• Ellen Wartella, vice chancellor/provost, University of California, Riverside
• David Young, senior vice president, Arizona State University

The search committee’s mission is to recommend to UT President John Petersen a list of proven leaders who will aggressively promote continued development of UT Knoxville’s academic programs, research productivity and national reputation of excellence, built upon a commitment to access and diversity.

With the help of a professional search firm, we considered 37 candidates. We narrowed the list to 12 candidates and interviewed them in early August. After those interviews, we selected these five very capable leaders to bring to campus.

Now we need your feedback.

Starting on Sept. 8, each finalist will visit campus for two days. To provide ample opportunity for faculty, staff, students and the Knoxville community to get to know the candidates, each finalist will participate in two public forums, each an hour long. The forums will be Web cast live and archived on the Chancellor search Web site, http://chancellor.utk.edu/search/.

During these forums, the candidates will make brief statements and then field questions from the audience. Audience members, those viewing the Web cast and all members of the campus community will be invited to submit feedback about the candidates.

Also during these visits, the finalists will meet with Petersen, Executive Vice President David Millhorn, Interim UT Knoxville Chancellor Jan Simek, the vice chancellors and senior staff, academic deans, the Faculty Senate Executive Committee, Student Government Association representatives and a group of students from the honors programs, representatives of the chancellor’s diversity commissions, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory directors.

You can learn more about the candidates at http://chancellor.utk.edu/search/. I encourage you to attend the forums and share your thoughts about each candidate.

Please take advantage of this opportunity to help select the leadership that will guide UT Knoxville into the future.

Forum Schedule

David Young:

• 3 p.m., Sept. 8, Hodges Library Auditorium
• 2:30 p.m., Sept. 9, UC Auditorium

Jennie Hunter-Cevera:

• 4 p.m., Sept. 9, UC Auditorium
• 3:15 p.m. Sept. 10, UC Auditorium

Ellen Wartella:

• 2 p.m., Sept. 15, UC Auditorium
• 3:15 p.m., Sept. 16, Black Cultural Center multi-purpose room

Howard Johnson:

• 2 p.m., Sept. 18, UC Auditorium
• 3:30 p.m., Sept. 19, Hodges Library Auditorium

Jimmy Cheek:

• 3:45 p.m., Sept. 24, Hodges Library Auditorium
• 3:30 p.m., Sept. 25, UC Auditorium

"Once again, we are in a very strong position academically. Our freshman class of about 4,200 students is the best in the university’s history. The average ACT score for the group is 26.5 and the average high school GPA for incoming freshmen is 3.74.

"The Ready for the World initiative, now in its fourth year, is preparing our students, faculty and staff for a global society. This year’s theme — Children and War — is particularly timely.

"We can point with pride to the Chancellor’s Honors Programs, the first group of Haslam Scholars this year, and the successes of the Tennessee Pledge and Promise scholarships. We’ve just graduated our first class of HOPE scholarship recipients. UT matched Harvard, MIT, Princeton and Duke in this year’s prestigious Goldwater scholarship competition for sophomores and juniors majoring in math, science and engineering. And, a new undergraduate education fee will provide more merit and need-based scholarships to study abroad.

"These impressive academic achievements help us recruit outstanding faculty and are no doubt an advantage to the Chancellor Search Committee, which continues its work under the leadership of Hap McSween.

"Several long-term construction and remodeling projects coming online this year — including the new Baker Center, the business building and two dorms — will improve the campus.

"UT continues to demonstrate environmental leadership. In September, we will unveil a major initiative here on campus aimed at doing the right thing environmentally as well as saving UT money.

"As many people know, UT Knoxville has been affected by the state budget crunch, which has led, among other things, to administrative cuts. Our goal is to protect the educational experience of large numbers of students and preserve the quality of the institution.

"As we start this new academic year, I want to express my sincere appreciation to our faculty and staff. Your dedication is moving UT forward in its core functions of education, research and service to Tennessee."

The Council on Interculturalism and Diversity has six goals for the university.

• Create and sustain a welcoming, supportive and inclusive campus climate.
• Attract and retain greater numbers of individuals from under-represented populations into faculty, staff and administrative positions.
• Attract, retain and graduate increasing numbers of students from historically under-represented populations as well as international students.
• Develop and strengthen partnerships with diverse communities in Tennessee as well as globally.
• Ensure that undergraduate curricular requirements include significant intercultural perspectives.
• Prepare graduate students to become teachers, researchers and professionals in a diverse world.

Progress toward these goals helps our students, workforce and university become more knowledgeable about and competitive within a quickly changing world.

I find it encouraging that to date, more than 80 academic and non-academic departments on campus have developed plans aimed at achieving these six diversity goals.

Gradually, diversity is becoming a routine consideration in how we do business at UT. For instance, the Provost has made planning for diversity and inclusion part of the Strategic Planning Process. Also over the past year sexual orientation and gender identity were added as areas of attention in the UT Non–Discrimination Statement.

During recent campus budget hearings, all departments discussed diversity and inclusion. Last week’s Chancellor’s Honors Banquet recognized several employees and students who contributed to diversity, interculturalism, and multiculturalism.

Have we achieved all of our goals? Certainly not. The truth is, this is a process with no real end point. We can always do better. But we are making progress — and this is important to the university’s future as the diversity of our student body and workforce increases. A major mission of higher education is to create an environment that encourages dialogue and debate. We are doing that now.

The Commission for Women, Commission for Blacks, LGBT Commission, Exempt Staff Council, Employee Relations Board, Faculty Senate and SGA — all of which are on the Council on Interculturalism and Diversity — are making a difference.

We still have a long way to go. But I believe that we are creating a framework on the Knoxville campus for accepting and, someday, embracing the diversity of the human experience. My hope is that this will help us confront the fears and prejudices we each carry deep inside.

Scientists, engineers and dignitaries traveled to East Tennessee recently to celebrate the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) award of $65 million, the largest grant ever to UT, to build a new supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). The new machine, named Kraken, which is the anchor facility for the National Institute for Computational Sciences, places UT among a handful of elite academic institutions in the nation with such a capability.

Within a year, UT will field the nation’s most powerful academic supercomputer, capable of nearly 1,000 trillion computations per second. The system will be part of the NSF-supported TeraGrid, a national network of supercomputers that is the world’s largest and most comprehensive cyberinfrastructure for open scientific research. TeraGrid currently supports more than 1,000 projects and more than 4,000 researchers across the United States. This new supercomputer will attract top scientists and engineers to the Knoxville-Oak Ridge Innovation Valley. With the massive power of Kraken, together with world-leading experimental capabilities at UT and ORNL, we are in a position to advance the frontiers of science.

In fact, we are already at the top of our game in several areas. With the Department of Energy’s National Center for Computational Sciences at ORNL, we now have two world-leading supercomputing facilities. Combined with nationally recognized programs at UT and ORNL and a commitment to world-class academic and economic partnerships, these new facilities position us for continued leadership.

Why does this matter to Tennesseans? With supercomputing, we expect to be able to tailor drugs to an individual’s genetic makeup. We also have the potential to alter individual cells, which could lead to breakthroughs in the treatment Alzheimer’s, cancer, diabetes and Parkinson’s.

The NSF award to UT and the new computing center are important steps in creating a bright future for our region. Never before have we been able accurately to anticipate, analyze and plan for complex events that have not yet occurred – from the operation of a fusion reactor running at 100 million degrees centigrade, to the changing climate of the 22nd century. Combined with the more traditional approaches of theory and experiment, scientific computation is a profound tool for insight and solution.

We are fortunate to have a strong tradition of scientific discovery in Tennessee and the partnership of UT and ORNL is poised to usher in the next scientific revolution. By any measure, our record is outstanding, and the strength and creativity of our science base has proved to be a key national asset.

Thomas Zacharia is vice-president for science and technology at UT and associate laboratory director for computing and computational sciences at ORNL.

In keeping with our mission as a land-grant institution, we pay special attention to teaching, research and public service. As the state system’s flagship campus, we have a special role in promoting the values and institutions of democracy, serving as an engine of economic and cultural development, and actively welcoming women and men of all races, creeds and cultures as they prepare for a diverse world market.

What I particularly like about this event is that it honors students, faculty, staff, organizations and friends of the university alike. This makes perfect sense when you consider that it is the collective actions of the high performers that allow us to progress toward our goal of becoming a major research institution. These are the folks who are making this happen today and who will guide our university and the state in the future.

Along with the Macebearer, the highest faculty award, and the Torchbearer, the highest student honor, we will bestow nearly 30 awards next week, some of them with multiple winners. They will honor

• students who maintain high academic standards, take leadership positions on campus and often volunteer actively for worthy causes
• faculty members who have devised especially stimulating ways to help students learn
• top collegiate scholars in various disciplines
• scholars who have made outstanding contributions to their departments and to the reputation of UT
• those who find innovative ways to advise our students
• leaders in public service
• faculty, staff and students who improve the status of women on campus
• a student who makes proactive contributions in promoting cultural diversity
• faculty, staff or friends of the university who promote cultural diversity and enhance UT’s educational mission
• those who show extraordinary professional promise
• scholar athletes
• outstanding graduate student teachers
• faculty, staff, students and organizations providing exemplary service to the community
• staff members making outstanding contributions to the campus and to customer service

The honors banquet never fails to inspire me. In fact, seeing nearly 500 individuals assembled to reward hard work, intelligence and dedication to UT should inspire all of us as we build an ever brighter future for the university and our state. I look forward to sharing the great news about our winners and stories of their incredible contributions to university life.

Read the April 10 issue of the Daily Beacon for a list of all award winners.

Today, scientists and engineers and dignitaries will come to East Tennessee to celebrate the decision by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to award $65 million, the largest grant ever to UT, to build a new supercomputer at the Joint Institute for Computational Sciences on the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) campus. This new machine, named Kraken, which is the anchor facility for the National Institute for Computational Sciences, places UT among a handful of elite academic institutions in the nation with such a capability (University of California, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Texas, University of Pittsburgh, and Carnegie Mellon University).

Within a year, UT will field the nation’s most powerful academic supercomputer, capable of nearly 1,000 trillion computations per second. The system will be part of the NSF-supported TeraGrid, a national network of supercomputers that is the world’s largest and most comprehensive cyberinfrastructure for open scientific research. TeraGrid currently supports more than 1,000 projects and more than 4,000 researchers across the United States. I believe the impact of this new supercomputer on UT and on Tennessee will be transformational. It will attract some of the best scientists and engineers to this region; in fact, it already has.

The advance in computational science is among the most exciting developments in science and technology in the world today. With the massive power of these new supercomputers, together with world-leading experimental capabilities at UT and ORNL, we are in a position to advance the frontiers of science. We are able to study complex phenomena from the human genome to advanced materials to our global climate.

Why does this matter to Tennesseans? With supercomputing, we expect to advance the field of pharmacogenomics, to allow drugs to be tailored to an individual’s genetic makeup. We can envisage a future in which doctors using such computing capability can completely characterize the genetic makeup of a patient to predict the onset of debilitating diseases years before any symptoms appear, and help the patient with preventive care. With new scientific insights, we can imagine altering individual cells-which could lead to breakthroughs in the treatment of diseases such as Alzheimer’s, cancer, diabetes, and Parkinson’s. We are already using our supercomputers to study enzymes that efficiently produce bio-fuels from switch grass.

Predictive climate modeling on powerful computers allows us to ask (and answer) important questions about climate change over decades and over centuries. Advanced computing directs our search for new technologies that will use hydrogen fuel cells offering the potential for zero-pollution transport. We are already using supercomputers to develop such technologies, moving toward the vision of safe, clean cities without the poor air quality and resulting health hazards caused by conventional vehicles. Our research in nanoscience-manipulating and building devices atom by atom-is amazing in its potential. Scientists are using supercomputers to study, at the nanoscale, new superconducting materials that will help us minimize energy losses in power production, transmission, and distribution and to make fusion power a reality.

We are fortunate to have a strong tradition of scientific discovery in Tennessee, perhaps best represented by the partnership between UT and ORNL. This partnership came into being during the Manhattan project, and attracted some of the best minds from all over the world to the hills of East Tennessee. Today it is poised to usher in the next scientific revolution. By any measure, our record is outstanding. The strength and creativity of our science base is a key national asset.

In fact, we are at the top of our game in several areas. With the Department of Energy’s National Center for Computational Sciences at ORNL, we now have not one but two world-leading supercomputing facilities. SNS is the world’s most powerful pulsed neutron source, as confirmed recently by the Guinness Book of World Records. Combined with nationally recognized programs at UT and ORNL and a commitment to world-class academic and economic partnerships, these new facilities position us for continued leadership.

Science, like sports, is both internationally collaborative and internationally competitive. Our capabilities are already attracting collaborators and competitors alike to East Tennessee. They will attract new high-technology industries here as well.

The NSF award to UT and the new computing center are important steps in creating a bright future for our region. Never before have we been able accurately to anticipate, analyze, and plan for complex events that have not yet occurred-from the operation of a fusion reactor running at 100 million degrees centigrade, to the changing climate of the 22nd century. Combined with the more traditional approaches of theory and experiment, scientific computation is a profound tool for insight and solution, as researchers move their problems for modeling and simulation from existing terascale systems to petascale systems later this year and onward to exascale (quintillion calculations per second) systems in the next decade.

With the advent of the new supercomputing facilities that we are celebrating this week, I believe Tennessee is one of the best places in the world to do science.

Go Vols!

Thomas Zacharia is vice-president for science and technology at UT and associate laboratory director for computing and computational sciences at ORNL.

Energy use is not just an economic or environmental issue; it’s a matter of justice. Questions of justice and energy use arise, of course, between developed and developing nations, as in the current debates over the Kyoto Protocol. But they also arise between us and our posterity. These future-oriented questions are a focus of my research.

I’m an environmental ethicist. Environmental ethics is a philosophical discipline that aims to expand traditional ethical thinking in two dimensions: biologically, beyond the human species, and temporally, into the distant future. Thinking about the distant future raises some novel questions.

There is, for example, the question of whether we ought to count the interests of distant future people as less significant than our own, using a "social discount rate" modeled on economic theory. That question is reminiscent of older debates about whether the interests of Africans or Native Americans or women ought to count as much as those of "we" white males. We now see (I hope) that place of birth or race or even gender is irrelevant to a person’s moral significance. But we have not, I think, clearly understood that the same is true of time of birth.

Such an understanding has profound public policy implications. It implies, for example, that curtailment of greenhouse gas emissions is not merely a good idea for us, our kids and our grandkids; it’s a requirement of intergenerational justice — similar in important respects to the great demands for social justice that have marked our recent past. Environmental ethics aims to trace and define such implications.

As an academic discipline, environmental ethics is a form of applied ethics — moral philosophy aimed at advancing contemporary moral practice. The UTK Philosophy Department has over the past decade broadened its work in applied ethics, added to its long-standing strength in biomedical ethics, and given special attention to business and environmental ethics.

Some of the fruits of this work will be on display at an international conference on energy and responsibility to be held April 10 – 12 at the Knoxville Hilton. The conference will assemble some of the world’s most prominent ethicists, business executives, legal scholars, activists and policymakers for an interdisciplinary dialogue on the ethics of energy use.

Many UT units and departments are co-sponsoring the event, along with such community partners as Alcoa, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Charter of Human Responsibilities, and the Tennessee Chapter of the Sierra Club.

The conference agenda, together with registration information is available online at http://isse.utk.edu/energy_and_responsibility/. Come and learn more!

Capitalizing on the talents, expertise, and creativity of our faculty, students, and staff, this initiative involves a 33-member committee representing all three constituencies, with input welcomed from the community at large. This committee meets monthly and provides a forum to raise issues, track progress and sustain momentum toward the desired end result – a sound, coordinated, comprehensive strategic plan, spanning all colleges, professional schools, institutes and campus organizations, and projecting our outlook to 2018.

Various committee members have been appointed to chair 17 subcommittees and to recruit members from the campus population. The topics include admissions; advising needs; financial aid; expansion and improvement of student services, facilities, instructional capacity and interdisciplinary programs for both undergraduate and graduate students; enhanced campus climate; increased outreach in terms of continuing education, economic development and engagement with external organizations, both civic and corporate; research productivity and facilities; and diversity issues ranging from the special needs of the disabled to the intercultural aspects of our global community.

As the state’s flagship university, we must look beyond the horizon and see ourselves as a top-ranked research institution meeting the ever-changing needs of the people we serve. The strategic plan provides us a tool to accomplish this goal. It is the road map to our intended destination. Yet, it is more than rhetoric. It must include measurable goals and objectives. At best, it will evolve naturally into an action plan.

This is a remarkably exciting time of opportunity for us all. We have already made significant strides toward excellence in teaching and learning, in research, and in our engagement with off campus constituencies. The strategic planning initiative will build upon this strong base and help us to move forward faster, taking advantage of the abundant opportunities at hand. Our aspirations and our potential to become a top-tier public research university nationally have never been stronger.

For further details, please visit http://provost.utk.edu/strategic/ and, if desired, submit comments and suggestions.

Alan Chesney recently sat down with Tennessee Today to discuss the importance of performance reviews.

As a UT employee, you hear a lot about Annual Performance Reviews (APRs). This year’s APR deadline—March 31—is fast approaching, so this is the perfect time to tackle this important subject. The APR covers the 2007 calendar year.

Although a performance review may sound intimidating, an APR is simply an opportunity for a dialog between an employee and a supervisor about job performance and expectations. A poor review is cause for concern and should be used to identify strategies for improvement. A great review does not directly result in a raise or promotion.

Both supervisors and employees have responsibilities in the APR process. Essentially, the supervisor’s job is to plan the performance review, document specifics, obtain and fill out the necessary paperwork (a detailed performance review form and a summary form), schedule a meeting with the employee and submit a signed summary form to HR. The employee is expected to attend the meeting, discuss performance and expectations, make written comments and, ultimately, sign the form indicating participation in the process. A signature does not mean the employee agrees with the review.

The review is intended to be two-way communication. Employees are wise to prepare their own evaluation of their accomplishments, goals and issues they want to discuss. In this way, they can take an active role in the review. One excellent way to prepare is to fill out your own copy of either the detailed form or the summary form—the same documents your supervisor will use. All forms are at http://hr.utk.edu/perf_eval.shtml or available by calling 974-6018 and asking for a copy by campus mail.

Employees may wonder what effect reviews can have on their jobs. If performance is rated as poor, the employee and supervisor can decide upon steps for making improvements and fine-tuning performance expectations. High ratings, on the other hand, can lead to a discussion about expanding an employee’s responsibilities.

The review considers each employee’s accomplishments, service and relationships, accountability and dependability, adaptability and flexibility as well as decision-making and problem solving abilities.

Based upon the performance review and input from the employee during the meeting, a supervisor may choose to change ratings. In such a case, a modified form is resubmitted to the director or department head for approval, after which the employee receives and signs the updated form. The supervisor should submit the summary form and any other requested supporting documentation to Human Resources shortly after the review.

Again, this year’s deadline is March 31, 2008. Supervisors cannot fill out the summary form electronically; however, once printed and completed, any method—fax, mail or hand delivery—can be used to send it to Human Resources. Employees should also receive copies for their records.

Robert Holub recently sat down with Tennessee Today to discuss why retention is such an important issue for UTK.

Transcript

Student retention rates at UTK have been getting a lot of attention lately so Tennessee Today asked Provost Robert Holub some questions about retention to help the campus community understand the issues involved.

What is our retention rate and how does it compare to other universities?
The retention rate for first-time, full-time freshmen who began in Fall 2006 is 84 percent. That’s an improvement over the previous rate of 81.7 percent and rates that hovered between 75 percent and 80 percent for the decade prior to 2006. Still, along the way to graduation, we lose more students than many other major research universities. The largest loss comes between the freshman and sophomore years.

Why is our retention rate important?
Retention is one of the primary measures of institutional success. High retention rates are also a sign that a campus is doing a good job educating its students. The best public universities have high retention rates, and we aspire to be counted among them.

Why do students drop out?
In December 2006, the Student Success Center partnered with University Housing to administer an exit survey to first-year students leaving the university. The top three reasons cited for leaving: "UTK is too large and impersonal"; "I had trouble adjusting personally to UTK"; and "I did not feel like I fit in at UTK."

Also, statistics show that students who make low grades are more prone to drop out: 15.6 percent of UTK students who earn below a 2.0 in their first terms do not return for a second term.

Unfortunately, in recent student behavior studies, UTK students report spending 6 to 10 hours per week preparing for class – compared to students at comparable institutions who say they spend 11 to 15 hours per week preparing.

How are we trying to increase our retention rate?
This is one of our priorities, and I’ve assembled a team to help achieve that goal.

In December 2006, I appointed Todd A. Diacon as vice provost for academic operations, charging him with improving student retention, perseverance and graduation rates. In March 2007, I appointed Terrell Strayhorn as my special assistant. An assistant professor in educational psychology and counseling, Strayhorn is a nationally recognized authority on student retention.

Also in mid-December 2006, I assembled a Retention Task Force. The group reviewed research and looked at local and national data. The group then set two major goals: 1) Improve our first-to-second-year retention rate to the level of our Tennessee Higher Education Commission peer institutions; and 2) Improve the quality of the undergraduate experience at UTK.

Ruth Darling, assistant vice provost, chair of the Retention Task Force and director of the Student Success Center says we can help students feel more comfortable at UT by thinking small and creating programs to address students’ successful integration into UT’s various academic and social communities. Students want to "fit in" and interact in meaningful ways with peers, faculty, staff and the campus environment. Several new programs such as the 129 seminars and Welcome Week have been launched to do just that.

Meanwhile, the Student Success Center now requires at-risk students to attend -academic success workshops and offers student-led study groups in courses that historically have proven challenging for our first-year students.

"I seek your support in continuing the positive momentum we’ve built over the last few years. Our institution has made great strides in the quality of our students, our faculty and our staff. I made a commitment to President John Petersen that I would do all I could to keep that positive momentum going; and with your help, I’m confident we can together meet that goal.

"Filling Loren Crabtree’s shoes will not be easy. During his seven-year tenure, Dr. Crabtree’s leadership and his inclusive approach to problem solving set a high standard. He provided leadership through several critical years for UT, and we appreciate his contributions and steadfast commitment.

"Like so many of you, I have spent nearly all of my career here. In those 24 years, I have developed a great pride and a passion for UT.

"As Tennessee’s flagship campus, we have an unprecedented level of support and the opportunity to become one of the top public research universities in the nation.

"With your support, this transitional period will provide the stability needed to continue with progress we’ve been making in key areas of student success and access, diversity, global and intercultural awareness and in enhancing the quality of our programs and the student experience.

"President Petersen anticipates naming a search committee within the next two weeks. The process will be both transparent and inclusive. It’s important that you provide your thoughts throughout the search.

"I appreciate faculty and staff and their level of engagement in the principles of shared governance, and I look forward to the months ahead."

A Distinguished Professor of anthropology and former head of the Anthropology Department, Jan Simek has been at UT since 1984 and was appointed Chancellor Loren Crabtree’s chief of staff in 2005. Simek received a bachelor’s degree from the University of California at Santa Cruz and a master’s degree and doctorate from the State University of New York in Binghamton. He has carried out archaeological research in France, Italy, Croatia, California and Tennessee and has received research funding from the National Science Foundation, the National Geographic Society and the French Ministry of Culture. He has also held visiting faculty appointments at the University of Washington, the University of Bordeaux and the Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain. He lives in Seymour with Mary Ann, his wife of 21 years.

A broad-based strategic planning committee composed of faculty, students, and staff will help move the process along and then shape and approve the final report to the chancellor.

This group and its subcommittees will use as an outline the six strategic initiatives set forth last year by the UT System. These include access for students, student success in achieving progress and appropriate degrees, research activity as measured by scholarly output and grant activity, economic development that contributes to the fiscal well-being of the state, outreach to ensure accessibility to university resources for a great number of citizens, and globalization measured by the connectivity of the campus with the rest of the world and the student’s ability to compete in the global economy.

The planning process faces several challenges-most notably involving funding and the uncertainty of the funding process. Expansion of the campus will require a significant infusion of resources. This must take place if we are to reach our full potential as a research-intensive institution. Even at our current size, we are already underfunded. We need the cooperation of the Office of the President, the governor of Tennessee, the Tennessee Higher Education Commission, and the General Assembly to achieve our goals.

Permeating these six categories are three themes of particular importance to Knoxville as the flagship campus of the University of Tennessee:

Accessibility. UT is the only public university in the state with such significant research activity. We must increase accessibility by increasing the size of our student body to 33,000 over the next decade. The projected graduate student population will be 8,000. Current enrollment is approximately 21,000 undergraduates and 6,000 graduate students.

Quality. In becoming larger, we cannot afford to dilute our quality. We must continue to attract highly qualified students, improve our educational processes and their indicators, and achieve significant increases in sponsored research and scholarly productivity.

Diversity and Inclusiveness. In keeping with the Ready for the World Initiative and our diversity plan, we must attract a diverse population to our faculty, student body and staff and promote intercultural and international programs.

Our website, provost.utk.edu, will post documents and drafts leading to the final report and encourage and enable input from the campus community.

The entire process will engage constituencies through forums and other discussions.

If you have questions or comments or would like to receive any of the forthcoming materials in printed format, please contact the Provost’s Office at 865-974-2445.

I look forward to working with you. Your engagement will ensure that we make the best decisions for the good of the campus.

Study of that time helps us understand problems and possibilities that concern us now — such as the intermingling of religion and politics, struggles for human rights, interactions between different faiths and the formation of a global economy.

Robert Bast recently sat down with Tennessee Today to discuss the upcoming Marco Symposium and the value of historical research in understanding and solving today’s problems. Use the player below to hear his comments.

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Transcript of interview

That’s why it’s been so exciting for the Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies to preside over this fall’s Medieval and Renaissance Semester.

The institute spent more than two years planning a rich and unprecedented series of exhibits, concerts, theater performances, lectures and special undergraduate and graduate courses. We coordinated our efforts with Chancellor Loren Crabtree and our many partners in the College of Arts and Sciences, the School of Music, the Clarence Brown Theatre, the Frank F. McClung Museum, UT Libraries and the Ready for the World initiative.

The realization of our ambitious plans — including a world-class McClung Museum exhibit, residencies by the Boston Camerata and Actors From The London Stage, and outstanding scholarly lectures by visiting faculty as well as our own — all provide promising evidence that UT can become a national leader in the humanities while serving the interests of our own students.

Indeed, the themes selected for special prominence by the Marco Institute and its faculty — the complex interplay between religion and politics; the common roots of Christians, Jews and Muslims in the culture of the Mediterranean world; the medieval roots of some Appalachian musical and religious traditions — have demonstrated how central a sophisticated understanding of the past is to the educational mission of our undergraduate and graduate programs.

We have also been gratified by the extraordinary response of the local community to our programs, some of them bringing the city to the university, others the university into the city, all of them offered to the general public without charge.

Our experience underscores the importance of continuing to share our research and resources with the community of which we are a part. Great cities have great universities, and this semester has given ample illustration of the gratifying rewards reaped from bringing the two together.

We encourage your attendance at the semester’s remaining events. Our sixth annual symposium on "Saints and Citizens: Religion and Politics in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance" will include scholars from UT and around the world. Lectures will be held from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on Nov. 15 – 16 in the Hodges Library auditorium. The Boston Camerata’s final performance of the semester entitled "The Abbey of Love: Songs of the Troubadours and Trouveres, 1200 – 1400" will be at 8 p.m. Nov. 16 in the UT Music Hall. "Sacred Beauty: A Millennium of Religious Art, 600 – 1600" will remain on display at the McClung Museum until Jan. 6, 2008.

Dr. Bast is an associate professor of history and Riggsby director of the Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.

Joseph DiPietro recently sat down with Tennessee Today to give his thoughts on UT, switchgrass, and the future of biofuels research. Use the player below to hear his comments.

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Transcript

In July, the Tennessee legislature awarded UT more than $70 million to fund a business model proposed by the UT Institute of Agriculture. Called the Tennessee Biofuels Initiative, the model details how a new, sustainable bioeconomy can be established by producing cellulosic ethanol – ethanol produced from plants and other biomass, not from grain alone as with corn-based ethanol – as an alternative fuel.

I am enthusiastic about the potential economic benefits of cellulosic ethanol and the potential new income for farmers. Yet I am just as enthusiastic about the positive environmental impacts of cellulosic ethanol production. Rather than selling unproductive land for development, farmers may be able to utilize those aesthetically pleasing green spaces for fuel production while, at the same time, benefiting wildlife. When the model is fully implemented, we expect to displace about 30 percent of our petroleum consumption with cellulosic ethanol, which could reduce carbon dioxide emissions about 50 percent. That means cleaner air for our communities, parks and the Great Smoky Mountains.

Researchers already know how to make cellulosic ethanol in the lab; but as part of the initiative, UT will construct a biorefinery that will allow us to demonstrate and refine production technology and conduct additional research. The goal is to make large quantities of cellulosic ethanol at an affordable price.

Local farmers will initially be paid incentives to produce switchgrass for the refinery, and a comprehensive research and support program will help them succeed long term. While cellulosic ethanol will be the refinery’s principal product, research associated with improving the biomass-to-ethanol conversion process is expected to yield a suite of co-products such as bioplastics. These co-products may be just as commercially valuable as the ethanol and more environmentally friendly than their petroleum-based counterparts as well.

There will be struggles along the way. Still, I can’t help but smile when I realize that UT Institute of Agriculture faculty, students and staff have a unique opportunity to discover sol-UT-ions to a few of society’s most pressing needs – greenhouse gas emissions, alternative fuels, and sustainable, environmentally friendly production. What’s got me really excited is that finding solutions, along with educating new workers and scientists, is exactly what a land-grant university is supposed to do.

For more about our efforts, see http://www.UTBioenergy.org/. A video story about the biorefinery is available online at http://www.agriculture.utk.edu/news/VideoReleases/.