The Board of Trustees today approved the degrees for Tennessee natives John Seigenthaler and Mary Costa. Seigenthaler will receive an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree and speak at the College of Law commencement at 5:00 p.m. on May 10. Costa will speak and receive an Honorary Doctor of Humane and Musical Letters at the College of Arts and Science commencement at 9:00 a.m. on May 10.

Theirs will be the fifth and sixth honorary degrees UT Knoxville has awarded.

“Throughout his career as a journalist, writer, and public servant, Mr. Seigenthaler has been a staunch advocate and defender of free speech and civil rights. His passion for human equality, for the pursuit of truth, and for protection of free speech and a free press have improved the lives of all Americans,” College of Law Dean Doug Blaze wrote in his letter nominating Seigenthaler for the honor.

A Nashville native, Seigenthaler worked at The Tennessean for forty-three years, moving up from reporter to assistant city editor to special assignment editor and ultimately to editor, publisher, and CEO. While there, he investigated corruption within the local branch of the Teamsters and looked into the criminal activities of Dave Beck and Jimmy Hoffa. His articles led to the impeachment trial of Chattanooga Criminal Court Judge Ralston Schoolfield.

He took a short break from journalism in the early 1960s to serve in the US Department of Justice as administrative assistant to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. He served as negotiator with the governor of Alabama during the Freedom Rides. During that crisis, while attempting to aid Freedom Riders in Montgomery, he was attacked by a mob of Klansmen and hospitalized.

In 1982, while still working at The Tennessean, Seigenthaler became founding editorial director of USA Today. He retired as chairman emeritus of The Tennessean and from USA Today in 1991.

Seigenthaler founded the First Amendment Center in 1991 to create national discussion, dialogue, and debate about First Amendment rights and values. The center is an operating program of the Freedom Forum and is associated with the Newseum and the Diversity Institute. The center has offices in the John Seigenthaler Center at Vanderbilt University and at the Newseum in Washington, D.C.

Seigenthaler attended Peabody College, which is now part of Vanderbilt University, and the American Press Institute at Columbia University. He served in the US Air Force after World War II.

The other honorary degree recipient is a well-known Knoxvillian and advocate for children and advancing art and culture.

School of Music Director Jeff Pappas nominated Costa for the honorary degree, saying she was worthy of the honor “because of her extensive and varied career, not just as a musician and entertainer, but for her role as a cultural ambassador, an advocate for the arts, education, young musicians, and at-risk children at the regional and national levels.”

Costa studied at the Los Angeles Conservatory in the late 1940s. An internationally acclaimed soprano, she performed in forty-four operas and worked with many of Hollywood’s legendary entertainers, including Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., and Jack Benny.

But it was early in her career, while she was singing and doing commercials on the radio, that Walt Disney discovered Costa and cast her as Princess Aurora in the 1958 film Sleeping Beauty.

Costa’s big break in opera came in 1958, just after she finished Sleeping Beauty. She was chosen to replace an indisposed Elisabeth Schwarzkopf for a gala concert at the Hollywood Bowl. Costa went on to sing leading roles in opera houses worldwide, including the Metropolitan Opera, Covent Garden, the Royal Opera House in London, the Bolshoi Theatre, and the San Francisco Opera.

Costa—once heralded by The New York Times as “one of the most beautiful women to grace the operatic stage”—was the guest soloist at the memorial service for President John F. Kennedy at the Los Angeles Sports Arena in 1963. She also sang at the inaugural concert of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in 1971.

She received the Licia Albanese–Puccini Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 1989 and the Disney Legends Award in 1999, and was honored with the Metropolitan Opera Guild’s Distinguished Verdi Performance of the Twentieth Century for her 1964 Met debut as Violetta in La Traviata. She was appointed to the National Council on the Arts by President George W. Bush in 2003 and served until 2007.

Costa has traveled across the country giving motivational talks at schools and colleges. She has served as an ambassador for Childhelp, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to helping victims of child abuse and neglect.

UT Knoxville also has given honorary degrees to Howard H. Baker Jr., Dolly Parton, Al Gore, and Charles O. “Chad” Holiday.

Read more about today’s Board of Trustees meeting at the University of Tennessee System website.

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C O N T A C T :

Amy Blakely (865-974-5034, ablakely@utk.edu)

Michelle Brown

Michelle Brown, an assistant professor of sociology who teaches classes about law and justice, often has her students talk about difficult topics, such as pain, suffering, and societal exclusion.

These topics can make people squirm in their seats, but Brown manages to get her students to participate in the discussion without hesitation. What is her secret?

She allows her students to be uncomfortable and ask questions, and she hopes their discomfort inspires new ideas that reach beyond traditional thinking.

“Holding the position of discomfort—to borrow from yoga class—or being caught in contexts of uncertainty is a learning and transformative space. These are the places where we are pushed creatively, imaginatively to think beyond the oppressive structures of everyday life,” Brown said.

She has accomplished a great deal since she joined UT, and she recently was honored by the National Council on Crime and Delinquency.

“Michelle Brown is a productive and hard-working junior faculty member who has accomplished a great deal since she joined our faculty,” said Theresa Lee, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.

Out of the classroom, Brown’s current project examines how people on the fringe of society see themselves beyond legal structures such as citizenship. From these often faceless and voiceless communities, she seeks new ideas about social justice.

“In prisons, camps, and other total institutions as well as in settings of extreme poverty and conflict and disaster dislocation, people are stripped of political rights and compelled to improvise new perspectives and makeshift communities to survive. I see these as spaces where emergent models for social justice are lived and embodied,” Brown said.

Being reminded of the world’s injustice on a regular basis, it might be easy to have a lackluster outlook on life, but Brown does not. Rather, her work inspires her to strive for a better tomorrow.

“A lot of people assume that my work has an unusually dark or bleak focus, but actually I am drawn—or compelled—to these spaces for hopeful reasons,” she said. “I want to learn more about how transformation takes shape amid competing visions of justice and in the starkest of human conditions.”

Brown came to UT in 2011. She previously worked at Indiana University and Ohio University. She did her undergraduate and graduate work at Indiana University.

Tom Burman

As his time as head of the Department of History comes to a close, professor Thomas Burman says he learned more than expected—not just about leadership but also about Booker T. Washington, women travelers of early modern Japan, and many more topics that his colleagues study.

“As department head, I had to read my colleagues’ scholarly work particularly closely. This has been a marvelous experience because we have such a great group of scholars in the department,” Burman said.

His colleagues’ work was more than a source of information; it was also a source of inspiration. From these works, Burman’s passion as a historian grew.

“Reading the recent works of the faculty members of UT’s history department makes me want to be a better historian,” Burman said.

Burman’s own area of research covers medieval Latin and Arabic manuscripts, and his research inspiration comes from the source of his studies:

“Copies of medieval encyclopedias or copies of the Qur’an that circulated in Europe and were read by European scholars. Holding these old, old handwritten books, often with notes scribbled in the margins by medieval readers, always gets my creative juices going,” Burman said.

Burman’s work does not go unnoticed. He was recently awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship for the 2013–2014 academic year, and Dean Lee is delighted by his success.

“He was awarded the fellowship to work on his project titled ‘The Dominicans, Islam, and Christian Thought, 1220–1320.’ This is the second NEH fellowship awarded to Tom; the other one was in 2002–2003,” Lee said.

He derives the material for his graduate student seminar from his research and from a favorite book, which he hopes will inspire the next generation of historians.

“The class is built around George Steiner’s amazing book, After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation. It’s a book that’s been inspiring me for fifteen years, and I hope it will do the same for them,” he said.

Burman’s term as head of the Department of History ends this summer when he resumes his normal faculty duties.

Burman has been at UT since 1991. He has a bachelor’s degree from Whitman College in Washington State, a master’s degree from the University of Toronto, a Licentiate of Mediaeval Studies from the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies in Toronto, and a doctorate from the University of Toronto.

Witek Nazarewicz

Professor of Physics Witek Nazarewicz is a landscaper, but not in the traditional sense. Where some may fuss with plants and weeds to make a patch of land beautiful, Nazarewicz uses supercomputers to map out the landscape of atomic nuclei to widen the understanding of nuclear landscape.

His work as a nuclear theorist led him to the discovery that the chart of nuclides has more than double the number of nuclei previously identified. He carried out this research using the density functional theory, which is used to describe molecules, solids, and atomic nuclei.

But he did not make this pivotal discovery on his own. He inspired his students, both undergraduate and graduate, to assist him with this research.

“The students made important contributions to this work. They identified and counted the experimentally known isotopes, edited figures, compiled data, and developed codes to graph data for tables and figures,” Nazarewicz said. “It was a pleasure seeing their skills grow through this process.”

Guided by Nazarewicz’s assistance and knowledge, the team made a permanent mark on the frontier of nuclear physics.

Nazarewicz is the recipient of several awards in his field, including the 2012 Tom W. Bonner Prize in Nuclear Physics, hailed as the “most prestigious nuclear physics prize in the United States,” as well the 2012 Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Distinguished Scientist Award.

“Nazarewicz is an accomplished senior member of the faculty who has earned an international reputation,” Lee said.

Nazarewicz came to East Tennessee in 1991 as a research professor at the UT-ORNL Joint Institute for Heavy Ion Research, and joined UT’s physics faculty as a professor in 1995.

Althea Murphy-Price

For Assistant Professor of Art Althea Murphy-Price, hair serves as an inspiration, a tool, and a process.

Using synthetic hair sent through a variety of processes, she sculpts and makes prints that comment on a personal and cultural history of hair.

“I am interested in hair as a symbol of assimilation, culture, race, and fashion, and my creative process is one that parallels an approach to styling hair—the variable and compliant nature of hair allows me the freedom to work in a number of ways rooted in ornamentation,” Murphy-Price said.

The project grew from her personal history with hair but soon expanded to explore the role of hair in African-American culture.

“Art is all about exploration. Through the creative process you learn so much about who you are,” Murphy-Price said.

Murphy-Price’s work is noticed beyond UT.

“She is one of forty-seven artists from a pool of over 400 nominees selected for the Southern Graphics Council International’s Traveling Exhibition,” Lee said.

Seeing her students work through the creative process motivates Murphy-Price and influences her own work. In the studio, she encourages her students to explore different methods and to revisit their work—sometimes asking them to do unconventional things, such as cutting up their artwork and reworking it. The time spent with her students is reflected in her own work.

“I learn a lot from my students. I want to create an environment where dialogue can be exchanged,” Murphy-Price said.

Murphy-Price has been at UT since 2010. She attended the University of Colorado and earned her bachelor’s degree from Spelman College in Atlanta, her master’s degree from Purdue University and her Master of Fine Arts from Temple University. She also studied in Rome and Florence, Italy.

Visit altheamurphyprice.com for samples of Murphy-Price’s work.

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C O N T A C T :

Christine Copelan (865-974-2225, ccopela7@utk.edu)

Amy Blakely (865-974-5034, ablakely@utk.edu)

John O. Hodges teaching a class.

Born and raised in the Mississippi Delta by sharecroppers, John O. Hodges was expected to work in the fields alongside his parents once he was old enough. His stepfather had different plans.

Bargaining with the landowner, Hodges’s stepfather said he would do twice the work if Hodges could go to school. The landowner reluctantly agreed and thus began Hodges’s long education, which resulted in a doctorate in religion and literature from the University of Chicago in 1980.

“My stepfather often drank too much and was sometimes abusive, but I owe the start of my education to him, and I will be forever grateful for that,” said Hodges, associate professor emeritus of the Department of Religious Studies.

This is just one of the stories Hodges recounts in his new book, Delta Fragments: The Recollections of a Sharecropper’s Son.

The book, which will be released in June 2013 by The University of Tennessee Press, highlights moments of Hodges’s time in the Mississippi Delta and explores these moments in the context of greater themes such as the civil rights movement and religion in the African-American community.

Racism was prevalent in the Mississippi Delta during Hodges’ grade school years, and one of the most memorable moments, he said, was the brutal murder of Emmett Till in 1955. Till was a fourteen-year-old African-American who was beaten, shot, and thrown into the Tallahatchie River after reportedly flirting with a white woman.

Hodges was a young man in the segregated school system when the murder happened, and he recalled the event sparking widespread distress among the Delta’s African-American community.

“We would walk around with our heads down, so no one could even think that we were making a pass at a white woman,” Hodges said.

Although his young adult life was haunted by racism, Hodges insists his time in the Mississippi Delta was not all about struggle. There were happy moments, too. He recalled dancing to great music in juke joints, playing sports, and staying out with friends on a Saturday night—getting back just in time for a few hours of sleep before Sunday church.

Hodges was an associate professor of religious studies who taught at UT for twenty-three years. During his time at UT, he served as the chair of African and African-American Studies from 1997 to 2002 and portrayed Delbert Tibbs in UT’s production of the award-winning play The Exonerated as a benefit for the university’s chapter of Amnesty International.

Hodges is continuing his research about the Mississippi Delta and is currently gathering information about the namesake of his hometown of Greenwood, Mississippi. He is an avid Tennessee sports enthusiast and is married to Carolyn Hodges, dean of the Graduate School.

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C O N T A C T :

Christine Copelan (ccopela7@utk.edu)

The CAREER award is the NSF’s most prestigious honor for junior faculty who demonstrate outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of their organizations.

“We are delighted that Dr. Jenkins has been chosen for a NSF Career Award,” said Charles Feigerle, department head. “Professor Jenkins has established a record of achievement in research, scholarship, and teaching that places him among the top young academics in his field.”

Jenkins’s award includes a $650,000 grant over five years, beginning May 1, to support his educational activities and research.

“My group has worked very hard over the last few years on this project and has published some great results already,” said Jenkins. “This award confirms that we are on the right track to solving this challenging synthetic chemistry problem.”

Jenkins’s research group will be designing new catalysts for forming aziridines. The aziridine functional group is critically important in biology and synthetic organic chemistry. Aziridines are found in natural products that have antitumor and antibiotic properties, and are crucial in pharmaceutical research.

In addition, Jenkins’ team will work with Central High School in several capacities, including the Pre-Collegiate Scholar Program and the development of new teaching materials for Advanced Preparation Chemistry labs that focus on sustainable synthesis.

Karns High School came in second, and the Christian Academy of Knoxville was third.

The event, sponsored by the Department of Philosophy and the College of Arts and Sciences, was held Wednesday.

Austin-East will now have the opportunity to compete at the first National High School Ethics Bowl at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, on April 19 and 20.

The Ethics Bowl is a competition in which five-student teams from various high schools try to develop solutions to realistic dilemmas using ethical theories and reasoning.

Other schools that participated this year were Anderson County High School, Carter High School, Central High School, Clinton High School, Farragut High School, Hardin Valley Academy, and Jefferson County High School.

During the competition, teams received dilemmas to consider. The students’ proposed solutions were judged by philosophy professors and graduate students on how well they considered the moral aspects of their case and whether or not they provided a good analysis of ethical theories.

Jason Fishel, co-coordinator of the event with Jeff Cervantez and graduate student in philosophy, said, “[Austin-East's coach] recruited a team at the end of last school year and started teaching them the ethical theories and going over old cases. It will be very hard to beat that level of commitment.”

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C O N T A C T :

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

Holly Gary (865-974-2225, hgary@utk.edu)

Online registration is now open at the Spring Wildflower Pilgrimage website.

The five-day exploration of plant and animal life will be held April 23 through 27 in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

The pilgrimage kicks off with a welcoming luncheon from 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. on Wednesday, April 24, at the Mills Conference Center. It will feature Ila Hatter, an interpretive naturalist, artist, interpretive hike leader, and guest chef at Blackberry Farm. Hatter has more than thirty-eight years of experience teaching the cultural heritage of native plants. The event includes 143 guided walks and indoor presentations that cover the region’s rich wildflowers, fauna, ecology, and cultural and natural history. The 110 pilgrimage leaders are specialists in a variety of areas.

The event also features a photography contest, an art exhibition at the Arrowmont School of Arts & Crafts, a native plant sale, a history display of the first 62 years of the pilgrimage, and numerous exhibitors at the registration site.

Tickets are $75 per person for two or more days. Single-day tickets are available for $50. Student tickets are $15 and must be verified with a student ID.

For more information, call 865-436-7318, ext. 222, Monday through Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., or visit springwildflowerpilgrimage.org.

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C O N T A C T :

Ken McFarland (865-974-6841, kdmcfarl@utk.edu)

Whitney Heins (865-974-5460, wheins@utk.edu)

The event, sponsored by the Department of Philosophy and College of Arts and Sciences, will take place today in the Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy.

The Ethics Bowl is a competition in which five-student teams from various high schools try to develop solutions to realistic dilemmas using ethical theories and reasoning.

Participating schools this year are Anderson County High School, Austin-East High School, Carter High School, Central High School, Christian Academy of Knoxville, Clinton High School, Farragut High School, Hardin Valley Academy, Jefferson County High School, and Karns High School.

During the competition, teams will get dilemmas to consider. Questions address a variety of issues: If MLB allows Pete Rose to “hold records,” then should it allow him into the Hall of Fame? Should employers be allowed to request access to applicants’ social media profiles? Background information about the questions is also provided.

The students’ responses will be judged by philosophy professors and graduate students, who consider how well the team considered the moral aspects of their case and whether or not they provided a good analysis of ethical theories.

This year’s winning team will have the opportunity to compete at the national Ethics Bowl at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Jason Fishel, co-coordinator of the event with Jeff Cervantez and graduate student in philosophy, says it’s perfect for “thinking students who like to participate in critical analysis to determine what they would do in someone else’s situation.”

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C O N T A C T :

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

Holly Gary (865-974-2225, hgary@utk.edu)

ReVOLution members pose with their qualifying certificate after Saturday’s competition.
Front row, from left to right: Jenna Weaver, Jenny Darden, Madelyn Pierce, Holly Ownby. Back row, from left to right: Sara Sinclair Wilkinson, Carrie Honaker, McKinley Merritt, Lauren Arp, Hana Lamb, Emily Emadian, Maddy Witt.

ReVOLution, UT’s all-women a cappella group, trumped challengers from several major universities this weekend to advance to the national semifinals of a collegiate a cappella competition.

The ensemble performed in Athens, Georgia, on Saturday in the regional finals of the 2013 International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella. They beat groups from several schools including Georgia Tech, University of Georgia, Southern Methodist University, University of North Texas, and Baylor University.

The ensemble’s next stop is the national semifinals in Nashville on March 23. ReVOLution is the first UT group ever accepted into the international competition. The eleven-member ensemble was formed in 2010.

Collegiate contemporary a cappella ensembles are singing groups that perform entirely without instruments.

To learn more about reVOLution and to listen to more of their music, visit their Facebook page (no log-in required).

Watch their recent interview and performance on WBIR Channel 10.

“Couples find over time the romance can fade and even the best relationships can struggle a bit,” said Kristina Gordon, professor of psychology and director of RelationshipRx, a project seeking to make it easier for couples to take good care of their relationship health.

According to those at RelationshipRx, there are some easy steps people can take to build more intimacy and strengthen their relationships on a daily basis.

1. Take a Trip Down Memory Lane: Reminisce on how you first got together.

“With all the different stressors and issues couples face, it is easy to forget what brought you together in the first place,” said Gordon. “What attracted you to your partner? What were your first impressions of each other?”

Gordon says remembering these times can easily rekindle those initial loving feelings.

2. Learn to Listen: According Gordon, it is important to listen to your partner completely and non-judgmentally.

“Many people get caught up in trying to think of their response rather than listening,” she said. “Make sure to avoid that trap. Couples who are skilled at providing each other with social support have been shown to be healthier and happier than less skilled couples.”

3. Draw Love Maps: Couples research shows partners can feel closer and more intimate by taking as little as five extra minutes a day to create something called “love maps,” said Gordon.

“At the beginning of the day, share what your day will be like,” said Gordon. “This way, during the day, you can think about your partner and appreciate what his or her day must be like.”

At the end of the day, partners should share and listen closely to how each other’s day went.

4. Show Support: Identify two small things that each of you can do to provide support when the other is having a difficult day, such as doing the dishes or allowing your partner to vent.

“Research has shown that partners who can support each other around shared challenges can actually experience increased intimacy in their relationship,” said Audrey Kasting, Relationship Rx facilitator and counseling graduate student.

5. Play to Your Strengths. The experts say every couple is good at something.

“Find your strengths and use them to your advantage to help you deal with stress and other issues easier,” said Gordon.

Common strengths include:

• Friendships: Couples research has found that the quality of a couple’s friendship is one of the strongest predictors of relationship well-being.
• Acceptance: The healthiest couples have found ways to cope well with each other’s quirks and to accept each other for the “natural flaws in the fabric.”
• Commitment: Couples research has consistently found a strong association between shared commitment and relationship health and stability.

For more information on RelationshipRx, visit the website.

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C O N T A C T :

Kristina Gordon (865-974-3347, kgordon1@utk.edu)

Whitney Heins (865-974-5460, wheins@utk.edu)

“Framing the Field” is the first symposium planned by the Department of Anthropology’s Disasters, Displacement, and Human Rights Program. It will take place February 8 and 9 at the College of Law and bring together faculty, students, and visiting researchers.

Symposium topics will include

• Disasters, displacement, and resettlement
• Triggers and results of modern disasters and conflicts
• Cultural meanings for personal identification of remains
• Forensic and humanitarian investigations
• Culturally specific practices of justice and human rights

Two leaders in the field will deliver keynote addresses on February 9.

Richard Wilson, founder and director of the Human Rights Institute at the University of Connecticut, will speak at 8:45 a.m. and Stefan Schmitt, international forensic program director for Physicians for Human Rights, will speak at 1:00 p.m.

Wilson is the Gladstein Chair of Human Rights and a professor of anthropology and law at the University of Connecticut. Focusing on international human rights, truth commissions, and international criminal tribunals, he has drawn upon anthropological and empirical approaches to understand the ways in which national and international legal institutions write historical accounts of human rights violations and pursue reconciliation.

Schmitt’s background is in forensic anthropology and crime scene analysis. He has worked for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, and before that lived in Guatemala, where he founded the country’s first forensic anthropology team. He has worked for the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia and as a forensic consultant to the United Nations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Liberia. He also has helped document human rights abuses in Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Colombia, Algeria, Russia, and Kyrgyzstan. Most recently, Schmitt has been part of a multi-year project on achieving transitional justice in Afghanistan.

The symposium also will include a poster session; panel discussions; a roundtable; and tours of the W. M. Bass Forensic Anthropology Building, the Frank H. McClung Museum, and the Molecular Anthropology Laboratories.

An opening reception will be held in the rotunda of the College of Law.

Click here for a full schedule of events and other details, including registration information.

The event is being co-sponsored by Africana Studies; the Center for the Study of Social Justice; the College of Law; the Forensic Anthropology Center; Global Studies; and the philosophy, political science, religious studies, sociology, and geography departments.

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C O N T A C T :

Tricia Redeker Hepner (865-974-8962, thepner@utk.edu)

Tanya Brown (865-974-6788, tgbrown@utk.edu)

UT will commemorate the seventieth anniversary of Rachmaninoff’s final performance with an 8:00 p.m. concert on Sunday, February 17, featuring internationally acclaimed Russian pianist Evgheny Brakhman.

The celebration, “Rachmaninoff Remembered,” will take place in the Cox Auditorium of the Alumni Memorial Building, the same building where Rachmaninoff played. It is free and open to the public.

Brakhman will perform an all-Rachmaninoff program, including 6 Etudes-Tableaux op. 33 and 39; Variations on a Theme of Corelli, op. 42; 6 Preludes op. 23 and 32; and Sonata No. 2, op. 36.

The UT School of Music and the UT College of Arts and Sciences, in partnership with the Evelyn Miller Young Pianist Series, are presenting the event.

Media sponsors are WUOT 91.9 FM and WUTK 90.3 FM radio stations.

Rachmaninoff was a towering figure in late nineteenth and early twentieth century music. He was renowned as a composer, conductor, and one of the brilliant pianists of his time.

He was born in Russia in 1873 and achieved great success as a young pianist and composer.

A statue honoring the pianist/composer is at the World’s Fair Park downtown. It is entitled “Rachmaninoff: The Last Concert” and was created by sculptor Victor Bokarov.

For more information about the concert, visit the School of Music website.

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CONTACTS:

Lola Alapo (865-974-3993, lalapo@utk.edu)

Barbara Hill (865-974-8935, (bhill29@utk.edu)

Twenty-four teachers arrived at UT earlier this month and will stay until February 21. In addition to their other studies, the teachers will be honing their teaching skills.

Curriculum for the Brazilian teachers is being coordinated by the English Language Institute (ELI) and the Department of Theory and Practice in Teacher Education.

Associate Professor Clara Lee Brown is overseeing instruction in teaching methods and assessment, and Assistant Professor Dorothy Hendricks is overseeing history instruction. Both are from the Department of Theory and Practice in Teacher Education.

The Brazilian teachers will make several visits to Lenoir City Schools, where they will observe classes, including English as a Second Language classes, and meet with teachers and administrators. Several Knoxville-area teachers will serve as mentors to the Brazilian teachers during their stay. The program will include field trips to Cherokee, N.C.; the Great Smoky Mountains National Park; and Atlanta. The field trips are designed to complement the U.S. history portion of the program.

UT is one of eighteen universities chosen to host the new program, which is a collaboration between the Institute of International Education; CAPES, a foundation within the Ministry of Education in Brazil which strives to improve the quality of Brazil’s faculty and staff in higher education through grant programs; the US Fulbright Commission in Brazil; and the U.S. Embassy in Brazil.

The Brazilian teachers were selected through a competitive process and come from all regions of their country. For most, this is their first opportunity to travel abroad.

At the same time, UT is hosting an institute where twenty Brazilian undergraduates will learn more about US history, politics, economics, religions, and culture. The students also arrived earlier this month. They will stay in Knoxville until February 10 and then embark on a six-day study tour to New York City and Washington, D.C.

Faculty members from UT’s departments of history, English, sociology, religious studies, law, Africana studies, and geography are involved.

Jim Hamrick, ELI director, is managing the institute. History Professor Ernest Freeberg is coordinating the institute’s academic sessions, and Cheryl Barksdale, a lecturer in the College of Business Administration, is coordinating the leadership development component.

Participating students were selected from among hundreds of applicants by the US Fulbright Commission in Brazil. The Institute is funded by the US Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. It is offered in cooperation with the Institute for Training and Development of Amherst, Massachusetts.

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C O N T A C T :

Jim Hamrick (974- 3404, hamrickj@utk.edu)

Amy Blakely (974-5034, ablakely@utk.edu)

Derek Alderman, professor and department head of geography at UT is a specialist on streets named for King. Alderman is a cultural and historical geographer; he looks into how places are used to express culture and commemorate the past, and how these places become important.

When Alderman began his research on streets named after King in mid-1990s, he looked at three things:

“How many streets are named for King, and where are they located nationally? What struggles do African-Americans face when trying to commemorate King in cities? And what are the specific locations of streets named after King within a city, and what does this say about the struggles African-Americans face in memorializing the American civil rights movement?”

Derek Alderman

Alderman’s research shows that more than 900 streets are named after King. These streets are in forty states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, and the streets are densely clustered in the southeastern United States.

“About 70 percent of streets named for King are found in the southeastern states. That shouldn’t be surprising; the Southeast was the major location for the civil rights battle,” Alderman said.

Although the number of streets dedicated to King continues to grow, the controversy surrounding renaming a street in his memory remains.

“I believe early proponents of honoring King with street names thought it would be an easier and less costly way of making King’s name visible to everyone in the city, but they found out it could be just as controversial,” said Alderman.

The opposition comes mainly from the desire to protect one’s turf.

“Street names are powerful symbols of identity, and some people are very unwilling to give up that identity. It’s about protecting space, which can be a racial issue,” Alderman said. “It’s a protection of racial boundaries and racial power.”

Much street naming in the past focused on commemorating white figures in history, and to a certain extent African-Americans still do not have complete freedom to engage in rewriting cities.

“Many street-naming proponents ask for a street that cuts across racial boundaries, but a lot of the opposition doesn’t allow that to happen,” Alderman said.

This leads streets named after King to be located in largely African-American neighborhoods.

“It’s a bitter irony; we’re commemorating a man who battled against segregation by segregating his memory,” Alderman said.

As the number of streets named after King continues to grow, the conversation about racial issues grows with it.

“These streets are points of pride but they’re also points of struggle,” Alderman said. “These streets are arenas for debating race. They have power to ensure King’s legacy will not be bypassed.”

Alderman has discussed his research on CBS Evening News, the BBC, and NPR’s Morning Edition, and in USA Today, the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and Ebony magazine, as well as in newspapers from Atlanta and New Orleans to Seattle and Sacramento.

For more information about streets named after King, visit Alderman’s website at mlkstreet.com.

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C O N T A C T :

Christine Copelan (865-974-2225, ccopela7@utk.edu)

Amy Blakely (865-974-5034, ablakely@utk.edu)

The submission deadline for the contest is August 1, 2013.

The competition is sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences, the School of Music, and the Southern Chapter of the College Music Society.

“It takes a long time to write a piece of music and we want to give musicians as much lead time as possible,” said David Royse, associate professor of music education, who is coordinating the competition along with Brendan McConville, assistant professor of music theory, and Barbara Murphy, associate professor of music theory.

The competition is named after famous jazz trumpeter Doc Severinsen, the longtime band leader of the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and a Grammy Award winner. Severinsen will help judge the contest.

All types of composers are encouraged to apply, from church musicians and music teachers to professional composers and students.

“There may be a young Mozart out there and we want to find him or her,” Royse said.

The music must be for solo trumpet and large ensemble, which could either be a symphony orchestra or wind ensemble.

The first-place prize is $10,000, second-place prize is $5,000, and third-place prize is $2,000.

The winners will debut their works during a world premiere performance with internationally renowned trumpeters Vince DiMartino and Allen Vizzutti on Friday, February 14, 2014, at 8:00 p.m. in Cox Auditorium of the Alumni Memorial Building.

The performance will be held during the Joint Regional Conference of the College Music Society Southern Chapter, the College Music Society Mid-Atlantic Chapter and the Association for Technology in Music Instruction, planned for February 13 to 15, 2014, at UT’s new Natalie L. Haslam Music Center.

Click here for more information including contest details, requirements and rules.

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CONTACT:

Lola Alapo (865-974-3993, lalapo@utk.edu)

The 1995 graduate of the College Scholars Program, who focused his last two years of study in the School of Art, was presented with an Accomplished Alumni award in New York on December 12. The Accomplished Alumni program recognizes notable alumni for their success and distinction within their field.

Guyton, who grew up in Lake City, Tennessee, lives and works in New York. The Whitney Museum of American Art is currently featuring a mid-career survey of Guyton’s work. The exhibition opened on October 4 and will continue until January 13, 2013.

“Wade is an unassuming person whose energy for making art is an inspiration to his colleagues, to his viewers, to our faculty, and to our students,” said Dottie Habel, director of the School of Art. “His work and his process contribute to the dialogue about contemporary art in important ways that have garnered attention here in the States as well as in the global arena.”

Entitled Wade Guyton: OS, which employs the common acronym for a computer’s operating system, the exhibition at the Whitney explores our changing relationships to images and artworks through the use of common digital technologies. The work purposefully misuses these technologies to create beautifully misprinted photos and blurred images that relate to our daily lives. The exhibition confronts viewers with a dramatic, non-chronological design of staggered rows of parallel walls resembling layered pages of a book. His work includes paintings, drawings, photography, and sculpture.

A recent New York Times article reviewing the exhibit called Guyton’s work a “cause for optimism,” saying, “Yes, interesting art is being made here and now.” To read the article, visit The New York Times.

Guyton has maintained strong ties with the School of Art at UT. He has recommended artists to participate in its highly competitive Artist-in-Residence (AIR) program and in exhibitions at the Ewing Gallery and the UT Downtown Gallery. Most recently, he and fellow alumni Meredyth Sparks (’94) and Josh Smith (’98), also respected artists based in New York, have launched an initiative to curate and produce a series of three limited edition art boxes of artwork by selected UT alumni and former AIRs to help the school’s fundraising effort to endow the AIR program, currently celebrating its thirty year anniversary.

“I would not be an artist if it were not for my UT experience,” Guyton said.

The award was presented by Habel and Theresa Lee, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences during a UT alumni reception.

Guyton joins a variety of outstanding alumni who have been featured through the Accomplished Alumni program, including CEOs of major corporations, Olympians, authors, lawyers, musicians, U.S. ambassadors and civic leaders.

To view other Accomplished Alumni, visit VolsConnect.

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C O N T A C T :

Whitney Heins (865-974-5460, wheins@utk.edu)

Haylee Marshall (865-974-0810, hmarshall@utfi.org)