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Gayle Baker

It’s always a challenge for faculty to stay on top of the advancing technology in their fields. That’s especially true for those who work in libraries.

Professor Gayle Baker, the electronic resources coordinator for UT Libraries, said the technological advances in her field are growing more and more complex each year.

“Publishers of electronic resources are coming out with mobile apps and special-purpose widgets to add to browser toolbars,” she said. “They also are creating new electronic resources, including scanned images of centuries-old documents, as well as collections of streaming videos.”

It’s Baker’s job to stay current on electronic resources for faculty and students, and then make sure they know how to use them.

“More than anyone, Gayle is responsible for the excellent electronic resources available to UT faculty and students,” said Steve Smith, dean of the UT Libraries. “She leverages her deep knowledge of scholarly databases to bring the very best library resources to our campus scholars.”

Baker also brings her vast experience to bear on research. She has been a key partner in a recent study of return on investment in academic libraries.

Baker became interested in library science as a graduate student at The Ohio State University in the early 70s, though that course of study wasn’t offered at the time. She earned a master’s degree in computer and information science and later earned a master’s degree in library science from the University of Alabama. She came to UT in 1990 as the science and technology coordinator, where she supervised science and technology librarians in Hodges Library. She’s been the electronic resources coordinator since 1993, when librarians performed the vast majority of database searches in the libraries at UT and the cost of access was based upon the amount of time connected with the database and the number of records with citation. There were very few databases of newspapers at the time, and none of scholarly journals.

Baker has served on UT’s Research Council and is a member of the International Advisory Board of Project COUNTER, an international initiative serving librarians and publishers by setting standards for recording and reporting online usage statistics.

When she’s not in the library, Baker and her husband spend their weekends on their farm in the Cumberland Gap area of southwest Virginia where they grow vegetables and hay and raise cattle.

Thura Mack

Thura Mack has been working in libraries since she was in high school. As a student worker, she was assigned to work with an outreach librarian who delivered books on tape for the blind in the community.

“Since I was close to graduating from high school, she made me promise that I would go to college to become a librarian one day,” said Mack. “She provided the coaching to make sure that I had a plan for my education and professional success. I think she would be proud that thirty-three years later, I am still a librarian and now have a role as a coordinator for outreach services.”

Mack is the coordinator of community learning services and diversity programs for UT Libraries. She holds a master’s degree in library science from UT and has worked at the university since 1980.

Since 2003 she has been a member of the Life of the Mind committee, helping to select the common reading book for each year’s incoming freshmen. Mack is currently working with colleagues on the Big Orange STEM Symposium (BOSS), an outreach project for high school students interested in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Mack and her team are working with UT’s Outreach and Engagement Council, the L&N STEM Academy, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and high schools from around the state.

“In my mind, BOSS is a success story because it has generated interest, collaboration, and enthusiasm in the community and has intellectual promise beyond the program itself,” said Mack. “We hope to make a huge impact in the lives of these high school students and encourage them to pursue their passions at UT.”

“Thura is an expert at community building,” Smith said. “She gives tirelessly of her time and talents to high school students and to faculty colleagues, always thinking of what will benefit the community and the library profession.”

Smith said Mack also has been key to the success of the library’s Diversity Residency Program, a program that enhances the ethnic and cultural diversity of UT Libraries by bringing recent library and information science graduates into the library for work experience.

“Thura is a committed advocate for diversity and one of the best mentors I have ever seen,” Smith said.

In her free time, Mack enjoys spending time with her daughter Niyia, who lives in Los Angeles, and traveling to visit other family members. She also works with toddlers and the elderly at her church.

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C O N T A C T :

Rebekah Winkler (865-974-8304, rwinkler@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)

Steve Adair

Horse lovers from across the Southeast travel hours upon hours to bring their beloved four-legged family members to see Steve Adair.

An associate professor of equine surgery in the College of Veterinary Medicine and a veterinary sports medicine and rehabilitation specialist, Adair is known for paying special attention to his patients during their treatment and rehabilitation.

“Dr. Adair has unbridled passion for all horses, but a special place in his heart for equine athletes,” said Jim Thompson, dean of the college.

Adair said when it comes to diagnosing medical problems, there’s a key difference between animal patients and human patients.

“Animals have a different way of communicating their pain with us,” he said. “There’s a process of examination, but also a look in the (animal’s) eye. Over time you develop a sixth sense.

“I enjoy that challenge, and the challenge of teaching students to look for those cues.”

After earning his doctorate in veterinary medicine from Auburn University in 1984, Adair went into private practice in Louisiana, spending much of his time around racehorses. He became interested in horses’ rehabilitation and was accepted to a surgical residency at UT in 1986. He joined UT’s faculty in 1990. His research focuses on laminitis, a foot disease common in horses. He was a charter member of the American College of Veterinary Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation.

Adair treating Pattycake.

Adair primarily treats racehorses and other equine athletes, but one of his better-known cases was that of Pattycake, a five-year-old saddle horse burned in a barn fire. Pattycake had the worst burns Adair had seen in his twenty-five year career. Through five months of treatment at the College of Veterinary Medicine, under the care of Adair, three additional doctors, and eight students, Pattycake mended enough to move to a rehab center closer to her home in Sewanee, Tennessee.

“Dr. Adair is a gifted surgeon who works hard to fully understand his patients’ injuries,” said Thompson, “and then works even harder to develop the best treatment and rehabilitation plans to bring his patients back to their greatest level of performance.”

Apart from his UT work, Adair serves as rehabilitation specialist for the Budweiser Clydesdales.

He is an avid fisherman and he and his wife, Stacey, also a veterinarian, enjoy bird watching across the United States and Central America, and working on their farm in Maryville.

Diane Hendrix

Diane Hendrix chose to go into veterinary medicine rather than human medicine because she liked the idea of working with multiple species. A professor of ophthalmology in the College of Veterinary Medicine, her work takes her from the classroom to the exam room to the operating room.

“A great day for me is when I’ve worked on at least four different species,” said Hendrix. “All these eyes are different. All the anatomies are different. It’s challenging and exciting.”

After receiving her doctorate in veterinary medicine from UT in 1990, she interned at North Carolina State University before spending two years in general practice and then entering a residency at the University of Florida. Her two years in general practice prepared her for what many of her students will face when they graduate. Though Hendrix and her students see a myriad of cases at the College of Veterinary Medicine, Hendrix’s students will see fewer ophthalmology cases in their day-to-day practices once they leave UT.

“At UT we see a lot of cases every day that they aren’t going to see very much of in general practice,” she said. “We’re teaching at all levels. And we have to keep learning ourselves all the time because we’re responsible for teaching our students and our residents the most up-to-date information.”

Thompson calls Hendrix “one of our college’s most gifted clinicians.”

“We all love the enthusiasm, positive attitude, and compassion she brings to work every day,” he said. “She is also a spectacular teacher. It’s fun to see her eyes sparkle when she’s teaching. She helps make our college and hospital a wonderful place.”

Hendrix’s research focuses on corneal disease in horses and finding a new type of therapy for treating the most common form of eye cancer, squamous cell carcinoma.

When she’s not in the classroom or the operating room, Hendrix enjoys hiking in the Smokies with her husband and their two teenage daughters.

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C O N T A C T :

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

Thomas K. Davis

As an undergraduate student at Cornell University, Thomas K. Davis studied under architecture professors who infused their teaching with such enthusiasm that it birthed in him the desire to do the same.

“I knew then that I wanted to be a teacher,” he said. “I have taught for fifty-six semesters, and I want to give my students that same passion. The more I work with students, there’s so much more I realize I want to learn.”

Davis, who came to UT in 1994, is an associate professor of architecture. His primary interest is urban and architectural design. He teaches a seminar on issues in urban design; a course on architecture, the city and film; and an urban design studio course.

For three years, he served as director of the Nashville Civic Design Center—a nonprofit organization that addresses the city’s urban design challenges—and is on its board of directors. UT students use the center as a satellite learning space and studio. He also established a summer learning program for students in Tennessee’s capital city.

Davis recently received national recognition for his community outreach program with students, Collaborations in Transit-Oriented Development, which aims to produce a walkable, pedestrian-friendly Nashville.

“Our teaching and applied research are having a direct and lasting impact on the people and places, culture and community, environmental health, and economic vitality in the state of Tennessee and beyond, and professor Davis’s longtime work as a leader of urban design in Nashville epitomizes this,” said Scott Poole, dean of the College of Architecture and Design.

Davis noted that as he works with students, he often encourages them to use their eye and hand to draw—instead of immediately going to the computer—as they attempt to solve architectural problems because it enhances their conceptual thinking.

“I hope they develop a life-long interest and ability to keep on learning,” Davis said. “I want them to have learned to see architecture not just as good-looking objects, but as well-designed spaces and places that people occupy.”

Mary Beth Robinson

Mary Beth Robinson (in blue) with students, from left, Teal Nabors, Michelle Hawfield, and Lindsay Payne.

For interior design students, attending one of Mary Beth Robinson’s classes often results in self discovery.

Robinson, an associate professor of interior design, invites students to explore how they relate to the environment through their own history—important life moments, where they came from, and what sensory influences shaped them.

“It’s important for students to understand what their own motivations are,” she said. “They’re designing and sometimes they’re not quite sure where it’s coming from. Once they pinpoint it, it really frees them up to move on, or inspires them as they design for themselves or for others.”

Robinson has taught interior design at UT for ten years. Prior to that, she was a design practitioner.

“Working with young people in the office really led me to knowing that eventually I would want to go into teaching and share not just the practice aspect, but also learning about design,” she said. “Seeing students discover their passion and what they want to do in life and connecting them to that is something that has always inspired me to teach.”

For many years, she coordinated the Interior Design Program’s summer internship course. She will soon transition into a part-time teaching role as a professor, which will allow her to pursue other ventures while staying connected to the university.

David Matthews, associate dean of the College of Architecture and Design and chair of the Interior Design Program, said Robinson’s love for both the profession and the art of teaching “is evidenced in the high caliber of students who leave our program and enter into varying and robust careers.

“She has modeled the integration of research and design in her teaching by providing opportunities for student to use emerging knowledge as they design interior environments,” he said.

Robinson has an interest in helping students understand how interior space can contribute to wellness and human behavior. She takes her students on field trips to museums and studios in various cities so they can see the practical application of design in action.

“Whether it’s your personal space or a retail environment, it’s how to manipulate all elements of design—lighting, positioning of partitions, color, the furnishings, every aspect—and then understanding the human behavior piece of it and how space can be transformed to benefit how people use that space,” she said.

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C O N T A C T :

Lola Alapo (865-974-3993, lola.alapo@tennessee.edu)

You can post your own shout-out to your favorite faculty member on the Faculty Shout Out Page.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WukyFSfaAnw

Nan Gaylord

If you ask Nan Gaylord what our nation’s most valuable resource is, she won’t answer with water, oil, or natural gas. She’ll tell you, it is our children.

“If children are not well cared for, our next generation will be troubled,” said Gaylord, an associate professor of nursing.

It was this strong belief that led Gaylord to pursue a career in pediatric nursing.

Gaylord is founder of the Vine School Health Center, a school-based health care clinic that serves students in Knox County who have limited access to health care.

“My research and work are dedicated to the access to health care for children, which will hopefully allow for the consideration of alternative delivery sites for care, alternative providers of care, and reimbursement of the care provided in these sites,” she said.

Gaylord has expanded the reach of the Vine School Health Center by using telehealth technologies. Telehealth is the use of digital technologies to deliver medical care, health education, and public health services by connecting multiple users in separate locations.

“Dr. Gaylord is an inspiration to her students, colleagues, and the patients that she serves,” said Dean Vickie Niederhauser. “As the founder and director for the Vine School Health Center, Dr. Gaylord has created a national model for care of children in community-based settings.”

Gaylord inspires many people with her passionate advocacy for children on both the local and national levels.

“Dr. Gaylord is the epitome of a nursing educator and children’s advocate,” said Alicia Alexander-Helms, a former student and now Vine Health Center colleague. “She is a great leader and an empowered woman. She serves her students and community in a tireless manner.”

Gaylord hopes this excitement is contagious and that the next generation of advanced practice nurses she mentors will enjoy their professional life as much as she does.

“I hope I inspire my students to think outside our nursing box, to think about what is possible and what is best for our little patients, and then plan accordingly to see that possibility actualized,” she said.

Peggy Pierce

The aging baby boomer population, coupled with changes in health care, has significantly increased the critical need for advanced practice nurses.

Peggy Pierce, assistant professor of nursing, is tackling this national problem one student at a time. As chair of the College of Nursing’s Doctor of Nursing Practice Program, she helps students become clinical practice leaders and educators.

“Our students come from many different backgrounds and experiences,” she said. “They work, they have families, but they are trying to accomplish this grand goal. We want to help them move toward this goal in a way that works for them while also meeting our high program standards.”

Ben Barbour, a graduate student in nursing, said Pierce inspires him to approach all of life’s problems from multiple angles.

“Dr. Pierce encourages her students to find creative solutions to complex problems, and base their decisions on sound evidence,” he said. ”She inspires students to treat all patients in a holistic manner, and she has expanded my knowledge of complementary and alternative medical therapies.”

Pierce is making UT history by leading the first interprofessional team-based education program between nursing, industrial engineering, medical, and pharmacy students. This spring, a group of students from the different disciplines began learning together using telehealth technology in the delivery of patient care at clinics around Knox County. This way of learning gives students real-world clinical experience, which studies show improves patient results.

“The future of healthcare reform will depend on cohesive teamwork to provide safe, efficient, and effective patient-centered care models,” said Dean Vickie Niederhauser. “Dr. Pierce’s leadership in this interprofessional endeavor is an inspiration to all the students.”

When Pierce isn’t teaching students in a classroom or clinic, you can find her teaching an early morning outdoor “bootcamp” fitness class.

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C O N T A C T :

Whitney Heins (865-974-5034, wheins@utk.edu)

Brad Collett

Just thirteen years ago, Brad Collett was an honors student at UT, working on his bachelor’s degree in ornamental horticulture and landscape design.

He’s now an assistant professor of plant sciences and interim chair of UT’s graduate Landscape Architecture Program.

“I always had thought that at some point in my career I would seek an opportunity to share my passion for landscape architecture with aspiring professionals,” he said. “To have the opportunity to do this here at UT, a place about which I am equally passionate, is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

Collett joined the faculty in 2011 to help grow the new master’s degree in landscape architecture, an interdisciplinary program of the College of Architecture and Design and the College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources.

He brought to the position a broad professional experience gained from six years as a senior associate at a firm in Orlando, Florida. There, he managed master planning and landscape architecture projects and helped direct the firm’s sustainable design initiatives.

“What inspired me as student in the landscape design program is quite similar to what now drives me as a member of the landscape architecture faculty—a passionate belief that through responsible planning of landscapes and creative, innovative design of the built environment, we can have a profound impact on quality of life and the sustainability of natural resources,” Collett said.

Collett said he arrived at UT in 1997 without any idea of what field he wanted to study. He credits the insight of “excellent undergraduate advisors” who helped him discover and cultivate his interests.

“I am so grateful to these individuals who recognized my interests in service to the community, environmental sciences, and creative arts that are fundamental to the profession of landscape architecture,” he said.

He earned his master’s in landscape architecture from The Ohio State University in 2004.

UT’s Landscape Architecture Program began in 2008 after years of work from the campus community and professionals across the state. The Landscape Architecture Accreditation Board (LAAB) granted the program full accreditation last August, making it the only accredited landscape architecture program in the state.

“Brad Collett has been extraordinary in galvanizing the combined efforts of faculty, staff, and students to get the landscape architecture program accredited. The commitment of the leadership and level of excellence displayed by this relatively young program were lauded by the visiting team,” said Caula Beyl, dean of the college.

Collett said the accreditation means a bright future for the program.

“We seek to continue to grow our program by attracting even more exceptional and passionate students,” he said.

The program’s faculty and students have been a part of several inspiring outreach programs and collaborations such as the New Norris House, the Living Light house, and Plan East Tennessee, a regional community planning initiative.

“Brad also has supported a culture of service learning with students engaged in providing input on storm water issues in Knoxville and Knox County, thus positively impacting our community,” Beyl said.

Brad and his wife, Nicki, have two young children and enjoy visiting family in Ohio and North Carolina.

Lannett Edwards

From funny videos to group competitions and love songs, Lannett Edwards inspires the laughs that lead to learning.

The animal science professor’s unique approach to teaching reproduction has left her students with fond memories.

“I never knew there were so many country songs that could be related to reproduction—and Dr. Edwards used them all,” noted former student Elizabeth Johnson. “I still can’t listen to Brad Paisely’s Waiting on a Woman, without thinking of sperm sitting in the oviduct waiting on the follicle to ovulate.”

Professor Edwards teaches graduate seminars and reproductive physiology to undergraduates and directs the department’s graduate studies.

She enjoys finding different approaches to delivering the many scientific facts. And her students enjoy how much effort she puts into it.

“Each new lecture she teaches is a blank canvas waiting to be turned into a masterpiece of knowledge and enthusiasm for a science,” said Johnson, who is now studying to be a veterinarian.

Edwards enjoys guiding her students.

“I want to teach the undergrads that they can accomplish anything if they make the effort,” she said. “The graduate level is more about the content and realizing that everything they are learning is meaningful and to not get so caught up in the nitpicky details. It really is about agriculture, where they fit in, and how it will open doors for them.”

“Lannett Edwards is not only a talented and innovative teacher, but she also has helped to develop a much needed course in research ethics for the life sciences, a topic of great national interest for graduate students,” Beyl said. “As the graduate director for animal science, she has instituted a set of best practices focused on tracking progression of students toward degree completion that has become a model for the college.”

Edwards earned a bachelor’s degree from Austin Peay State University, a master’s degree from Mississippi State University, and a doctorate from the University of Florida.

A postdoctoral fellowship with the US Department of Agriculture gave her a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work with researcher Ian Wilmut in Edinburgh, Scotland. He led the team that successfully cloned the sheep, Dolly, who was the first mammal cloned from an adult cell.

Just a few years later, in 2000, Edwards and her husband, Neal Schrick, also made international news by successfully cloning Milly, a Jersey cow, at UT. Schrick, professor of animal science, is now department head.

Edwards grew up in rural Houston County, Tennessee. She was a 4-Her and learned the value of hard work from her dairy-farming grandparents.

“I loved that type of life, the hard work and the getting up early aspect,” she said. “I grew up with those agricultural influences and appreciating where food comes from, especially dairy.”

Edwards hopes to share the same simple pleasures with her children, Laney, age ten, and Tyler, twelve. They are developing a small farm in Sevier County.

And while she’s inspired so many students, she can’t point to just one source of inspiration. Her mom motivates and guides her through her challenging career and busy life.

She also still thinks a lot about Dolly, the sheep, and how she set the course for her research.

“Even after her death, Dolly reminds me that the impossible is possible.”

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C O N T A C T :

Karen Simsen (865-974-5186, karen.simsen@utk.edu)

Post your own shout-outs on the Faculty Shout Out Page.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYJvvpERDYU

Chris Cherry

We live in a transient society. And with travel come decisions that impact our health, economy, and environment.

This is why Chris Cherry chose transportation engineering as his life’s work.

“Transportation engineering really is something that impacts everyone daily,” said Cherry. “It is also quite complex as it deals almost exclusively with human behavior and decision making.”

Cherry, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, is responsible for launching the nation’s first automated e-bike sharing system on UT’s campus. Called CycleUShare, it is a research and education project he works on with students.

“The electric bicycle sharing project has really required us to think outside the box and come up with some creative solutions,” said Casey Langford, a doctoral student. ”Dr. Cherry has been very hands-on with the project and has put in several long nights working with me and the other students in the lab, which really inspires us to work just as hard.”

Dayakar Penumadu, department head, said UT is “fortunate to have Dr. Cherry on our faculty addressing the nexus between novel transportation technologies, including e-bikes, energy, and public health. He is very passionate about making the UT campus amenable to green transportation.”

Cherry also has published multiple studies that have garnered international attention from media outlets such as US News and World Report, Time, and the Wall Street Journal.

Cherry hopes his research will influence transportation policy toward technologies and systems that encourage effective and efficient use of the world’s scarce resources.

He said he’s trying to inspire his students so they will have an impact on the future.

“We have serious problems related to our transportation and we need professionals that are serious and creative about addressing the problems,” he said. “Many of these problems are new, some are old, all have big impacts, and I try to inspire my students by showing them how much room there is to improve the well-being of so many people.”

Lynne Parker

Question your assumptions.

Lynne Parker, professor and associate head in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, does this in her own research. And she urges her students to do the same.

“Do we presume something can or can’t be done, just because most people presume it is that way?” said Parker. “I try to inspire students to see if revolutionary new ideas can result.”

Hao Zhang, a doctoral student, said Parker constantly challenges his work and helps him find the missing links in his ideas.

“Dr. Parker helps me analyze the pros and cons and suggests real-world applications to use my methods,” said Zhang. “Most importantly, she changes my way of thinking and always instructs me to think critically.”

Parker is a leading researcher in the field of distributed multirobot systems.

Parker’s work involves developing robots that are able to perform society’s most mundane and challenging tasks.

“Robots could help us around the house or the office, so that we can be more productive,” she said.

One ongoing project in Parker’s lab is training a robot to teach life skills to adults with learning disabilities. She and her students are working with the robot so that it can visually recognize the activity of the human, determine whether the activity is correctly producing the required skill, and provide the appropriate feedback to the human.

Parker is also a faculty mentor with her department’s STARS (Students and Technology in Academia, Research, and Service) student mentoring program. The program matches student volunteers with introductory computing students to help them become more comfortable with computing capabilities.

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C O N T A C T :

Whitney Heins (865-974-5034, wheins@utk.edu)

Innovative teaching. Encouraging demeanor. A passion for the subject. Contagious enthusiasm. All of these traits help inspire students to great ideas. Here are two faculty members from the College of Business Administration whose teaching, research, and community service are both inspired and inspiring.

Mohammed Mohsin

Mohammed Mohsin, associate professor of economics, only had one name growing up in India. He was just Mohsin.

When he applied for a passport, the Indian Passport officer said they needed more than one name for his paperwork, so he added Mohammed on the spot. Now he has two first names.

It was just one step along his journey.

“I’ve been moving my whole life,” he said.

It was exciting, he said, to grow up in a small village and not know where life might lead him. His father helped him pursue his education, but it wasn’t always easy. He had to walk three miles every day to get to his high school.

As for studying economics?

“That happened by accident,” he said. He was interested in math, but friends told him economics had more practical applications. “At that time I had no idea about economics in a real-life sense. Now I am happy that I studied economics. I can do both.”

He initially studied at the University of Hyderabad in India. He then received a scholarship from the Commonwealth Scholarship from the Canadian government to go to York University in Toronto, where he earned his doctorate.

“Mohammed Mohsin makes for a great story,” said Jan Williams, dean of the College of Business Administration. “He grew up in India and, unlike most of us, experienced both extreme inflation and extreme deflation. This almost certainly influenced his interest in how inflation affects the functioning of an economy, and he is becoming an expert in this topic. He has published more than 20 articles in books and journals since joining our faculty.”

Mohsin has been at UT for twelve years. He teaches and researches international economics, macroeconomics, and monetary economics.

What he teaches is technical, and it’s easy for students to get confused, he said. He does classroom exercises to help them understand the concepts and assigns papers and projects to keep them engaged.

On the weekends, he lives in Asheville, North Carolina. He’s been an American citizen for several years, and his son was born in the United States.

“My son can’t imagine living anywhere besides Asheville,” he said.

Andy Puckett

Andy Puckett, associate professor of finance, knew he wanted to work at UT as soon as he visited campus for an interview.

“I fell in love with it from the very beginning,” he said, noting that he was particularly drawn to his peers in the Department of Finance. “We’ve got a great group here.”

Puckett was inspired to teach finance years earlier by one of his graduate school professors at the University of Georgia, Marc Lipson.

Lipson is a leading researcher in financial investing and had worked at the New York Stock Exchange. He worked closely with Puckett, and now the two conduct research together and co-author papers.

“That’s where my passion for investments-related research developed,” Puckett said.

Right now, he’s working with a different group of professors from three other schools on a paper about how large institutional investors traded during the 2008 market crisis. It will be published in the Journal of Financial Economics later this year.

“Andy Puckett is a rising star in the Department of Finance,” Williams said. “He was involved in thirty-six presentations during the past several years, and his research is published in the most prestigious journals. Add to this, Andy is exceptional in the classroom,” Williams said.

Although he spends a lot of time on research, he tries to develop a personal relationship with each of his students.

“I try to learn everyone’s name the first week,” he said.

He gives incentives for participation to help foster “organic conversation” in class, which he says “leads to a higher level of learning.”

He teaches undergraduate and doctoral courses in investments and a new undergraduate course he developed called Debt and Derivatives.

Outside of work, he and his wife Megan have two children who keep them active. He’s involved with a men’s group at his church and often goes running.

At UT, it’s his students who keep him motivated. “I get to be around energetic young men and women,” he said. “It’s the greatest job in the world.”

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C O N T A C T :

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

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

You can post your own shout-out to your favorite faculty member on the Faculty Shout Out Page.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8B24fEYVWwo

Scott Childs

Scott Childs is used to change, and it’s a good thing. His work involves three rapidly evolving fields: law, library science, and technology.

Childs, who came to UT in 2011 to be an associate professor of law and the college’s associate dean for library and technology services, got his first taste of the law working as a police officer in Alabama.

The experience wasn’t what he imagined, but it did spark his desire to go to law school.

He thought he’d be a public defender, but clinical experience showed him that civil law was a better fit. After getting his law degree, he worked in legal aid for seven years before going back to graduate school to study information science.

Doug Blaze, dean of the College of Law, said Childs “has brought a great culture of service and innovative approaches to access to information as leader of our law library.”

Childs said it’s challenging to keep the law library reliable and relevant for students, faculty, and local lawyers, as well as residents attempting their own legal research.

Law librarians—like other librarians—struggle to decide what materials should be accessed electronically and what books should be kept. Money and space often force them to choose.

“It’s really hard for us, as librarians, to say, ‘We don’t need that book anymore’ when the only other access to that information might be a digital product from a remote Internet server based on a transient annual license,” he said.

He predicts that law libraries, traditionally very protective of their own holdings, will have to increase resource sharing.

Childs believes that teaching legal research skills is one of the most important things law librarians do.

Before coming to UT, Childs worked in the law libraries at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Louisiana State University, and Cornell Law School.

Amy Hess

Amy Hess gave her mother a pillow for her eightieth birthday that said “The Best Is Yet to Come.”

It’s a thought Hess tries to live by.

“I want the world to be a better place when I leave than when I came. I also want the law to be better. And I try to instill that in my students,” said Hess, a Distinguished Service Professor and the Waller, Lansden, Dortch & Davis and Williford Gragg Distinguished Professor of Law.

Blaze said Hess “has devoted her career to the best teaching, service to the legal profession, and most of all to scholarship.”

Hess specializes in trusts and estates, property, and taxation. Since 1994, Hess has authored updates to one of the nation’s leading treatises on trust law, The Law of Trusts and Trustees.  Each year, she prepares updates to eighteen of the twenty-three volumes. In addition, she has rewritten four volumes.

If you think it sounds dull, Hess might just change your mind.

It’s an aspect of the law that allows her to do two things she loves—help people by solving problems and “play with words” through voluminous writing.

“I think if you like what you’re doing it rubs off,” she said, proud that she’s heard multiple students say “I thought I was going to hate your course, but I loved it.”

Hess came to UT in 1981. Before that, she practiced law in New York City and Virginia.

Her articles on federal taxation have appeared in the Tennessee Law Review; the Real Property, Probate and Trust Journal; and the Tax Lawyer. She also is the co-author of a casebook on the law of trusts and estates.

In addition to her academic activities, Hess occasionally serves as an expert witness on matters involving estates and trusts law.

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C O N T A C T :

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

Dwight Teeter Jr.

When Dwight Teeter was a cub reporter in Waterloo, Iowa, back in the late 1950s, he was threatened with a libel suit.

His newspaper arranged for him to talk to a lawyer, but the lawyer admitted he didn’t know much about libel law. He asked Teeter, who hadn’t been out of college long at that point, if he knew of a good textbook they could consult.

“I realized that I hadn’t had a good book on communication law during my undergraduate days at Berkeley. So I thought, Maybe I’ll write one,” he said.

A couple of newspaper jobs and a PR job later, Teeter found himself at the University of Wisconsin, working on his doctorate. It was there that his mentor, the late Professor Harold L. Nelson, asked him to co-author a book called Law of Mass Communications.  That book is now its thirteenth edition.

“Dwight is an outstanding teacher and a highly published, internationally known expert in the area of mass communication law and history,” said Mike Wirth, dean of the College of Communication and Information.

Teeter came to UT in 1991 as dean of the college. He served in that position until 2002 and then returned to the faculty to teach mass communication law and history.

Although journalism students often think communications law is a tough subject, Teeter said he stresses that it’s built on simple rules, like “don’t invade privacy” and “don’t steal copyrighted material.”

Teeter said his Wisconsin mentor, Nelson, was his greatest inspiration.

“In the summer of 1954, Harold Nelson had been hired to teach journalism and advise the student paper at a Texas university,” Teeter recalled. “This was soon after the US Supreme Court had ruled in Brown v. Board of Education, desegregating public schools. A student reporter learned about a box of folders in Admissions marked ‘Negro: Do Not Admit.’ The student asked, ‘Should we publish this story?’  Nelson said yes, knowing that it might land him in hot water with the administration.”

Teeter said Nelson lost his job in Texas but was soon hired by the University of California at Berkeley—where he and Teeter first met—and later by the University of Wisconsin, where they met up again.

“It just goes to show,” Teeter said.  “If you do what is right, things usually work out.”

Peiling Wang

Peiling Wang loves a good challenge. That explains her penchant for ice skating, skiing, and surfing.

She recalls being one of the two novices in an in-line skating class. The instructor proceeded as if everyone knew what they were doing. Wang fell multiple times and had to seek medical care.

Wang said the experience taught her a lot about learning—and teaching.

An information science professor who primarily teaches graduate classes, Wang said her students arrive with varying backgrounds. Some are new to the field; some have extensive work experience.

“I believe in a learner-centered approach, so I see my role as creating a supportive environment for my students to learn and personalize professional growth,” she said.

Wirth said Wang “has distinguished herself as an outstanding teacher and first-rate scholar. She is an internationally known expert in web information retrieval, data mining,  knowledge discovery, and human-computer interaction.”

Wang has devoted herself to developing the School of Information’s new ePortfolio requirement for graduate students. An alternative to a thesis or exam, it requires students to set goals, collect evidence of learning, and reflect on learning outcomes and professional growth—and then document their learning and competencies in a web e-Portfolio.

Wang also worked with the Provost’s office to analyze academic data to develop utrack, a monitoring system that will help students stay on track to graduation.

Wang said her gusto for life and learning—and getting back up after being down—was born out of a difficult youth in China. Because of the Cultural Revolution, her formal education was interrupted when she was a sixth grader and she was sent to a collective farm to work for eight years. She later went to a university and earned a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering, a field that was chosen for her. After earning a master’s degree in information science—the field she loves—she came to America in the late 1980s to pursue her doctorate at the University of Maryland.

“Despite all the difficulties, I have never been happier than I am now,” Wang said in a speech she was asked to give at her commencement ceremony in Maryland. “I cannot find the words to express my appreciation to this great country, where I have the opportunity to hope and to strive for the best I can be…. In my homeland, there is a saying. Translated into English, it means ‘One should never forget her teachers.’”

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C O N T A C T :

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

This year’s theme is “Inspiring Ideas.”

Daily stories in Tennessee Today will profile faculty members who inspire their students through innovative teaching, an encouraging demeanor, passion for their subject, and contagious enthusiasm.

Videos will feature students talking about the faculty members who have meant the most to them. Chancellor Jimmy G. Cheek and Provost Susan Martin also have some words of thanks for the faculty members who inspired them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDRTm5bmQ7A

In preparation for the week, you can post your own shout-out to your favorite faculty member on the Faculty Shout Out Page.

Here’s a look at some of the special events planned for this week:

Monday, February 25

• Lunch workshop—Tennessee Teaching and Learning Center will present “Threshold Concepts: Moving Students through the Conceptual Bottlenecks,” a free workshop about helping students move from academic confusion to the “light bulb” moments of understanding. Noon to 1:30 p.m. University Center Ballroom. Lunch is included. RSVP to tenntlc@utk.edu.
• Distinguished Faculty Reception—The invitation-only reception sponsored by Chancellor Jimmy G. Cheek will be held from 5:00 to 6:30 p.m. in the rotunda of the Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy.

Tuesday, February 26

• Men’s basketball game—The Vols play Florida at 9:00 p.m. in Thompson-Boling Arena. Faculty will be saluted during the game. Faculty and staff can purchase tickets for $7. Visit the UT Ticket Office, call 865-656-1200, or order online using promotional code VOLS4UTK.

Wednesday, February 27

• Clarence Brown Theatre presents A Raisin in the Sun—Faculty can use their 50 percent discount to purchase tickets by visiting the box office with their staff ID. Faculty who attend tonight’s 7:30 p.m. performance will be recognized during intermission and will be entered into a drawing for two-ticket season passes. For more information call 974-5161 or see clarencebrowntheatre.com.

Thursday, February 28

• Ready for the World Café—Faculty members dining at the café today will have the chance to win Rocky Top Institute items and café tickets. Today’s northern Italian menu includes a porcini mushroom polenta cake, veal Milanese, artichoke salad, tiramisu, and focaccia. The café, sponsored by Sysco Foods, is a joint effort of HRT 445, the UT Culinary Institute, and Pellissippi Culinary Institute. It begins at 11:30 a.m. in the UT Visitors Center, 2712 Neyland Drive. Tickets are $12. Too purchase them, see Marcia Johnson in the Jessie Harris Building, Room 110, call 865-974-6645, or e-mail rhtm@utk.edu.
• Women’s basketball game—The Lady Vols play Texas A&M at 7:00 p.m. in Thompson-Boling Arena. Faculty will be saluted during the game. Faculty and staff can purchase tickets for $7. Visit the UT Ticket Office, call 865-656-1200, or order online, using promotional code VOLS4UTK.

All Week

• Free drinks from Dining Services—Faculty and staff members who show their UT Dining Services Faculty/Staff Rewards Card will receive a free 22-ounce fountain drink or small coffee. No purchase is necessary. The offer is good at Starbucks, Chick-fil-A, Einstein’s, McAlister’s Deli, Arena Dining, Smokey’s, Rocky Top locations, Subway, Mabel’s, and all of the other national brand locations that Dining Services manages on campus.
• Faculty books display—Books written by UT faculty will be displayed throughout the week in the Dixie Marie Wooten Commons West of Hodges Library, near the Melrose entrance.
• UT Bookstore discount—The bookstore will offer a 20 percent discount to faculty and staff with their UT ID. The discount will not include textbooks, special orders, select trade books, clearance merchandise, and minimal select general merchandise (such as the “We Back Pat” shirts).

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C O N T A C T :

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

In recognition of Faculty Appreciation Week, February 25 to March 1, faculty members attending this week’s Ready for the World Café will have the chance to win Rocky Top Institute items and café tickets.

The café, sponsored by Sysco Foods, operates from 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. on Thursdays in the UT Visitors Center, 2712 Neyland Drive. Each luncheon typically consists of an intermezzo or small appetizer, salad or soup, entrée, and dessert. Advance tickets will be sold for the luncheons, and capacity is eighty diners. Cost will be $12, and the faculty-staff discount does not apply. For tickets and reservations, see Marcia Johnson in the Jessie Harris Building, Room 110, call 865-974-6645, or e-mail rhtm@utk.edu.

The northern Italian menu is:

Appetizer: Insalata di carciofi (artichoke salad)

First course: Porcini mushroom polenta cake with sausage ragu, garnished with white truffle oil, parmesan cheese, and basil

Second course: Veal Milanese (thinly pounded veal, crusted with bread crumbs and fried) with lemon-seasoned arugula and cherry tomatoes

Dessert: Tiramisu (layered dessert with emphasis on coffee, chocolate, and mascarpone cheese)

Lunch dates and themes for the remainder of the semester are:

• March 7, Southern France
• March 21, Northern France
• April 4, Sushi
• April 11, Japanese Cookery
• April 18, Spain
• April 25, Japanese/French Fusion
• May 2, Spanish/Italian Fusion

The luncheons are produced through a collaboration of HRT 445 (the Advanced Food Production and Service Management class), the UT Culinary Institute, and the Pellissippi Culinary Institute.

Students enrolled in the UT course will work as general managers, dining room attendants, assistant kitchen managers, dining room managers, and dining room service employees. They will be responsible for the execution of the dining experience, managing staff, menu planning, food preparation, cooking, cost analysis, service during meal time, marketing of the event, and customer satisfaction activities.

Pellissippi State students will do most of the food preparation and will assist with dining room responsibilities.

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C O N T A C T :

Marcia Johnson (for tickets): (865-974-6645, rhtm@utk.edu)

Christine Copelan (ccopela7@utk.edu)

In preparation for Faculty Appreciation Week, you can post your own note of thanks to faculty members on the Faculty Shout Out page. The shout out page will be active next week.

Also, now’s the time to RSVP for the free luncheon being sponsored by the Tennessee Teaching and Learning Center on Monday and buy a ticket for the Ready for the World Café on Thursday.

Discount tickets also can be purchased for the men’s basketball game on Tuesday, the Clarence Brown Theatre presentation of A Raisin in the Sun on Wednesday, February 27, and the women’s basketball game on Thursday, February 28.

Here’s a look at all of the week’s special activities:

Monday, February 25

• Lunch workshop—Tennessee Teaching and Learning Center will present “Threshold Concepts: Moving Students through the Conceptual Bottlenecks,” a free workshop about helping students move from academic confusion to the “light bulb” moments of understanding. Noon to 1:30 p.m. University Center Ballroom. Lunch is included.  RSVP to tenntlc@utk.edu.

• Distinguished Faculty Reception—The invitation-only reception sponsored by Chancellor Jimmy G. Cheek will be held from 5:00 to 6:30 p.m. in the rotunda of the Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy.

Tuesday, February 26

• Men’s basketball game—The Vols play Florida at 9:00 p.m. in Thompson-Boling Arena. Faculty will be saluted during the game. Faculty and staff can purchase tickets for $7. Visit the UT Ticket Office, call 865-656-1200, or order online using promotional code VOLS4UTK.

Wednesday, February 27

• Clarence Brown Theatre presents A Raisin in the Sun—Faculty can use their 50 percent discount to purchase tickets by visiting the box office with their staff ID. Faculty who attend tonight’s 7:30 p.m. performance will be recognized during intermission and will be entered into a drawing for two-ticket season passes. For more information call 974-5161 or visit clarencebrowntheatre.com.

Thursday, February 28

• Ready for the World Café— Faculty members dining at the café today will have the chance to win Rocky Top Institute items and café tickets.  Today’s northern Italian menu includes a porcini mushroom polenta cake, veal Milanese, artichoke salad, tiramisu and focaccia. The café, sponsored by Sysco Foods, is a joint effort of HRT 445, the UT Culinary Institute, and Pellissippi Culinary Institute.  It begins at 11:30 a.m. in the UT Visitors Center, 2712 Neyland Drive. Tickets are $12. Too purchase them, see Marcia Johnson in the Jessie Harris Building, Room 110, call 865-974-6645, or e-mail rhtm@utk.edu.

• Women’s basketball game—The Lady Vols play Texas A&M at 7:00 p.m. in Thompson-Boling Arena. Faculty will be saluted during the game. Faculty and staff can purchase tickets for $7. Visit the UT Ticket Office, call 865-656-1200, or order online using promotional code VOLS4UTK.

All Week

• Free drinks from Dining Services – Faculty and staff members who show their UT Dining Services Faculty/Staff Rewards Card will receive a free 22-ounce fountain drink or small coffee. No purchase is necessary. The offer is good at Starbucks, Chick-fil-A, Einstein’s, McAlister’s Deli, Arena Dining, Smokey’s, Rocky Top locations, Subway, Mabel’s and all of the other national brand locations that we manage on campus.

• Faculty books display – Books written by UT faculty will be displayed throughout the week in the Dixie Marie Wooten Commons West of Hodges Library, near the Melrose entrance.

• UT Bookstore discount—The bookstore will offer a 20 percent discount to faculty and staff with their UT ID. The discount will not include textbooks, special orders, select trade books, clearance merchandise, and minimal select general merchandise (such as the “We Back Pat” shirts).

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C O N T A C T :

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

The cards give faculty and staff a 15 percent discount on regularly priced food and drink in most ARAMARK-run dining establishments on campus.

The signups come just in time for Faculty Appreciation Week, which will be celebrated next week. During Faculty Appreciation Week, faculty and staff will receive a free 22-ounce fountain drink or small coffee for showing their card at any campus dining retail location.

Faculty and staff also can sign up for UT Reward cards from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. daily in the main Volunteer Dining office, Room 108 of the Presidential Court Building. Faculty and staff members must show their UT identification card and will be asked to sign a statement agreeing to the program’s rules.

The discount applies to Mabel’s on the Agriculture Campus and the Café at the Arena, as well as specialty restaurants on campus, including Chick-fil-A, Subway, Einstein Bros. Bagels, Dippers in Hess Hall, McAlister’s Deli, Pizza Hut, Quiznos, Dunkin Donuts, restaurants in the Rocky Top Café, Smokey’s, Starbucks, and Field of Greens. The discount does not apply to five-dollar meals at the Presidential Court Café, Morrill Dining Hall, or the Southern Kitchen.

The workshop—”Threshold Concepts: Moving Students Through Conceptual Bottlenecks”—will be about helping students move from academic confusion to “light bulb” moments of understanding.

If you’d like to attend this workshop and complimentary lunch, RSVP to tenntlc@utk.edu.

The cards give faculty and staff a 15 percent discount on regularly priced food and drink in most ARAMARK-run dining establishments on campus.

The signups come just in time for Faculty Appreciation Week, which will be celebrated February 25 to March 1. During that week, faculty and staff will receive a free 22-ounce fountain drink or small coffee for showing their card at any campus dining retail location.

Signups will be from 8:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. and from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. daily in Café at the Arena and 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. daily in the main Volunteer Dining office, Room 108 of the Presidential Court Building. Faculty and staff members must show their UT identification card and will be asked to sign a statement agreeing to the program’s rules.

The discount applies to Mabel’s on the Ag Campus and the Café at the Arena, as well as specialty restaurants on campus, including Chick-fil-A, Subway, Einstein Bros. Bagels, Dippers in Hess Hall, McAlister’s Deli, Pizza Hut, Quiznos, Dunkin Donuts, restaurants in Rocky Top Café, Smokey’s, Starbucks, and Field of Greens. The discount does not apply to five-dollar meals at Presidential Court Café, Morrill Dining Hall, or the Southern Kitchen.