Type | Public university system |
---|---|
Established | 1968 |
Endowment | US$1 billion |
President | Randy Boyd |
Academic staff | 2,250 |
Administrative staff | 6,950 |
Students | 49,000 |
Undergraduates | 34,539 |
Postgraduates | 10,056 |
Location | , , United States |
Campus | Five campuses |
Website | www |
The University of Tennessee System (UT System) is a system of public universities in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is one of two public university systems, the other being the Tennessee Board of Regents (TBR). It consists of four primary campuses in Knoxville, Chattanooga, Pulaski and Martin; a health sciences campus in Memphis; a research institute in Tullahoma; and various extensions throughout the state.
The UT System has a combined student enrollment of more than 49,000 students, over 320,000 living alumni, and a total endowment that tops $1 billion. [1]
The University of Tennessee was founded in Knoxville as Blount College in 1794. It became East Tennessee College in 1807, and gained university status in 1840. It was designated as the state's land-grant institution in 1869, and was renamed the "University of Tennessee" in 1879. [2]
The medical campus, the UT Health Science Center, was founded in Memphis in 1911. An adult education extension center was founded in Nashville in 1947.
In 1927, UT founded the University of Tennessee Junior College, and bought the campus of the defunct Hall-Moody Institute, a Baptist institution in the northwest Tennessee town of Martin, to use for the new college. In 1951, the school began awarding bachelor's degrees and became the University of Tennessee Martin Branch. In 1967, the campus was elevated to an autonomous four-year institution under the name of the University of Tennessee at Martin.
In 1968, the UT System was officially formed, with the Knoxville and Martin campuses as primary campuses. That same year, the Tennessee state legislature gave UT permission to establish a campus in Chattanooga, which was the largest city in Tennessee without a public university. The private University of Chattanooga determined that it could not raise enough private capital to compete with a public institution, and agreed to merge with another private school, Chattanooga City College, to form the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in 1969.
Also in 1968, UT announced plans to expand the Nashville extension center into a full-fledged University of Tennessee at Nashville. Rita Sanders Geier filed a desegregation lawsuit against the state. Geier contended that if UT were allowed to build a campus in Nashville, where Tennessee State University was located, it would perpetuate a dual system of higher education. As a result, the UT Nashville campus was eventually merged with TSU by court order in 1979. [3]
On December 9, 2020, UT's board of trustees unanimously voted in favor of integrating Martin Methodist College into the UT System as UT Southern. This merger is aimed at providing higher education to the residents of rural southern Middle Tennessee. [4] [5] On June 27, 2021 The Tennessean reported that MMC had been fully accepted as a system campus, with the tuition to be adjusted accordingly. [6]
There are six educational units of the university system, four of which are separate universities within this statewide higher education system.
UT Knoxville is the flagship campus of the UT System, based in Knoxville. The largest university in the state, it has a current total enrollment of 27,523. UT awarded 6,345 degrees in over 300 programs in the 2009–10 academic year.
While not a separate entity, UT Knoxville operates a campus in Nashville that is part of the UT Knoxville College of Social Work. The Nashville Campus awards the M.S.S.W. in conjunction with UT Knoxville.
UTC is a large university located in downtown Chattanooga. The university was founded as a private school in 1886, joined the UT System in 1969, and currently has over 10,000 students.
Located in rural northwest Tennessee in Martin, UT Martin began in 1900 as Hall-Moody Institute, a private Baptist school. In 1927, the Tennessee Baptist Convention merged Hall-Moody Institute with Union University. The University of Tennessee System took over the former Hall-Moody campus and the school became known as The University of Tennessee Junior College in Martin. It operated under this name until 1951 when four-year fields of study leading to bachelor's degrees were added. The name was then changed to The University of Tennessee Martin Branch. In 1967, it was designated a primary campus in the UT system and was given its current name, The University of Tennessee at Martin. With approximately 8,000 students, UT Martin comprises the main campus in Martin and four extended campuses located in Parsons, Selmer, Jackson, and Ripley.
As a consequence of a planned meeting between then-Acting System President Randy Boyd (later named the system's permanent head) and Martin Methodist College President Mark La Branche in 2020 about the plans for UT to open an Agricultural Extension Office in MMC's hometown of Pulaski, a wider-ranging discussion ensued about the low level of affordable higher educational opportunities in Southern Middle Tennessee. MMC was founded as a women's college in 1870, but became co-educational in the 1930s. In December 2020, The University of Tennessee Board of Trustees voted to accept MMC as a primary campus of the University of Tennessee System. On June 27, 2021 The Tennessean reported that the merger had been consummated, with La Branche to serve as the first chancellor of the campus as a unit of the UT system designated the University of Tennessee Southern. [7]
The University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC) has its main campus in Memphis. UTHSC offers a wide variety of degree programs among its six colleges: Dentistry, Graduate Health Sciences, Health Professions, Medicine, Nursing, and Pharmacy. In addition to Memphis, the College of Medicine also has campuses in Chattanooga, Knoxville and Nashville; the College of Pharmacy has campuses in Knoxville and Nashville; and the College of Health Professions has a unit in Knoxville. UTHSC has more than 100 additional clinical and educational sites statewide.
The University of Tennessee Space Institute is located in Tullahoma adjacent to Arnold Air Force Base, long a center of research for the United States Air Force. The Institute awards master's and doctoral degrees in conjunction with UT Knoxville.
The University of Tennessee system has several other units that provide service to the state of Tennessee and to the nation.
The Institute of Agriculture is composed of the Agricultural Experiment Station, UT Extension, and Knoxville's Herbert College of Agriculture and College of Veterinary Medicine. The institute has a presence in all 95 counties through its educational programs in agriculture, home economics, resource development, and 4-H programs.
The Institute for Public Service was created in 1971 as a part of the university "to provide continuing research and technical assistance to state and local government and industry and to meet more adequately the need for information and research in business and government." Components include the County Technical Assistance Service, the Municipal Technical Advisory Service, the Center for Industrial Services, the Law Enforcement Innovation Center, and the Naifeh Center for Effective Leadership.
UT Knoxville and Battelle Memorial Institute are 50–50 partners in UT-Battelle, which manages the Oak Ridge National Laboratory for the United States Department of Energy.
The University of Tennessee system is governed by the Board of Trustees of the University of Tennessee. After the passage of the UT FOCUS Act in 2018, the board is made up of 12 trustees. These trustees include one ex officio voting member, the Commissioner of Agriculture, 10 voting members appointed by the Governor, and a single non-voting student member appointed by the board as a whole. One of the board's committees includes a single faculty representative. Both the Student Trustee and faculty representative rotate each year between the four main campuses. [8]
The university system is administered by a president. Beginning in 1970, presidents served the University of Tennessee system. Prior to that, the president served the Knoxville flagship campus. [9] Presidents and interim presidents of the University of Tennessee system, the University of Tennessee, and its predecessor schools are as follows: [10]
Each of the five campuses is administered by a chancellor. Administrators on each campus report to their respective chancellors, who in turn report to the president. The only exceptions are the athletic directors of the Knoxville campus, who report directly to the president and not the Knoxville chancellor.
Tennessee, officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Kentucky to the north, Virginia to the northeast, North Carolina to the east, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi to the south, Arkansas to the southwest, and Missouri to the northwest. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. Tennessee is geographically, culturally, and legally divided into three Grand Divisions of East, Middle, and West Tennessee. Nashville is the state's capital and largest city, and anchors its largest metropolitan area. Other major cities include Memphis, Knoxville, Chattanooga, and Clarksville. Tennessee's population as of the 2020 United States census is approximately 6.9 million.
The University of Tennessee at Martin is a public university in Martin, Tennessee. It is one of the five campuses of the University of Tennessee system. UTM is the only public university in West Tennessee outside of Memphis.
Knoxville College is a historically black liberal arts college in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States, which was founded in 1875 by the United Presbyterian Church of North America. It is a United Negro College Fund member school.
Union University is a private Baptist university in Jackson, Tennessee, with additional campuses in Germantown and Hendersonville. The university is affiliated with the Tennessee Baptist Convention. It is a union of several different schools: West Tennessee College, formerly known as Jackson Male Academy; Union University of Murfreesboro; Southwestern Baptist University; and Hall-Moody Junior College of Martin, Tennessee.
Montgomery Bell Academy (MBA) is a preparatory day school for boys in grades 7 through 12 in Nashville, Tennessee. The school is located in the Whitland Area Neighborhood.
The University of Tennessee Southern is a public college in Pulaski, Tennessee. Founded in 1870, for over 150 years it was a private institution until joining the University of Tennessee system in 2021. For many years it was a junior college but is now a baccalaureate institution providing more than thirty academic majors. The college also has an MBA program.
The University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC) is a public medical school in Memphis, Tennessee. It includes the Colleges of Health Professions, Dentistry, Graduate Health Sciences, Medicine, Nursing, and Pharmacy. Since 1911, the University of Tennessee Health Science Center has educated nearly 57,000 health care professionals. As of 2010, U.S. News & World Report ranked the College of Pharmacy 17th among American pharmacy schools.
William Edward Haslam is an American billionaire businessman and politician who served as the 49th governor of Tennessee from 2011 to 2019. A member of the Republican Party, Haslam previously served as the 67th mayor of Knoxville, Tennessee.
The Tennessee Board of Regents is a system of community and technical colleges in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is one of two public higher education systems in the state, the other being the University of Tennessee system. It was authorized by an act of the Tennessee General Assembly passed in 1972. The TBR supervises all public community colleges and technical colleges in the state, serving over 110,000 students annually.
Education in Tennessee covers public and private schools and related organizations from the 18th century to the present.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Tennessee:
The University of Tennessee, Knoxville is a public land-grant research university in Knoxville, Tennessee. Founded in 1794, two years before Tennessee became the 16th state, it is the flagship campus of the University of Tennessee system, with ten undergraduate colleges and eleven graduate colleges. It hosts more than 30,000 students from all 50 states and more than 100 foreign countries. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity".
The University of Tennessee College of Medicine is one of six graduate schools of the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC) in downtown Memphis. The oldest public medical school in Tennessee, the UT College of Medicine is a LCME-accredited member of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) and awards graduates of the four-year program Doctor of Medicine (MD) degrees. The college's primary focus is to provide practicing health professionals for the state of Tennessee.
Jimmy G. Cheek is Chancellor Emeritus and Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Higher Education in Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK) and Former Director of the Postsecondary Education Research Center. He is also Professor Emeritus at the University of Florida. As the state's flagship research campus, UT Knoxville is currently ranked as a Top 50 public institution.
African Americans are the second largest census "race" category in the state of Tennessee after whites, making up 17% of the state's population in 2010. African Americans arrived in the region prior to statehood. They lived both as slaves and as free citizens with restricted rights up to the Civil War.
Rita Geier is an American civil rights pioneer, attorney at law, and public servant. As a professor at Tennessee State University, she was the original plaintiff in a landmark lawsuit that lead to the racial integration of higher education throughout the State of Tennessee.
The murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, triggered a wave of protests throughout Tennessee in late May and early June 2020. These protests continued throughout the year.