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Updates and news for the week of May 14-20, 2024
The UTC Campus Weekly newsletter is distributed every Tuesday morning. If you have news, events or announcements you would like shared with campus, please submit your information to peyton-l-schultz@utc.edu or chuck-wasserstrom@utc.edu in the Division of Communications and Marketing by 3 p.m. on Friday for placement in the following Tuesday’s newsletter.
Co.Mobility Summit 2024
Are you ready to join the movement? Come join 60-plus speakers, 25-plus talks, 10-plus interactive workshops, four happy hours and 20-plus hours of networking opportunities at CO.MOBILITY Summit 2024, taking place May 20-22—including events at the UTC Fine Arts Center and the College of Engineering and Computer Science on Tuesday, May 21.
UTC students, faculty and staff get free entry. Students should use the code STUDENT to redeem a free three-day pass, while faculty and staff should use the code FACULTY. Book using this link.
This event is one of the largest sustainable mobility events in the country, bringing together leaders in electrification, autonomous technology and infrastructure, quantum, smart city development, supply chain, micromobility and more.
Want to learn more? Click here to view the event agenda.
Unum Group makes historic gift to School of Nursing
 Photo by Omar Dedovic Unum Group, a leading international provider of workplace benefits and services, has made a $500,000 grant and become the School of Nursing’s Premier Mental Health Partner at the new Dorothy and Jim Kennedy Health Sciences Building, slated to begin construction later this year.
The partnership will leverage Unum Group’s expertise for their qualified Unum Clinical team to serve as adjunct clinical professors; contribute to community and mental health curriculum and programming; and provide tools, including resiliency training and/or support groups for nursing students.
From the UTC Podlab: Tennessee Valley Crossroads
 Communication student Dixie Edmondson, left, and entrepreneurship student Andrew Meert “Tennessee Valley Crossroads” is a University of Tennessee at Chattanooga student-produced podcast that brings classmates together to have candid, unscripted conversations, fostering empathy and breaking down barriers between students from different cultures and backgrounds. Under the direction of Will Davis, students came to the UTC PodLab and opened their lives with stories about their families, their politics and their hopes for the future.
The first episode features a conversation between communication student Dixie Edmondson and entrepreneurship student Andrew Meert discussing the effects of technology on Gen Z and Gen Alpha.
- “Tennessee Valley Crossroads” is inspired by StoryCorps’ One Small Step initiative, which brings together to find the humanity in each other.
- You can listen to “Tennessee Valley Crossroads” on WUTC 88.1 FM every Monday during Morning Edition and All Things Considered, and subscribe to the “Tennessee Valley Crossroads” podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
NCAA Tournament-bound
 Photo credit: Chattanooga Athletics/Anthony Klotz/TKlotz Photography The top-seeded Mocs softball team won its 16th Southern Conference Tournament title in dramatic fashion over the weekend, winning three elimination games to punch a ticket to the NCAA Tournament.
The Mocs are headed to the Tallahassee regional, where they will play Florida State University on Friday (May 17).
The outstanding people of UTC
 Police Chief Sean O’Brien and Deputy Chief Matthew Holzmacher were sworn in by the Honorable Travis R. McDonough. Photos by Noah Camacho. Last Friday, Sean O’Brien, a decorated police officer with 24 years of law enforcement experience, was sworn in as UTC associate vice chancellor for public safety and chief of police. Chief O’Brien came to UTC after having worked for the Chattanooga Police Department since 2007.
As part of the ceremony, Matthew Holzmacher—a member of the UTC Police Department since 2010 and an administrative lieutenant since 2021—was sworn in as deputy chief.
The swearing-in ceremony was officiated by the Honorable Travis R. McDonough, chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee.
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 Associate Lecturer Catherine Meeks Quinlan, left, Associate Lecturer Lucy Schultz and Guerry Professor Jennifer Boyd Thanks to funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, an environmental studies major at UTC is one step closer to becoming a reality. As part of an overarching announcement of nationwide grants, the NEH awarded a $149,957 “Humanities Connections” grant to UTC for the project titled “Implementing a Humanities-Informed Environmental Studies Major at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.”
Catherine Meeks Quinlan (Department of English), Dr. Jennifer Boyd (Biology, Geology and Environmental Science) and Dr. Lucy Schultz (Philosophy and Religion) were the grant’s principal investigators.
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 Finn Beaty, left, and Emily Patton A message to the UTC campus community from Dr. José-Luis Gastañaga …
As coordinator of the Humanities Program, it is my pleasure to announce the winners of the North Callahan Undergraduate Essay Prize. The jury, a group of professors from three different academic departments, decided to give an award of $500 each to two deserving essays: Finn Beaty’s “Gender in Pre-Modern Europe: The Story of Mary Read,” and Emily Patton’s “Spirituality and Environmental Philosophy.”
I take the opportunity to invite all UTC undergraduates to send their essays in any discipline of the humanities to the North Callahan Undergraduate Essay Prize contest next year. You will see a notification in early spring 2025.
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 Peja Goold (photo credit: Chattanooga Athletics/Ray Soldano) Mocs softball sophomore right-handed pitcher Peja Goold was named the Southern Conference Pitcher of the Year. Goold is the 11th Moc to earn SoCon Pitcher of the Year honors and the first since Celie Hudson in 2019.
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This week, the Chattanooga men’s golf team is participating in the NCAA Golf Regionals for the 14th time in school history. The Mocs are the #7 seed in the Rancho Santa Fe Regionals, which started on Monday at the Farms in suburban San Diego.
Mark your calendar
We are quickly approaching the start of the summer orientation program and welcoming our newest Mocs to campus.
New Student and Family Programs will be hosting orientation sessions throughout the summer for all new students entering UTC in the fall. On average, the University sees over 6,000 new students and their guests throughout the summer program.
- Click here for the “Save the Date” flier.
- Click here for the schedule of events for freshman and parent/guest orientation.
All in-person orientations will have an information desk located in the University Center’s first floor gallery. Please direct anyone with orientation-related questions to the information desk.
Please contact carrie-sherbesman@utc.edu if you have any questions. Thank you in advance for making our orientation program a success.
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The UT System Business Intelligence (BI) team is here to support UT employees across the state. The BI team gathers, warehouses, models and visualizes data from multiple information systems across all University of Tennessee campuses and system administration. This team provides data for institutional research, strategic planning and assessment purposes.
The BI team now hosts a monthly drop-in session for UT System and campus colleagues. You’re invited to connect every third Thursday of the month at 3 p.m. ET. Feel free to drop-in to ask questions, run an idea by the team, ask for help or just to chat. This Zoom link will be used each month: https://tennessee.zoom.us/j/86317402797. You can also find more information on the drop-in sessions here. The next BI drop-in session is scheduled for 3 p.m. on Thursday (May 16).
Campus Updates
Save the date! UTC is excited to participate in the United Way of Greater Chattanooga’s city-wide “Day of Caring” volunteer service initiative on Friday, September 20. Your serving hands are needed to represent, bring together and impact the residents and partners in Chattanooga.
Indoor or outdoor projects may include painting, moving debris or gardening. Interested students, faculty and staff will be able to indicate a preferred volunteer site, and transportation will be available. Additional details, including registration information, is forthcoming.
Email Daniel-Grzesik@utc.edu, the director of Leadership Development and Programs, if you have any questions about getting involved with this volunteer service initiative.
Looking back
 Photo courtesy of UL Research Institutes As part of a collaboration between Brainerd High School chemistry students and UTC engineering students and faculty, the high schoolers were exposed to real-world safety experiments shaped by world-class research from UL Research Institutes. From the start of the spring semester, Brainerd chemistry teacher Ethan Schubert brought UTC faculty into his classroom and took his classroom to UTC, where his students worked with UL Research Institutes’ Xplorlabs resources.
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In case you missed it: Processionals, gonfalons and the “Imperial March.” The pomp and circumstance of past UTC commencements was back. For the first time since 2019, commencement at UTC was held without the restrictions of COVID-19 and McKenzie Arena renovations. Three ceremonies were held over two days, with more than 1,300 undergraduates and nearly 300 graduate students presented for degrees.
WUTC Spotlight: Rising Rock Showcase
A special edition of “Scenic Roots” on WUTC-FM featured the student storytellers of Rising Rock and their stories from the spring 2024 semester.
Rising Rock features non-fiction stories about greater Chattanooga. The site is a combined effort of the Department of Communication and UTC’s student media, including The Echo (student newspaper), MocsNews (student video news program) and The Perch (student digital radio station).
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