Chancellor’s Update

Welcome back, Mocs!  We are looking forward to an exciting 2023-2024 academic year.  I hope everyone has had the opportunity to recharge and reenergize during the summer because we are looking at a busy year.

I want to extend a special welcome to our new students, faculty and staff and let you know how thrilled we are to have you join our Mocs family.  I will be sharing campus happenings and selected highlights with a C-Note newsletter on the first and third Thursday of the month.

The start of the fall semester is rapidly approaching.  Operation Move In and Mocs First Flight begin August 16.  Convocation takes place August 18.  Welcome Week activities commence Sunday, August 20, with the first day of classes taking place the next day.  Before we know it, the campus will be back in full swing!

A big round of applause to everyone involved in all of our new student orientation, especially our incredible student orientation leaders.  I heard so many positive comments about the friendly, helpful people of UTC from our incoming students and their parents.  Making our new students feel welcome goes a long way toward helping them adapt to campus life quickly.

August 9 marks the launch of University High, a Hamilton County Schools program located at UTC, with 56 high school juniors.  University High students will take high school classes as well as dual enrollment courses on our campus, giving them a jump on earning a college degree.  A big Mocs welcome goes out to all of the students, principal Arielle Hayes and faculty members Eryn Queen (counselor advisor, Spanish), Kate Knox (English), Emily McDonald (math), Catie Sanhueza (social studies) and Juney Shober (science).  Welcome to UTC!

Kudos to Associate Dean of Students Brett Fuchs and the Office of Student Outreach and Support for launching the new Off-Campus Student Services (OCSS) program, which aims to help students locate off-campus housing more efficiently and assist with other needs they may experience living off-campus—such as finding potential roommates.  With more and more students wanting to live either on or near campus, this new initiative is very much needed.

In case you missed it, numerous UTC personnel and departments were honored during the summer months.

• Three members of the UTC family, Dr. Abeer Mustafa, Dr. Michelle Rigler, and Dr. David Rausch were recipients of 2023 President’s Awards—the highest accolade an employee can receive from the UT System.
• The UTC School of Nursing was selected as the best in Tennessee by Nurse.org, an influential national organization.
• The UTC Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship team took third place in the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Team of the Year category at the Global Triple E Awards ceremony of the Accreditation Council for Entrepreneurial and Engaged Universities.
• Charlie Mix and the UTC Interdisciplinary Geospatial Technology Lab took home a pair of awards at an international map gallery competition.
• Health and Science Librarian Chapel Cowden was honored with the 2023 Library Instruction Round Table Librarian Recognition Award by the American Library Association. The award recognizes an individual’s contribution to developing, advancing and supporting information literacy and instruction.
• Junior Emma Roy, a Brock Scholar in the Honors College majoring in secondary education: political science, was selected for the U.S. Department of State’s 2023 Critical Language Scholarship Chinese Program, an immersive summer opportunity for college and university students to learn languages essential to America’s engagement with the world. The Murfreesboro, TN, native has spent two months this summer studying at National Cheng Kung University in Tainan, Taiwan.
• Business analytics major Chase Daffron (McKenzie, TN) was selected second-team All-Conference in College Call of Duty’s Southeast region.
• Chatter magazine selected Katherine Goforth Elverd, professor and director of the music therapy degree program at UTC, to its 2023 “20 Under 40”

Congratulations to David Wade and Zan Guerry on being honored as the 2023 UTC Distinguished Alumni Award and Outstanding Service Award recipients.  David and Zan are extraordinary leaders in our community who we are proud to recognize with these distinctive honors.  Our campus community is a better place because of their support and achievements.  David, a 2004 UTC alum, is president and CEO of EPB.  Zan served as the CEO of Chattem for 25 years and currently leads Hamico, Inc., the Guerry Family’s charitable foundation.

These are exciting times at UTC, and we look forward to an outstanding 2023-2024 school year.  Go Mocs!