I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Final exams are underway, and graduation is just around the corner.
Commencement is one of the great days of the year, not only for the graduates, but for their families, faculty, staff, alumni, and the extended university community. I encourage all faculty and staff to attend commencement and congratulate our students.
In advance, I would like to thank the faculty members who have agreed to serve as marshals during commencement and our staff who volunteer to help. It means so much to our graduates to have you in attendance. You have been a huge part of our student’s lives and truly make a difference in what you do. You help bring out the best in our students in the classroom and by preparing them for life after they leave UTC. Thank you to our faculty and staff for all your hard work and dedication in educating, supporting, and preparing UTC students.
The graduate student commencement will take place at 2:30 PM on Friday, December 13, at McKenzie Arena. The commencement speaker will be Christine Barakat-Bennett, who received a Master of Science in Industrial-Organizational Psychology from UTC in 2007. She is a learning and development leader for The Home Depot in Atlanta.
The undergraduate student commencement will begin at 9:00 AM on Saturday, December 14, at McKenzie Arena. Dr. Le Andrea Ware, the 2019-2020 Tennessee Principal of the Year, will be the commencement speaker. Dr. Ware is the executive principal at her alma mater, The Howard School, in Chattanooga. She received her bachelor’s degree in multidisciplinary education from UTC in 1995 and a master’s degree in school leadership from UTC in 2003. Please CLICK HERE for additional information about both ceremonies.
I am excited about the addition of Vicki Farnsworth as UTC’s new vice chancellor for information technology and CIO. She comes to UTC from Purdue University and will begin work at UTC on January 9, 2020. Vicki is an experienced IT leader with over 25 years of academic experience in higher education.
I am pleased to announce that Dr. Yancy Freeman, Vice Chancellor of Enrollment Management and Student Affairs, and Laure Pou, Assistant Vice Chancellor of Human Resources, were recently selected to participate in the University of Tennessee Executive Leadership Institute (ELI). The ELI program is intentionally focused on succession planning at the executive level with intensive educational and experiential components over an extended period of development.
This is the final C-Note message of 2019. My family and I wish you a very Merry Holiday Season and a Happy New Year!