When the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga launched University High in fall 2023, the initiative represented more than a novel approach to secondary education resulting from an unprecedented collaboration between UTC and Hamilton County Schools.
University High also is the first fruit of a strategic focus on innovative school models—one of five such focus areas—by the UTC Center for Excellence and Innovation in Education, established in 2023.
The Center’s other four strategic focus areas are:
- Educator and leader preparation
- Literacy instruction
- Policy and technical support
- Rural education
University High launched with an initial cohort of more than 50 high school juniors enrolled in college-level courses taught by UTC faculty and supported by high school courses taught by Hamilton County School teachers. There is no cost to attend University High and, while classes meet on campus at UTC, students can continue to engage in extracurricular activities at their zoned schools within Hamilton County.
After two years in the program, University High students will earn 12 to 18 college credit hours. Courses prepare students for future UTC classes while meeting high school graduation requirements. With the anticipated arrival of another cohort of 50 high school juniors in fall 2024, University High will begin serving more than 100 students each year with a goal of 100% going on to earn four-year degrees.
“The school was designed with the needs of specific student populations in mind: those who may be first-generation college students, those who would face financial barriers to higher education and/or students who have not considered college a viable pathway to success. University High has attracted students looking to engage in school differently and who now can see themselves pursuing higher education,” said UTC Vice Provost for Academic Outreach Shewanee Howard-Baptiste, who led the University’s collaboration with Hamilton County Schools. UTC’s strategic focus on innovative school models via the new Center means University High is to be the first of an ongoing series of innovations explored.
Principal Arielle Hayes, standing in Lupton Hall, welcomes students to the first day of University High on Aug. 9, 2023. Photo by Angela Foster.
Hamilton County Schools Director of Innovation and Fine Arts Grant Knowles led the school district’s involvement in the creation of University High, which he said is unique locally and nationally.
“Collegiate High, on the Chattanooga State (Community College) campus, offers the opportunity to earn a high school diploma and an associate degree. There are a handful of similar kinds of schools around the country—a University High at UC Irvine (in California), and there’s a similar program at Fresno State,” Knowles said. “But UC Irvine’s has a $25,000 annual tuition and Fresno State’s is exclusively fine arts—so, automatically, you’re talking about a very different population.
“It’s written into our (memorandum of understanding) that every year, our University High recruiting class has to at least mirror the community we serve.”
Preliminary data indicates that the success rates of current University High students outpace the traditional student population, Knowles said.
“Personalization is our backbone,” he said. “Not every student was successful, but I’d say every student now realizes what is needed to be successful. A few students need more time and touch. Some students are realizing they have to keep themselves accountable. The academic rigor isn’t necessarily greater, but the responsibility and accountability are.”
“We are focused on students as their advisors instead of their teachers,” University High Principal Arielle Hayes said. “University High is built on this idea of interest-based learning; not only will we provide them with their core content areas, but a lot of that learning will come through internships. With UTC being our base—and all of the colleges and majors the University offers—it’s literally at the students’ fingertips.”
University High junior Morgan Wyatt plans to pursue a health care career as a physical therapist or an athletic trainer.
Addison Howard and Morgan Wyatt know where they’re going and are pumped for the journey.
The two 16-year-olds have ambitious career goals and, they say, University High has made the path to those goals clear and exciting. Both are members of the inaugural cohort of enrollees at the school.
Wyatt came to University High from magnet school Tyner Academy, bringing along her desire to become a health care provider in physical therapy. In one of University High’s weekly “Focus Fridays” to engage with various UTC academic departments, Wyatt was intrigued by a visit with UTC athletic training program graduate students and faculty.
“I really, really enjoyed myself and that opened my eyes to how vast the options and departments are and what UTC has to offer,” she said, “and now I know I either want to be a physical therapist or an athletic trainer. I have always been really interested in sports and medicine, and I saw that athletic training and physical therapy are both kind of in the realm of sports.”
Wyatt said she was drawn to University High by the prospect of being “fully immersed into the college experience, rather than in high school and just being told, ‘We’re preparing you for college.’ I saw the difference early on—especially with the (fall semester) class I took in anthropology. You do the work and have to take the accountability, because they do not micromanage.”
Howard—who is certain that she wants to be a pediatric surgeon—also came to University High from a public magnet school, the Chattanooga High School Center of Creative Arts.
“I’m actually taking a higher course load than most students this semester to get further into the biochemistry/biology track,” she said. “I’ve met with the health advisors because we have access to things like that—which has been incredible—and, at age 16, I’m already on a track to get to medical school, which is kind of unheard-of. It’s made so much of a difference because I did not honestly know if I could really pursue medical school without support, but I’ve received that and now I know nothing’s going to stop me.”
While Wyatt learned about University High from a visit to Tyner by school system officials, Howard said she stumbled on it in an online news story. She was drawn by University High as a “place to choose your own adventure.”
“As in, you can study what you want and you have those people to support you in making that career or education plan to do what you want, what you feel passionate about, what you’re inspired by,” she said. “For me, that is medicine. I plan to go into pediatric surgery. I have felt nothing but the most amazing support in trying to get there.”
As for being high school juniors in a college environment, both Howard and Wyatt said they feel very much a part of the campus community.
“Everyone blends in seamlessly, and professors treat us the same—just as students,” Howard said.
“I have a cousin here in her freshman year of college, and I actually run into her quite often,” Wyatt said. “After being in this program, I’ve seriously been considering UTC for college. I am a very family-oriented person; just about all of my family lives in Chattanooga, so I know I would have my family support system close by and already acclimated to the campus environment.”
From Math Plaza walk-in help with math courses to the UTC Library to the Writing Center, Howard and Wyatt put the full availability of UTC campus resources among the reasons University High has exceeded their expectations.
“We can literally go everywhere and we have access to every single one of the resources that are available,” Wyatt said. “I have always wanted a program like this, so once I learned about University High, I was like, ‘I’m going to this no matter what—I’m going.’”
“With the access to all of these incredible things that just support our learning so much, you don’t feel like you’re struggling through it. You feel like you are managing it and preparing yourself,” Howard said. “It’s—it’s an incredible program.”
University High junior Addison Howard, participating in a pre-calculus class in Hunter Hall, is taking “a higher course load than most students this semester to get further into the biochemistry/biology track.”
In March, Dr. Kim Wingate, a longtime member of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga faculty, was named director of the University’s School of Education. Wingate joined the UTC faculty as an assistant professor in the School of Education in 2007.
In a related move, Dr. Allen Pratt was named the School of Education’s director of strategic partnerships. Pratt, who also serves as executive director of the National Rural Education Association (NREA), had served alongside Wingate as the interim co-director of the School of Education since 2022.
The School of Education will work alongside the Center for Education and Innovation in Education, a partnership that will allow UTC to be agile and responsive to the ever-changing K-12 landscape.
UTC Chancellor Steven R. Angle touted the creation of the Center for Excellence and Innovation in Education in his annual State of the University address in September 2023. Among its potential areas for transformational impact by UTC, “Teacher preparation is the key, and that means being on the cutting edge and challenging the norm,” Angle said. “This is important work. Our partnering school systems, community and students are counting on us to get this right, and we will.”
Roughly two-thirds of UTC undergraduates majoring in education become teachers in Southeastern Tennessee, according to the state Board of Education in 2022.
The strategic focus on rural education by the Center for Excellence and Innovation in Education is served by UTC’s co-leadership of the Appalachia Regional Hub of the national Rural Schools Collaborative (RSC). The mission of the Illinois-based RSC is “building sustainable rural communities through a keen focus on place, teachers and philanthropy.” The RSC is comprised of a series of regional hubs across the country intended to enable the organization and partners to share stories and information; collaborate on programs and projects; explore funding opportunities; and work with other organizations and schools across the country. UTC began serving as Appalachia Regional Hub co-lead, together with Kentucky’s Morehead State University, in early 2023.
Pratt, who presided over the National Rural Education Association’s annual conference in 2023, described the UTC Center for Excellence and Innovation in Education as a response to the need for “a better way to serve our community, better way to serve our K-12 schools, and a better way to serve our students, future students and people who may not think they could be students” but now can.
Angle said the goal for the new Center is to create a foundation for one of the best teacher education programs in the South.
“The Center for Excellence and Innovation in Education arose from a desire to deliver transformational impact in five of the most critical areas of challenge and opportunity in meeting the needs of public education, and it has already begun making that impact,” Angle said. “I look forward to celebrating the work of those involved and to seeing how those we serve benefit from the Center’s continued success.”
UTC Chancellor Steve Angle welcomes incoming students at the University High kickoff event in April 2023.
