Vanee Patel (white shirt) poses with Olga Eichenberg (left), Dr. Veronica Venezia, Elle Lassiter and Dr. Jejal Bathi at the Tom Eichenberg Scholarship dinner. Photo courtesy of Vanee Patel.
Vanee Patel could not believe it when she got the call about a scholarship nomination.
“I was in shock,” Patel said. “I was like, ‘Why me?’ I’m just doing me, doing everything I can.”
Patel graduated on Saturday, May 9, from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga with a degree in finance. Weeks before, she received the Tom Eichenberg Scholarship through the Cultural Value Leadership Institute, recognizing outstanding leadership and values.
At UTC, Patel kept busy on the academic side, serving as vice president of marketing for the UTC Smile Fund, vice president of the Real Estate Club and earning a John C. Stophel Distinguished Student award.
She also completed internships at Elevate Financial Planning and Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), experiences she said helped her figure out what she wants from a career in finance.
“Elevate was the best internship I’ve ever had,” she said. “I learned so much … TVA was super valuable.”
Her nominator, Dr. Jejal Bathi, is a UC Foundation associate professor of civil engineering—not a Gary W. Rollins College of Business faculty member. Patel and Bathi connected when she asked him to serve as faculty advisor for the Indian Student Association, which she revived her senior year.
Patel said she knew Bathi is part of Chattanooga’s Indian community through her cousin, an engineering student who had him as a professor.
Under Patel’s leadership as president, ISA hit the ground running with events including a Garba night, a Diwali celebration co-hosted with the Asian Student Association and a Holi event with the Student Government Association.
“Our mission is to bring students together and let them know more about Indian culture,” she said.
Patel also runs a photography business on the side, shooting senior portraits, campus events and the last six UTC commencement ceremonies—including one on the same day as her graduation.
A finance career is on Patel’s horizon, but she’s not rushing into it. She has photoshoots in Nashville, Maryland, New Jersey and New York, then a College of Business study abroad trip to Germany, followed by Greece and India.
“My whole goal when I entered college was to experience everything I could, as much as possible,” she said.
The scholarship carries the name of Tom Eichenberg, a nuclear engineer remembered for both his character and his career.
“Tom was the kind of person who made everyone around him feel seen,” said Dr. Veronica Venezia, executive director of the Cultural Value Leadership Institute. “His wife, Olga, said it best, ‘You don’t have a body, you are a heart.’”
Eichenberg died two years ago, just as he and his daughter, Beata, were in the middle of college visits. Beata went on to enroll at UT Knoxville, where she’s studying finance—the same path Patel just finished at UTC.
Venezia, a Spanish teacher at McCallie School who founded the institute and is working to expand it to other universities, said that parallel was meaningful in selecting this year’s recipient.
“Vanee has been a great champ as a cultural value leader,” said Venezia, who will serve as a mentor to Patel.
Patel said she felt emotional when she read the letter at the scholarship dinner describing Eichenberg’s story.
“They said he would have loved to meet you,” she recalled. “I wish he was here so I could meet him.”
Vanee Patel graduated from UTC with a bachelor’s degree in finance on Saturday, May 9. Photo by Angela Foster.
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