UTC’s Dorothy and Jim Kennedy Health Sciences Building breaks ground

The future home of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga’s School of Nursing, the Dorothy and Jim Kennedy Health Sciences Building, broke ground on Monday, Nov. 4.

Located at the corner of Palmetto and East 3rd streets, the new facility will allow for a 152% enrollment increase in the School of Nursing, which currently accepts approximately 50% of applicants and turns down eligible students due to space and class size limitations.

“We are here today because of the outstanding nursing program at UTC that will provide a workforce badly needed in our community, in our state and in our region,” said UTC Chancellor Steven R. Angle—who noted that the school’s recent May 2024 Bachelor of Science in Nursing graduates and the first cohort of accelerated BSN graduates achieved a 100% pass rate for the National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX) on the first attempt, fulfilling the requirement for licensure as a registered nurse. “What a testament to the great faculty and staff of our nursing program who are supporting these students and challenging them to be the very best.”

The groundbreaking was attended by faculty, staff, students, alums, building donors and numerous dignitaries—including UT System President Randy Boyd; U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann; Tennessee Sen. Bo Watson, chair of the Hamilton County Legislative Delegation and the Senate Finance, Ways and Means Committee; Rep. Patsy Hazlewood, chair of the House Finance, Ways and Means Committee; and Rep. Yusuf Hakeem.

“Nursing is special; we need more nurses. I hear it from hospitals all across the state, all across the country,” Fleischmann said. “This building is so important, so I cannot be more thankful to our entire University of Tennessee system, to the people who are here today.”

“This new Dorothy and Jim Kennedy Health Sciences Building is an incredible example of this great decade that we’re leading here at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and the UT system,” Boyd said. “We’re talking about making this the greatest decade in the history of the University of Tennessee, but we can’t make it the greatest decade in the University of Tennessee System unless it’s also the greatest decade in the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga’s history. I think we’re well on the way to being able to do that.”

From left: Rep. Patsy Hazlewood, Elizabeth Kennedy Spratlin, Molly Kennedy, Jim Kennedy III, Dr. Chris Smith, Chancellor Steven R. Angle, UT System President Randy Boyd, Sen. Bo Watson, Rep. Yusuf Hakeem, U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, and UTC Student Nurses Association President Olivia Walls. Photo by Angela Foster.

The project’s anticipated cost of $77 million will be funded through a combination of donations and state resources, with a building campaign goal of $21 million.

Angle thanked the entire Hamilton County legislative delegation, saying, “We moved forward in the state capital queue for funding” and wouldn’t be at this point in the process without the delegation “making sure that we were staying true to what our public university should do with a project like this.”

“I want to particularly call out the hard work of Sen. Watson and Rep. Hazlewood as chair of the Finance and Budget Committees. They just did an incredible job,” Angle said. “I know we would not be here without their hard work and commitment to see that this building actually competed for funding at a time that was really challenging for higher education with capital projects.”

Dr. Chris Smith, director of the School of Nursing and UTC’s chief health affairs officer, shared the features of the new building.

It will expand from its current Metro Annex location of 30,000 square feet to 90,000 square feet, Smith said, and house eight classrooms accommodating more than 400 students daily. The facility will include five task training spaces, eight standardized patient actor exam rooms, a specialized space for labor and delivery experiences, and a simulated ICU and emergency room.

A dedicated hall of patient care rooms, similar to those in acute care facilities, will feature a simulated nurse’s station and a medication room. She said the building will increase debriefing spaces from two in the current facility to six.

Currently, all clinical faculty work remotely due to space limitations, but the new building will provide office space for 96 faculty and staff members. Plans for the building also include conference rooms, a wellness room, student and faculty lounges, and an area for food services.

“We have space for the establishment of a center for excellence in interprofessional education, which we envision will focus on bringing students from across the campus together, no matter their major,” she said.

Watson, who received a bachelor’s degree in biology from UTC in 1983 and a physical therapy degree from UT Health Science Center in Memphis, reflected on his deep-rooted connection to UTC.

“I’ve had 25 people from my family who have either graduated or attended the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga or the University of Chattanooga at some time during my family’s history,” Watson said, “so this project is very near and dear to my heart.”

He acknowledged the School of Nursing faculty and staff wearing white lab coats in the crowd.

“I am at heart a human scientist just as you. I am at heart a clinician—and clinicians know that all great science begins with a great academic facility and great academic faculty. That’s what we’re trying to create here today,” he said. “It’s not that our faculty isn’t great already. It’s not that our facilities aren’t adequate already. It’s just that human science is moving forward at a pace and level of technology that requires new facilities. I have been a strong advocate for this building for the last five years.

“This facility will help prepare Hamilton County for the next generation of nurses and the health care delivery system that will make a difference in people’s lives. So as one clinician to another, one health scientist to another, congratulations UT Chattanooga. I look forward to seeing this building in the ground and up and seeing students working throughout our community, bringing Chattanooga and bringing Hamilton County into this next century with technology and health care skill and expertise that will be surpassed by no one.”

In October 2023, UTC received an $8 million gift from the Kennedy Foundation, Inc. to name the Dorothy and Jim Kennedy Health Sciences Building after the parents of the current Kennedy Foundation trustees—Jim Kennedy III, Elizabeth Kennedy Spratlin and Molly Kennedy (’82).

This will be the first building on campus to be named after an alumna. Dorothy (’82) received a degree in English while attending UTC at the same time as her daughter, Molly.

This is the largest single gift in the School of Nursing’s history.

“Mom and Dad, Dorothy and Jim Kennedy, would be so proud to be a part of this amazing venture into UTC’s investment in the medical field in nursing,” Jim Kennedy III said. “Mom was a graduate of UTC and she would be so honored that this very important facility on campus at UTC will be named after her and Dad.”

Over 70% of UTC Bachelor of Science in Nursing graduates remain in the Chattanooga area upon completing their degree. That percentage jumps to 83% for Family Nurse Practitioner graduates.

For over a decade, the United States has experienced a severe nursing shortage that increased because of the pandemic.

“If our enthusiasm is evident, then I’ve conveyed the feelings of the faculty, staff and students,” said Smith. “On behalf of all of us, thank you for placing your trust value in us—and that we will continue to educate and graduate the best-prepared nurses in the area. We know that health care facilities are counting on us to continue to achieve the high standards we have set. We’re ready to fill our end of the bargain.”

The Dorothy and Jim Kennedy Health Sciences Building is projected to be completed in the fall of 2026.

To learn more about the project, visit give.utc.edu/kennedy-health-sciences-building.