Welcome Message: Open House

September 30, 2006

I want to say first how delighted I am to be here in Knoxville and how honored I am to have been named the Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at the University of Tennessee.  For those of you who saw the first football game this year on September 2nd against my old university, I think you can understand why I feel that I got out of Berkeley just in the nick of time.

My task is to welcome you to the Knoxville campus of the University of Tennessee, and on behalf of the Chancellor, the administration, and the faculty, I want to extend to parents, friends, and prospective students a heartfelt welcome to the campus.  But I also want to tell you that I hope your visit here today inspires you to come back and spend more time with us.  I am thinking of four years or so, and I can promise you that these four years will be the best time of your life.  The reason is simple: we have so much to offer here at the University of Tennessee, and it’s not just football, Rocky Top, and Smokey.  What we have here is a great institution of higher education – and its getting better every year.  Let me give you just three reasons among many that you should consider the University of Tennessee high on your list for where you are going to spend the next four years of your lives:

1. The first reason is that we have great students, and the students we are getting are better every year.  We know that they are better because of their performance in the classroom, but for those of you who doubt our judgment, you need only look at the numbers.  The standardized test that most students take, the ACT, indicates that students are considerably better prepared for the rigors of university education this year than they were in the past.  In 2001 the average ACT score for students entering this campus was 23.8; that number increased to 24.5 and 24.6 in the following two years, but jumped in 2005 and 2006 to 25.7 and 25.8 respectively.  In the course of five years, therefore, ACT scores had increased by two points, an achievement I believe to be unprecedented among first-class universities anywhere in the country.  The climb in ACT scores was matched by a steady rise in high school GPAs.  In 2001 the average was a respectable 3.27; but by the incoming class this year the average GPA was 3.58, a climb of over 3/10ths of a point.  A third of the first-year students on campus, in fact, have a GPA in their core subjects of 4.0 or better.  The best students on the campus are also getting better.  The honors program, which requires a high-school GPA of 3.7 and an ACT of 29 admitted 243 incoming students this year, well over a third of the total number of students in the program.  About a month ago I found out that the average ACT for honors students this year was an astounding 31.

2. The second reason: we have great faculty, and they’re getting better as well.  Most of you know that UT is ranked among the top 40 public research universities in the country.  We have many programs that are ranked nationally, and faculty who are beginning to attract the national and international attention they deserve.  Ward Plummer, for example, a professor in our physics department, was just recently inducted into the National Academy of Science, the highest honor accorded to a scientist in this country.  Dr. Plummer is a distinguished researcher who has authored over 300 papers and who is included on the list of the 1000 most cited physicists in the world.  Plummer is a dedicated researcher, but he is also a fine teacher: over the fourteen years he has been on campus, he has advised or co-advised on over 40 dissertations and hosted over two dozen post-doctoral students.  Moreover, he is an enthusiastic instructor of undergraduates.  Plummer is only one illustration of why the faculty here is so great.  Everywhere I turn, and every day I am on the job, I find faculty research of the highest quality and a dedication to students that is truly remarkable.

3. A third reason that UT is right for you: the programs.  In the nine colleges dedicated to undergraduate education, we have dozens of different majors that will appeal to every taste and every combination of ability.  From English to Entomology, from Social Work to Statistics, from Nuclear Engineering to Nutrition, you will find a major that is interesting, challenging, and sometimes plain fun.  But you will find so much more on the Knoxville campus, programs that enlighten you about your community, yourselves, and the world you live in.  Probably the most important program that we are working on is called “Ready for the World,” a five-year program that came out of a concerted effort on the part of faculty to set a new course for the campus in the twenty-first century.  The premise of this program is rather simple: the world is getting smaller.  If students are going to succeed in their careers after they receive their degrees and leave the campus, they will need to be able to communicate with individuals whose backgrounds and experiences differ significantly from their own.  The global economy is a reality, and it is our obligation as educators to prepare students for what they will face in the real world.  We have been working hard on this initiative, setting up structures for learning about international and intercultural dimensions of modern life; promoting exchange programs with foreign countries on the level of both faculty and students; celebrating diversity on campus with special events, such as theater, music, and the arts; and creating a curriculum that is commensurate with the knowledge students must acquire about foreign countries, their customs, their languages, and their way of life.  Will the students of the University of Tennessee be “ready for the world”?  Indeed they will if we have anything to say about it.

So if you are seriously considering your future educational plans, if you want a place that is exciting and stimulating, I think UT is your ticket.  And by the way, we also have a great football team.

Thank you very much and welcome to the Knoxville campus!