Words of Welcome

Opening remarks to the 2008 National Science Foundation Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation Conference January 8, 2008

Thank you, Dr. Kuo, and good morning to all of you. It is my pleasure to welcome you to the Knoxville campus of the University of Tennessee on behalf of the administration, faculty, staff, and students. It is a great honor for us that some of the top scientists in the country are gathered here today, and we are delighted that you have traveled to East Tennessee for this important event.

Your presence here is one sign of the transformation that has taken place at Knoxville over the past few years. When I first came to this campus in 1988 to present a lecture in the German Department, I walked onto a fine institution, but one that had regional aspirations at best. Today, by contrast, we believe we are poised to enter the top echelon of research universities in the country.

The spirit of transformation comes from many quarters. We have been fortunate over the past five years to have had the support of Governor Bredesen, who will be speaking to you in a moment, and his advocacy of research at our flagship institution has stood us in good stead. Our President, John Petersen, has also moved the institution forward, but the chief agents of change in Knoxville have been the members of the central administration, the faculty, and the deans, individuals like Way Kuo, who are working tirelessly to transform Knoxville into a world-class campus.

We have already witnessed many achievements in this transformation. Last year faculty on the campus received five grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, which places us among the elite institutions in the country in winning these prestigious awards. We also had our first winner of a MacArthur “genius” fellowship this past year. Our students have improved dramatically since the turn of the decade, and they now enter with standardized test scores that rival the best public institutions in the nation. We are also retaining and graduating them at levels unprecedented for the University of Tennessee. We have reestablished the Graduate School and begun the task of revitalizing graduate education in Knoxville. And if you have the opportunity to walk across the campus during your stay, you will see many construction sites, all part of the hundreds of millions of dollars invested in or scheduled for campus capital projects, including two buildings that will enhance our College of Engineering.

Perhaps more interesting for you is our increasingly productive partnership with Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the largest national laboratory in the United States. In recent years we have established four new joint institutes dedicated to interdisciplinary research in the biological sciences, in computation, in neutron sciences, and in advanced materials, and, through the generosity of the Governor, we are currently recruiting distinguished scientists as Governor’s chairs to help us move forward in these areas and in all areas of scientific endeavor.

I could go on, but Way has given me only three minutes and is already becoming uncomfortable with maintaining his tight schedule. Let me say only that these are exciting times on the Knoxville campus. I hope that you have the chance to see the campus and to experience the transformation at first hand.

Once again, welcome to Knoxville; I hope your stay is enjoyable and your deliberations here are productive. Thank you very much.

Posted: Janurary 10, 2007