As the 2019-2020 academic school year begins, Dr. Keith Carver, UTM chancellor, and Randy Boyd, UT System interim president, hosted the fall faculty meeting Tuesday, Aug. 20, in Watkins Auditorium.
As Boyd addressed the crowd of faculty and staff members, he spoke about his summer and the duties of being the UT System president.
“I was actually disappointed in May when I found out I actually had to work,” Boyd said, laughing. “Turns out I’m on a 12-month assignment. Who knew when I signed up for the job?”
Boyd recapped many of the system’s accomplishments this summer including the approval of the UT Strategic Plan with the largest budget in its history, the UTM student success summit, the UT Promise initiative and the Summit of Opioid Addiction and Response.
Boyd encouraged the faculty to decide what they, and the UT System as a whole, could do to tackle the challenges the state of Tennessee faces and make the next decade the best in the UT System’s history.
“There is no other organization in the state of Tennessee that can transform lives, and the destiny of our state, like our system when we all work together,” Boyd said.
“Yeah, we want to make sure our students come here and graduate and do well. We want to make sure we are doing world-leading research. But we also want to be a force for good, and we can do all of that at the same time.”
Boyd also announced the new Oak Ridge Institute at UT, a partnership through Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) which will allow UTM students to intern at their facilities in Knoxville.
The ORNL is the largest laboratory created by the US Department of Energy, responsible for conducting research meeting the current needs of national security and energy issues.
Boyd used the meeting as an opportunity to publicly debunk the rumor that the UT Institute of Agriculture campus was closing and relocating to UTM.
Carver spoke on the success UTM has incurred already, but also looked at how to turn UTM from “a great institution to excellent,” by “getting out of our comfort zone” through focusing on retention, fundraising and planning.
“Recruiting this fall has gone really well,” Carver said. “If classes were to start today, our freshman class would be up almost 3%.”
The incoming freshman class has increased 2.7% over the previous year’s incoming class; however, the latest transfer-student retention rates have not been calculated since most register the week before classes start, according to Carver.
UTM is introducing its latest promotional campaign focusing on alumni donations and scholarships through student success. According to Carver, the $22 million Nunnley scholarship has built confidence in donors and students alike, which will hopefully lead to higher enrollment and donations.
The scholarship will fund 95 students’ tuition and board annually, allowing students who previously wouldn’t have been able to afford college the opportunity of receiving a higher education.
Carver and Boyd both expressed their hope for the future of UTM and the system, as a whole, after a productive summer.
“I appreciate you and I appreciate the University of Tennessee at Martin and what it does for rural West Tennessee,” Boyd said. “The path to a better life and a better job comes through UT Martin, and if it wasn’t for you, that path wouldn’t exist.”
