Paul Meek’s official portrait hangs inside the Paul Meek Library on the UT Martin campus. | Pacer Photo / Laura Myhan
Fifty years after his death, UT Martin continues to honor the memory of its longest-serving chief administrator, Dr. Paul Meek, for whom the Paul Meek Library is named.
On Nov. 2, 1972, Meek passed away at age 75. The fall of 2022 marked 50 years since his death and 55 years since his retirement.
For more than 30 years, from 1934 to 1967, Meek led the UT Martin campus through its most formative period. During his tenure, the school transformed from a junior college with an enrollment of only a few hundred students to a four-year university with an enrollment of a few thousand students.
As a native Northwest Tennessean, Meek understood the need for higher education in the region.
“My grandfather believed in the university’s need to expand, and he was very much behind that. […] He believed that [the school] would serve the communities and the surrounding area, and that was really important to him,” said Dr. Lisa Roney, Meek’s granddaughter, who added that Meek envisioned a school that offered an accessible, high-quality education to Northwest Tennesseans.
During Meek’s 33 years, the campus expanded both physically and academically. Physical expansion included a new cafeteria, academic buildings, a series of dormitories, a university center, an administration building and a library.
Academically, the college implemented new study programs and expanded the existing education, business administration and liberal arts programs. These and others eventually became four-year degrees after the junior college was renamed the University of Tennessee Martin Branch in 1951.
“People connect the integrity that [Paul Meek] brought to his job and the advancement of the campus to what we do today,” said Dr. Erik Nordberg, dean of Paul Meek Library.
Meek valued the small campus he inherited in 1934 and wanted to preserve that for future generations of students.
Roney and Nordberg both referred to Meek’s appreciation for the campus’s smaller size. As chief administrator, Meek recognized students and knew their names as he walked across campus.
Nordberg told a brief story from a recent luncheon during which he spoke with an alumnus who knew Meek in the 1960s as a student.
“He said, ‘If you were a student here in the 1960s, you knew Paul Meek because he knew everyone,’” Nordberg said.
This legacy of building relationships with students, which began with Meek, continues today on campus. It is not uncommon for Chancellor Keith Carver to stop and chat with students on his walks across campus. Faculty and staff also build relationships and work closely with students because of the small campus population.
In 1967, Meek retired shortly after the school officially became The University of Tennessee at Martin. According to Paul Meek Library’s website, at the library’s dedication ceremony in 1968, UT President Andy Holt said, “The heart of any campus is the library, and that’s why it is named after Paul Meek.”
Each spring, UT Martin recognizes graduating seniors who demonstrate outstanding campus and community service during their time at UT Martin. This award is known as the Paul and Martha Meek Leadership Award. The university also has the Paul and Martha Meek Scholarship, which helps fund the University Scholars program.
Today, the university boasts an enrollment of more than 6,000 students. Its small classes and small student-to-faculty ratio still allow for the student-centered university that Meek envisioned.
When asked what she believes Meek would say about the university today, Roney said, “I think UT Martin would please him a lot because it’s stayed true to its mission.”
