Members of the UT Martin Advisory Board along with student guest speakers are together for this annual winter meeting. (Photo / UT Martin University Relations)
On Friday, January 20, 2023, The University of Tennessee at Martin Advisory Board held its annual winter meeting at the Boling University Center on campus.
The Advisory Board consists of five public members, one faculty member, and one student member. The Advisory Board started the meeting with the call to order and roll call. This meeting was open to the public, live-streamed, and a recording was posted to the Advisory Board website following adjournment.
Topics discussed during the meeting were UT Martin Student Athletics, transfer students, and student retention.
The agenda for UT Martin Athletics highlighted athletic and academic accomplishments, community service, departmental upgrades, fundraising numbers, revenue and expenses, and grant-in-aid and funding. During the athletic accomplishment discussion, the 2021-2022 year was brought to attention. In the 2021-2022 academic year, two school records were set in place due to the work of UT Martin student-athletes. For the first time in UT Martin history, four different teams (Golf, Beach Volleyball, Football, and Soccer) won OVC Championships. UT Martin also placed 5th for the OVC Commissioner’s Cup, which is the highest place earned in school history.
The average cumulative GPA of student-athletes for the 2021-2022 school year was 3.33, which is the highest it has been in the last four years. Each student-athlete is required to participate in at least 12 hours of community service each year and they engaged in many activities such as Lifeline Blood Drives, Special Olympics, Captain’s Pantry/Canned Caravans, and many more. As for departmental upgrades, the athletics program has had many additions to the department that range from staffing, software, apparel, and facilities.
UT Martin athletics has also received $175,000 combined from the 2019-2020 and 2022-2023 academic years in NCAA funding. This funding has aided in constructing an academic service center in the athletic suite and helped create “Hawk Talk” programming that allows for discussion of topics that affect student-athletes. Fundraising for the athletics program has increased by over 200% in the last two years, totaling over 2 million dollars for the 2022 year.
Moreover, the topics of transfer students and retention among transfer and the overall student body were brought forth to the Advisory Board. In terms of retention of overall students, the metrics used to measure retention are progression, persistence, and retention. Progression indicates the number of students that have advanced classifications by credits. Persistence is measured semester to semester and accounts for all students that are currently enrolled or graduated. Retention is measured from fall to fall, and it also accounts for enrolled and graduated students.
UT Martin has implemented many campaigns and programs to help with retention rates including, but not limited to, continuous registration campaigns during windows of enrollment, a newly hired success coordinator for transfer students, and a lottery scholarship retention campaign. In the advisory board meeting, it was indicated that undergraduate, transfer, and freshmen retention, as well as progression metrics, had increased in percentage points for the 2021-2022 year.
After all topics were brought to the attention of the Advisory Board, Chancellor Carver closed the meeting with an announcement of the 23rd annual Civil Rights Conference. This will be in place for the month of February. Information about this conference can be found at www.utm.edu.
All information for past and future Advisory Board meetings can be found at www.utm.edu/advisoryboard.
