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Campus News
- Articulation agreement: UTC and Chattanooga State
- SimCenter signs new research agreement
- Hunter Lecture series begins Jan. 13
- Recent alum awarded Michener Fellowship
- Eigenberg receives national award
Articulation agreement: UTC and Chattanooga State
With the announcement of a new student transfer and program articulation agreement between The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and Chattanooga State, students can anticipate a seamless transfer of associate degree course credit to bachelor degree requirements.
“Creating access to higher education is a critical component of our metropolitan mission,” said UTC Chancellor Roger Brown. “This new agreement is another important step to help more students in our region to reach their higher education goals. UTC has worked closely with Chattanooga State to ensure the academic success of students who transfer here. The timing of the agreement also optimizes future employment opportunities for students who are interested in working for Volkswagen.”
The agreement ensures that students graduating from Chattanooga State will enter UTC with all general education requirements met and with junior year status (60 semester hours of credits). All other UTC academic regulations, including the major, degree, college/school and university standards (such as grade point average and retention requirements) must be satisfied. Transfer students from Chattanooga State will not be expected to meet any additional or fewer requirements than UTC students.
The terms of the new agreement apply only if the Chattanooga State student graduates with an associate’s degree. Those students who contact UTC regarding transfer before earning an associate’s degree will be counseled to return to Chattanooga State to complete their associate’s degree.
“We are pleased to reach an agreement which uniquely serves the best interest of students for both institutions. It will encourage students to complete their degree at Chattanooga State, and it will strongly encourage them to finish their education at UTC. Special recognition ought to be given to UTC’s Chancellor Brown, Provost Philip Oldham, our provost and vice president for academic affairs, Dr. Fannie Hewlett and interim associate vice president for academic affairs, Kim McCormick. I’m sure this agreement will be welcomed by all our faculty and staff,” said Chattanooga State President James Catanzaro.
Chattanooga State students will be required to submit official transcripts to receive transfer credit at UTC, they cannot duplicate at UTC courses they have already received credit for at Chattanooga State and they will not receive transfer credit for remedial or pre-college level courses.
Representing Chancellor Roger Brown was UTC Provost Dr. Phil Oldham.
He is shown with Chattanooga State President, Dr. James Catanzaro.
SimCenter signs new research agreement
The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga announces the signing of a research and development partnership agreement between UTC’s SimCenter: National Center for Computational Engineering and Babcock & Wilcox Technical Services Y-12 (B&W Y-12).
The formal agreement was signed during a ceremony at the SimCenter on Monday, November 17.
“This research and development partnership takes advantage of the resources available in the Tennessee Valley Corridor and highlights the advanced computing technologies at the SimCenter,” said Congressman Zach Wamp. “The partnership will allow the advanced modeling and simulation available at the SimCenter to aid B&W Y-12 in developing national security solutions.”
The agreement provides for the SimCenter and Y-12 National Security Complex to partner on the development of programmatic opportunities and to share resources for development and demonstration purposes. Specific areas of joint projects might include simulations related to toxic plume patterns, chemical processes, metal processing, safety, engineering, and other areas.
“Modeling is becoming more and more important because there are fewer dollars out there to do research, development, test and evaluation. By utilizing the SimCenter’s advanced computing technologies, we’ll be able to save taxpayers money and increase safety,” said Randy Spickard, vice president and executive director of science, technology, and partnerships at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge.
B&W Y-12 manages and operates the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge for the National Nuclear Security Administration of the U.S. Department of Energy.
The Y 12 National Security Complex was constructed as part of the World War II Manhattan Project. Construction for the Manhattan Project began with the first shovelful of dirt turned at Y 12 in February 1943, and operations began in November of that year. In the years following World War II, Y 12 evolved into a high-precision manufacturing assembly and inspection facility while maintaining the nation’s uranium and lithium technology base.
Y 12 applies unique expertise, initially developed for highly specialized military purposes, to a wide range of manufacturing problems to support the capabilities of the U.S. industrial base. Y 12’s all-inclusive expertise includes proceeding from concept, through detailed design and specification, to building prototypes and configuring integrated manufacturing processes.
“This partnership helps UTC fulfill its mission of service and economic development to the citizens of this state and this nation by employing our intellectual resources to solving problems of national security. We look forward to a long relationship that benefits our students, our faculty members, and our partners at Y-12,” said Dr. Roger Brown, UTC Chancellor.
Dr. Dave Whitfield, Director of the SimCenter, and Dr. Harry McDonald, holder of the Chair of Excellence in 21st Century Engineering, lead the SimCenter’s internationally renowned team of computational engineers and researchers.
The SimCenter: National Center for Computational Engineering is a center for integrated research and education. Its primary goals are to establish next-generation technologies in computational modeling, simulation and design, to educate a new breed of interdisciplinary computational engineers who can solve a broad range of real-world engineering problems and to provide consequent leadership and national impact in critical technology areas affecting defense, sustainable energy, environment, and health.
M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in computational engineering are offered through the UTC Graduate School of Computational Engineering. The National SimCenter also participates in the UTC Center of Excellence for Applied Computational Science and Engineering, which sponsors faculty and students engaged in advanced research projects.
(l-r) Dr. Harry McDonald, Chattanooga Mayor Ron Littlefield, Congressman Zach Wamp, Rep. Tommie Brown, Dr. Will Sutton, UTC Dean of Engineering and Computer Science, Dr. David Whitfield, Hamilton County Mayor Claude Ramsey. Signing are Dr. Phil Oldham, UTC Provost, Randy Spickard, Y-12.
Hunter Lecture series begins Jan. 13
The Benwood Foundation, in partnership with The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, the Ochs Center for Metropolitan Studies, and CreateHere, has announced that the 2009 George T. Hunter Lecture Series will kick off on January 13th with world-renowned historian and author, Doris Kearns Goodwin. Goodwin, an expert on presidential politics, is the author of several books including the Pulitzer Prize-winning No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The American Homefront During World War II. Her most recent book is entitled Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, which won the Lincoln Prize and the Book Prize for American History. Speaking just one week prior to the presidential inauguration, Goodwin’s lecture will focus on leadership lessons learned from Abraham Lincoln.
“We hope to build on the success of last year’s lecture series by continuing to encourage a public dialogue on issues that affect our community and our nation,” said Corinne Allen, Executive Director of the Benwood Foundation. “We plan to create more opportunities for the speakers to engage with the community. We hope that the George T. Hunter Lecture Series will continue to promote civic engagement and education for all Chattanoogans.”
Named after the Benwood Foundation’s founder, the lecture series will bring four of the nation’s leading experts to Chattanooga to speak on leadership, education, environmental justice and community development. Last year’s speakers included former Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright and Pulitzer Prize winner Frank McCourt.
“UTC is proud to continue its partnership with the Benwood Foundation, in order to bring some of the nation’s most respected thinkers to our city and our campus,” said UTC Chancellor Roger Brown. “By bringing together community leaders, residents, practitioners and scholars, we hope that the George T. Hunter Lecture Series can serve an important role in our collective, community learning process.”
Speakers in the 2009 George T. Hunter Lecture Series will also include:
- John Merrow, March 3, 2009: Mr. Merrow is the Education Correspondent for the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. He is the author of Choosing Excellence and has been a frequent contributor to NPR and national op-ed pages on education issues. Merrow will speak about his observations regarding the progress of public education in the United States.
- Van Jones, September 15, 2009: Jones is the founder and president of Green For All, a nonprofit based in Oakland, California, dedicated to building an inclusive, green economy. Jones will be speaking on the power of new “green collar jobs” to address both social inequality and environmental destruction.
- David Brooks, November 17, 2009: Brooks is a columnist for The New York Times and author of two social commentaries including the best-seller Bobos in Paradise. Brooks will speak on community development.
The lectures will begin at 7 p.m. in the Roland Hayes Concert Hall located inside the Fine Arts Center on the UTC campus. All lectures are free and open to the public. Seating is limited and is on a first-come first-serve basis. More information on the George T. Hunter Lecture Series is available at www.benwood.org.
Detailed biographies of the speakers follow:
Doris Kearns Goodwin: Doris Kearns Goodwin, world-renowned historian, is the author of several books and has written for leading national publications. She is a commentator for NBC, and a consultant and on-air person for PBS documentaries on Lyndon B. Johnson, the Kennedy Family, Franklin Roosevelt, and Ken Burns’ The History of Baseball. Her book, No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The American Home Front During World War II, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in April 1995.
Her most recent work, entitled Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, published in October 2005 won the 2006 Lincoln Prize for an outstanding work about the president and/or the Civil War.
John Merrow: Now education correspondent for the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer on PBS, John Merrow began his career as an education reporter with National Public Radio in 1974, when he created ‘Options in Education.’
A frequent contributor to the op-ed pages of many newspapers, including USA Today, The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and Education Week, Merrow is the author of “Choosing Excellence” (Scarecrow, 2001) and co-editor of “Declining by Degrees” (Palgrave/Macmillan, 2005).
Merrow is a former junior high and high school teacher, and is the founder of Learning Matters, the non-profit organization he founded in 1995, and a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching at Stanford.
Van Jones: Van Jones is founding president of Green For All (www.greenforall.org) and a senior fellow with the Center for American Progress. Green For All is a U.S. organization that promotes green-collar jobs and opportunities for the disadvantaged. Its mission is to build an inclusive, green economy - strong enough to resolve the ecological crisis and lift millions of people out of poverty.
A 1993 Yale Law graduate, Van is the author of Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems. He is a tireless advocate, committed to creating “green pathways out of poverty” and greatly expanding the coalition fighting global warming.
David Brooks: David Brooks is a columnist for The New York Times and author. He is a keen observer of the American way of life and a savvy analyst of present-day politics and foreign affairs. He holds several prestigious positions as a commentator: bi-weekly Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times, regular analyst on the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, and NPR’s All Things Considered. He is the author of two books of what he calls “comic sociology” – Bobos in Paradise and On Paradise Drive.
Recent alum awarded Michener Fellowship
Zebadiah Taylor, a 2008 UTC graduate, has been awarded a three-year James A. Michener Fellowship in Creative Writing from the University of Texas Michener Center for Writers. The program is considered one of the five most highly selective programs in the country and is consistently ranked as one of the top ten graduate programs in creative writing.
Taylor’s poetry writing sample was chosen out of more than 700 submissions in fiction, playwriting, poetry and screenwriting and he becomes one of the twelve newly admitted fellows. Each new fellow receives free tuition, a $25,000 annual stipend for three years with no teaching responsibility, and a $6,000 professional development fund for travel and research.
The Michener Center’s MFA program was started in 1993 after Pulitzer-prize winning novelist James Michener endowed the University of Texas with $18 million to support a writing program. During the three-year program, students are required to work in two of the four disciplines offered—fiction, poetry, playwriting and screenwriting. The Michener Center for Writers is housed in the historic J. Frank Dobie house on the University’s campus.
Eigenberg receives national award
Dr. Helen Eigenberg received the CoraMae Richey Mann “Inconvenient Woman of the Year” Award on November 13 at the 2008 annual meeting of the American Society of Criminology (ASC). Eigenberg, professor and head of the UTC Department of Criminal Justice, accepted the national award in St. Louis, Missouri, from the Division on Women and Crime.
This award “recognizes the scholar/activist who has participated in publicly promoting the ideals of gender equality and women’s rights throughout society, particularly as it relates to gender and crime issues,” according to the selection committee.
Eigenberg was nominated by Dr. Joanne Belknap, sociology professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Belknap documented Eigenberg’s success with campus, community and state leaders to secure better services for victims of violence against women on and off campus, leading to improvements for many survivors.
“Dr. Eigenberg played a key leadership role in establishing the Transformation Project at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. This project serves to ensure offender accountability, prevent violence against women on campus, and provide direct services to survivors,” Belknap said.
As a result of the grant Eigenberg helped secure to establish the Transformation Project, the University developed a multidisciplinary coordinating council, representing campus and community groups. Belknap identified the participation of The Chattanooga Police Department, the Hamilton County District Attorney’s Office, the Partnership for Family & Children’s Services, the Tennessee Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence, and over 20 UTC offices.
Eigenberg also began the Green Dot Campaign, a social norms program to educate and engage the UTC campus community as it takes a stand against violence against women. Incoming students learn from the web-based module Dr. Eigenberg developed.
Belknap commended Eigenberg for her commitment to sustaining all these efforts.
“Because she is a truly inconvenient woman, Dr. Eigenberg was able to work with other campus leaders, to ensure that institutional funding was found to ensure that the grant funded direct services position was continued after the federal funding ended in 2007. State funds were secured in the UTC budget and also were used to fund the newly created Women’s Center that opened at UTC in fall 2008. This achievement is especially noteworthy given that Tennessee higher education has confronted some of the largest budget cuts in the history of state higher education,” Belknap said.
At the state level, Eigenberg worked to help establish the Tennessee State Victim Assistance Training Academy by partnering with the Tennessee State Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence to get a three year federal grant to create this statewide program in 2005. Belknap explained that the first statewide academy was delivered at UTC in 2006 and the third cohort completed the program in the summer (2008).
Eigenberg also uses her scholarly expertise to advocate for prisoners (female and male) in their risk of rape while incarcerated. Belknap cited a quote from a 2005 issue of The Advocate, which published an article on prisoner rapes:
“Eigenberg, chair of criminal justice and legal assistant studies at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, published a well-known study of Texas corrections officers’ attitudes toward prison rape in 1989, and she has continued to present her findings around the country. The study found that 46% of officers believed that some inmates deserve to be raped, 34% believed rape victims are weak, and 15% believed that rape victims are gay. Similar victim blaming was found in a 1996 study of corrections officers in Nebraska. ‘Until you destigmatize things, people aren’t going to report,’ Eigenberg says. ‘This is a complex issue not amenable to a quick fix.’”
Eigenberg received her Ph.D. from Sam Houston State University in Texas.
“Personally, this award is a recognition of the blend of scholarship and activism which has always been important to me and my career,” Eigenberg said. “In terms of the Department of Criminal Justice, it is some recognition of the university, program and the engaged nature of the university.”
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