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Renee Haugerud and John H. Murphy recognized for major gift

Renee Haugerud and John H. Murphy were recognized for their gift of $2 million for University. The UTC College of Business and the Mocs football program will both benefit.

UTC College of Business offered transformational opportunity

The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga recognized donors Renee Haugerud and her husband John H. Murphy for their $1.5 million project development gift, which offers a bold, transformational opportunity for the UTC College of Business to develop The Renee Haugerud and John H. Murphy Global Finance Center.

“We are very thankful to Renee and Murph for their vision and their generous gift,” said Chancellor Roger Brown. “Their support of business and football will directly enhance opportunities for students in these programs.”

This center will be a destination for business students everywhere, particularly female business students, to prepare them for the finance industry with specific coursework. Offering new and unique programs with a focus on globalization, global finance, ethics and brain chemistry, the center will offer women the foundation for a successful career in finance and business and ultimately, cultivate essential life skills. UTC’s College of Business is already nationally recognized for providing exceptional opportunities for women and this support will allow the University to build upon this success.

Brainstorming has begun on a financial live trading facility where investments, speculative markets, securities analysis courses and more will be available. This facility will offer students the same tools and information used by finance professionals, such as technology to access financial databases to give users access to real-time data from global markets.

Annually, more than 1,900 students from all business majors at the undergraduate and graduate levels will have an opportunity to use the global financial center. That number could be expanded through non-credit courses, public lectures and other educational opportunities.

Haugerud’s and Murphy’s gift totals $2 million for the University. In addition to the $1.5 million the couple donated to UTC’s College of Business, they have also given $500,000 to the Mocs’ football program.

Major gift supports Mocs football program

Chattanooga Athletics Director Rick Hart announced a major gift to the Mocs football program by two prominent donors today. Renee Haugerud and her husband John H. Murphy contributed $500,000 to UTC’s football program as part of a $2 million gift to The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

“On behalf of our entire athletics department, I want to thank Renee Haugerud and John Murphy for their generous gift in support of UTC football,’ stated Hart. “Renee and Murph are special people who have a passion for making things, and people, ‘better.’ They believe that athletics plays an important role on our campus and in our community; and we are grateful that they have chosen to invest in the betterment of our student-athletes.”

“This is a very generous gift to the football program from Renee and John that is greatly appreciated,” added UTC head football coach Russ Huesman. “It makes me feel even better because it comes from someone I played with at UTC. They are both excited about UTC football and their energy and enthusiasm about the program are what make this whole donation even better.”

Haugerud’s and Murphy’s gift totals $2 million for the University. In addition to the $500,000 given to the Mocs’ football program, the couple also donated $1.5 million to UTC’s College of Business. The donation to the business school is for the development of the Renee Haugerud and John H. Murphy Global Finance Center. This center will serve the more than 1,900 students from all business majors at the undergraduate and graduate levels.

Alumna becomes U.S. citizen

Fourth grade Woodmore Elementary teacher and UTC alumna Dalia Abdulazeez enjoyed a surprise party with a unique twist recently when students, faculty and staff celebrated her achievement of becoming a U.S. citizen.

In December 2008, Abdulazeez became a U.S. citizen and four weeks later she believed she was taking her students to a post-presidential inaugural assembly at Woodmore. The truth was she was the star of the exciting event.

“It was very sweet of the faculty and principal to do that,” she said.

Each grade level from Woodmore made presentations, teachers sang and everyone at the assembly sang “My Country ‘Tis of Thee.”

Born in Kuwait, Abdulazeez was a youngster in 1990 when her family emigrated to the United States during the Gulf War. She attended Red Bank schools and in 2006 received her education degree from UTC. “I grew up here, so it was kind of like I was always an American. Becoming a citizen makes it official,” Abdulazeez said.

Depending on where and when the application to become a naturalized citizen is filed, the wait can be anywhere from several months to several years. Abdulazeez had to wait four years after a process which included a naturalization examination, fingerprinting and a naturalization oath ceremony.

“A weight has been lifted off my shoulders. Now it will be so much easier to travel. Travelling on my Jordanian passport was very difficult. As an American citizen, I will be able to go through checkpoints much quicker,” Abdulazeez said. “I’m also excited about being able to vote.”

She did not miss an opportunity to teach her students as a living example of their studies—a unit about citizenship. “They were very excited to learn what it took for me to become a U.S. citizen.”

Abdulazeez fondly recalls her days spent at UTC. “I was exposed to a lot of different organizations, and I enjoyed portraying the Palestinian side of who I am,” she said. “For instance, I participated in Culture Fest. There were opportunities to celebrate diversity on campus.”

UTC earns Carnegie Community Engagement classification

The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga has earned the 2008 Community Engagement Classification designation by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

UTC received the elective classification in both the areas of Curricular Engagement and Outreach and Partnerships. UTC joins such institutions as Duke University, Georgetown University, and Purdue University among the 119 institutions honored with the classification this year.

Colleges and universities with an institutional focus on community engagement were invited to apply for the classification, offered in 2006 as part of an extensive restructuring of The Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. Unlike the Foundation’s other classifications that rely on national data, this is an elective classification—institutions elected to participate by submitting required documentation describing the nature and extent of their engagement with the community, be it local or beyond. This approach enabled Carnegie to address elements of institutional mission and distinctiveness that are not represented in the national data on colleges and universities.

“We hope that by acknowledging the commitment and accomplishment of these engaged institutions, the Foundation will encourage other colleges and universities to move in this direction. Doing so brings benefits to the community and to the institution,” said Carnegie President Anthony S. Bryk.

UTC’s designation grew from the strategic planning process undertaken by the campus last year. The plan emphasizes the strength of partnerships and how the campus and community work together to benefit students, faculty and staff, and the surrounding region.

“We are very pleased that the Carnegie Foundation has now validated what we’ve known for quite sometime. UTC has been a leader in the metropolitan university movement. We have solidly embraced the metropolitan mission, and our students and community have seen the benefits of this direction. Now, we have outside recognition from a well-respected source for our efforts,” said UTC Chancellor Roger Brown.

An emphasis on experiential learning opportunities and partnerships with Hamilton County Schools, local governments, health care institutions, and community foundations were cornerstones of UTC’s application to Carnegie.

“Acquiring this designation brings national recognition to our campus and places UTC among an elite list of institutions. It also may prove beneficial to us in competition for some grants, as agencies may look favorably at our commitment to engagement with the community,” said Chancellor Brown.

A UTC task force of Deborah Arfken, planning coordinator; Karen Adsit, director of the Walker Teaching Resource Center and co-chair of the Strategic Planning Initiative; Chuck Cantrell, assistant vice chancellor for university relations; Terry Denniston, executive assistant to the chancellor; and Richard Gruetzemacher, director of institutional research, compiled and submitted the successful application.

“I especially want to thank the task force that accepted the task of compiling and organizing our data into a successful application to Carnegie, and also I want to thank and congratulate the entire campus for the many wonderful programs and partnerships that are administered here. This designation is a testimony to the combined efforts of everyone on this campus,” said Chancellor Brown.

More about the classifications

To create this elective classification, the Carnegie Foundation, working with a team of advisors and a pilot study conducted by 14 colleges and universities, developed a documentation framework to assess the nature of an institution’s community engagement commitments. This year, 147 institutions applied to document community engagement, up from 89 in 2006. Of the total applications, 119 were successfully classified as community engaged institutions; 68 are public institutions and 51 are private. In terms of representing Carnegie’s Basic Classification, 38 are classified as doctorate-granting universities, 52 are master’s colleges and universities, 17 are baccalaureate colleges, nine are community colleges and three institutions have a specialized focus—arts, medicine and technology. They represent 34 states and Puerto Pico.

Institutions were classified in one of three categories:

Curricular Engagement describes teaching, learning and scholarship which engage faculty, students and community in mutually beneficial and respectful collaboration. Their interactions address community-identified needs, deepen students’ civic and academic learning, enhance community well-being and enrich the scholarship of the institution.
Outreach and Partnerships describes two different but related approaches to community engagement. The first focuses on the application and provision of institutional resources for community use with benefits to both campus and community. The latter focuses on collaborative interactions with community and related scholarship for the mutually beneficial exchange, exploration and application of knowledge, information and resources (research, capacity building, economic development, etc.).
Curricular Engagement and Outreach & Partnerships includes institutions with substantial commitments in both areas described above. *

*UTC earned this designation

In order to be selected into any of the three categories, institutions had to provide descriptions and examples of institutionalized practices of community engagement that showed alignment among mission, culture, leadership, resources and practices.

“The Carnegie staff and our panel of advisors were heartened by the exemplary institutionalized practices of community engagement of the selected institutions,” said Carnegie Consulting Scholar Amy Driscoll, who directs the Community Engagement Classification process for the Foundation. “We noted strong alignment between institutional mission and budgetary support, infrastructure, leadership, marketing, and faculty hiring, orientation, and development. There is also an increase in students’ curricular engagement with community, yet, there continue to be areas that need more informed development.”

Learn more about the Community Engagement Classification.

A listing of the institutions in the Community Engagement Classification can be found on the Carnegie website.

About the Carnegie Foundation

Founded by Andrew Carnegie in 1905 and chartered in 1906 by an act of Congress, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching is an independent policy and research center with the primary mission “to do and perform all things necessary to encourage, uphold, and dignify the profession of the teacher.” The improvement of teaching and learning is central to all of the Foundation’s work. The Foundation is located in Stanford, Calif. More information may be found on the Web site at www.carnegiefoundation.org.

Cawood earns Golden Reel Award

UTC alumnus Dustin Cawood won a Golden Reel Award from the Motion Picture Sound Editors at a ceremony held recently in Hollywood. Cawood is originally from Cleveland, Tennessee.

Cawood’s name was also included in the Los Angeles Film Critics Association choice for Best Picture of the Year, WALL-E.

A former communication major at UTC, Cawood works at Skywalker Sound in California, in pre-production or post-production of movies in sound design and sound editing.

In case you missed the Alumnus story about UTC Alumnus Dustin Cawood, read more about his career.

Dr. Edwin P. Foster Receives ASCE Award

Edwin Foster Dr. Edwin P. Foster, Professor of Civil Engineering at The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, received the Peter G. Hoadley Award for Outstanding Engineering Educator at the annual meeting of the Tennessee Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

Foster has published more than fifty publications in five countries on the subject of engineering education and the design of cable structures. He was the president of the TN-Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers in 1995 and was the UT-Chattanooga ASCE student chapter faculty advisor for twenty-seven years.

Foster arrived at UT-Chattanooga in 1979 when the engineering program was small, but growing. By 1981, Foster had successfully launched the Civil/Structural Engineering Concentration in the Bachelor of Science in Engineering (BSE) degree.

“The program then had only the structural part of civil engineering and now we have a full civil program with four areas; structural, transportation, geotechnical and environmental,” Foster said. “We now have over a hundred majors in the new and expanded Civil Engineering program that was accredited as a separate Civil Engineering program last year. I have really enjoyed watching these young men and women come through the program and then go on to become really outstanding and creative engineers.”

A Chattanooga landmark also benefited from Foster’s expertise when Lichtenstein Consulting Engineers from Paramus, New Jersey, requested load testing before the restoration of the Walnut Street Bridge could begin. After working closely with Dr. Gary McDonald, the colleagues found a way to use the latest innovation in gages with the University’s older electronic equipment.

“Dr. Gary McDonald, Karl Fletcher, a few engineering graduate students and I were involved in load testing the bridge. Garnet Chapin was the architect for the restoration and was present for the load testing. We would clamp a few gages to the steel members and then drive a dump truck fully loaded with rock over the bridge. The strain on the steel or iron was measured as the truck slowly passed that section. Our gages could measure a 0.000001 inch stretch on a member. After recording the strain on many members that day a successful load testing was completed. In my office the following week I calculated the force in each member that we had tested and determined that the bridge was carrying the load exactly as it should. With that information Lichtenstein Consulting Engineers were able to proceed with the restoration plans,” Foster said.

The Peter G. Hoadley Award for Outstanding Engineering Educator holds special significance for Foster because Hoadley was Foster’s professor at Vanderbilt University.

“He not only impressed me with his knowledge of the subject but how he taught his classes and treated the students. He was also very much involved in the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and was a key figure in passing that professionalism on to his students,” Foster said.

When Hoadley offered Foster a fellowship to cover tuition, books and living expenses as he pursued his master’s degree, Foster eagerly accepted.

“You see, his classes were so demanding that I had not been able to afford any time to look for a job after graduation. If that afternoon had not happened then my teaching career would never have happened. In my forty-one years of teaching for the University of Tennessee there have been times that I needed to make a difficult decision and did not know which way to go. At those times I just said to myself, “What would Dr. Hoadley do?” and then the answer became obvious,” Foster said.

Foster resides in Hixson with his wife of 42 years, Joyce. The couple has three grown children and eight grandchildren.

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