Over the Top

Over the Top

The new Glocker Business Administration-Building is well on its way to a 2008 opening in Knoxville. A topping out celebration was held March 2 on the plaza of the University Center, overlooking the construction site.

Dean Skadberg, who serves on the Dean’s Advisory Council of the College of Business Administration, told the crowd that when he was a student in the late 1950s and early 1960s, “our idea of technology was a pencil sharpener attached to the door frame in every room.” Skadberg also is national chairman of annual giving for the UT National Alumni Association.

“We’ve come a long, long way,” he said. Jan Williams, dean of the College of Business Administration, reminisced that 30 years ago when he joined the college’s faculty, he was told the Glocker renovation was “imminent.”

“Thirty years is a long time. It’s almost a generation,” he said.

Williams thanked university and state officials who helped bring the long-awaited project to fruition. And he praised students and faculty and staff members, who have had to meet in classrooms scattered about the campus during the construction, for their patience.

“This college is about to take a quantum leap,” he said.

UT Knoxville’s Chancellor Loren Crabtree described some of the facilities and technology that will be part of the new building–resources that will help prepare the next-generation global workforce. The building will be equipped for high–definition global teleconferencing, as well as with digital signage, wireless Internet access, and an advanced room-access security and information system.

The facility will include 32 classrooms, more than 50 offices for staff and administration, 35 team and presentation rooms, a technology center, an investment center, an atrium, and a glass elevator. The college expects to move into the new building at the corner of Andy Holt Avenue and Volunteer Boulevard in the fall semester 2008. For artist renderings of the new building, a video tour of the new building and other information about the construction project, visit the college’s Web site, http://bus.utk.edu/cba/.

The Martha Crimes

White-collar crimes are a dime a dozen today, but Martha Stewart’s stock-selling scandal had a certain je ne sais quoi.

In Martha Stewart’s Legal Troubles, UT law professor Joan Heminway has compiled essays by legal scholars who look at the facts and analyze the legal claims brought against Stewart for selling her ImClone Systems Inc. shares. The book was published in December 2006 by Carolina Academic Press.

“Martha Stewart herself is interesting,” Heminway says. “She was being investigated for insider trading, which is an area I write about and teach. The more I dug at the facts, the more interesting it became to me.”

The book is divided into three sections. It starts with issues related to the actual December 2001 crime and pretrial events, then moves to the trial itself, and ends with post-trial matters like the prosecution of Larry Stewart, the key government witness accused of perjury. Each chapter concludes with three or more questions–which allows the book to be used as a teaching tool by law and business professors.

Heminway never had a chance to speak with Stewart or her lawyers. She speculates Stewart was wisely advised not to talk to the public about her cases and thinks that Stewart would like to put the past behind her.

Heminway says she wrote the book as a secondary text for teaching so law students could have access to scholarly materials relating to real-world instances of white-collar crime. “She was prosecuted not for insider trading but for obstruction of justice, false statements made to public officials, and securities fraud. The securities fraud part of the case is also a rather novel charge in an area that I teach. I started to see the Stewart stock sale as a case study of things I taught in class.”

Heminway has been recognized with several awards, including the University Chancellor’s Award for Teaching Excellence in 2006, the College of Law’s Marilyn V. Yarbrough Faculty Award for Writing Excellence for 2005, and the College of Law’s Harold C. Warner Outstanding Teacher Award for 2004.

In addition to teaching at UT, Heminway has been a visiting professor at Boston College Law School and Vanderbilt Law School. She worked for almost 15 years at the Boston office of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, specializing in corporate transactions.

Your Next Life

What do you dream of doing in retirement? What’s your idea of a perfect second career? Or have you already retired and found that special niche that makes you wonder why you didn’t do it sooner? Tell Tennessee Alumnus your retirement dream or dream come true at www.tennessee.edu/alumnus/retirement/, and we’ll spotlight the best of them in an upcoming issue.

Catching Up

Chef Tim Love (Knoxville ’94), whom you met in the spring 2004 issue, has taken his Texas culinary skills to New York, where he’s opened a northern outpost of his Lonesome Dove Western Bistro in the Flatiron District.

The original Lonesome Dove debuted in 2000 in Fort Worth’s Stockyard District. Love has since beefed up his Fort Worth empire with the steakhouse Duce, the White Elephant Saloon, and Love Shack, a new hamburger/hot dog joint. The UT finance graduate has appeared on Iron Chef, Home Shopping Network, and the CBS Early Show and been featured in magazines including Food and Wine and Forbes.com.

Alumna Reigns as Miss Black Tennessee

(Editor’s Note: As this issue went to press, we learned Kalilah Allen-Harris had been crowned Miss Black USA.)

Kalilah Allen-Harris (’06) was an honor student at UT Knoxville, and she’s continuing her winning ways in medical school and as Miss Black Tennessee. Allen-Harris won the 2006-2007 Miss Black Tennessee Scholarship pageant last July and was slated to compete in the Miss Black USA Scholarship Pageant in Gambia, West Africa, in May. The Montgomery, Alabama, native is a first-year medical student at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, studying to be an orthopedic surgeon.

“I decided that orthopedic surgery is the best specialty for me to pursue because I love the excitement and challenge that would routinely be a part of the experience,” she says. “I have always loved to fix things that are broken.

“When I was in high school, I was a competitive cheerleader, and I received numerous injuries that required me to visit an orthopedic surgeon. With each visit, I realized just how much I was interested in all the procedures and clinical evaluations he performed. I started off with asking a few questions about the orthopedic surgery specialty and eventually worked my way up to asking to see various radiographic films.”

At UT, Allen-Harris was an honor student in business administration, a presidential scholar, Miss Homecoming 2005, a member of Delta Sigma Theta sorority and honorary societies Gamma Beta Phi and Phi Eta Sigma, and a volunteer at Walter P. Taylor Boys and Girls Club.

At Meharry, she is class historian, a member of the American Medical Association, the Student National Medical Association, the Surgery Club, Internal Medicine Club, and Cardio-Pulmonary Club. She also tutors Somalian refugees. She calls the trip to Gambia “a dream come true.”

“I have always wanted to visit Africa to see the rich culture and heritage from which I came. I have heard that Gambia, West Africa, is a beautiful place with beautiful people, and I cannot wait to experience all that the country has to offer.”

For information about sponsorships, promotional events, and appearances, go to www.missblackusa.org or www.myspace.com/missblacktennesseepageant, e-mail missblacktennesseeusa@gmail.com, or contact pageant director Elaine Cato at 615-593-0178.

Must See TV

Through a partnership with Comcast Cable, UT Knoxville has launched its own television station available to digital subscribers in the Knoxville area.

The new station features university news and cultural and academic programming produced by UT’s Video and Photography Center, a department of UT’s Office of Public Relations. The station is on Comcast’s digital network–channel 194. Along with Comcast’s digital subscribers, 7,000 UT resident students also have access to the channel on campus (channel 65).

Comcast serves more than 160,000 customers in Knox, Roane, Anderson, Sevier, Blount, Union, Cocke, and Campbell counties. UT is Comcast’s largest customer.

Chancellor Loren Crabtree says the channel helps the community know more about the campus: “Along with providing a wonderful window for others to learn about the university’s teaching and research, the partnership provides an opportunity to grow student programming and provide experiences through the new channel.”

The Video and Photography Center is working with the College of Communication and Information’s Journalism and Electronic Media Department to share original student programming and involve students in the process of new show development. “We are offering an invaluable experience for students to participate in creating a new production,” said Tom Owens, director of the center. “From developing an idea to a concept and creating a theme, students have an opportunity to work through the creative process and then also play a key role in its production.”

Programs developed for UTTV include a talk show with the chancellor, a weekly news show, a program focusing on diversity, and a production that spotlights agricultural research. Besides its partnership with the School of Journalism and Electronic Media, the Video and Photography Center is working with other departments and community groups to add original programming and entertainment. Viewers also benefit from free-to-air satellite networks that provide programming from the Research Channel; Classic Arts Showcase; Open Student Television Network, which features student programming from across the nation; and Mosaic, which broadcasts world news from around the globe.

“Along with the first-rate university programming, viewers will enjoy the other interesting programs that will appeal to a wide variety of audiences,” says Russell Byrd of Comcast. “What we’ve developed is truly unique for our company.”

If you live in the Knoxville area and want more information and a program guide, visit http://uttv.utk.edu. To find out more about how to receive the channel, go to www.comcast.com.

UT Goes to the Super Bowl

Super Bowl XLI proved to be a super learning experience for seven students from the University of Tennessee’s Knoxville campus.

While UT alumnus Peyton Manning was leading the Indianapolis Colts to victory on the field, the students were working behind the scenes to learn how a large-scale sporting event is prepared, planned, and carried out. Led by Fritz G. Polite, assistant professor of sport management, “Team UT” helped set up and run several events.

The students also got to meet with Mike Kelly, Super Bowl host committee president. Kelly, who started his career by parking cars at the Super Bowl, assured them that no task should be considered menial.

Polite said he had the students keep journals of their experience. They also discussed the various management styles they encountered. After Team UT returned home, Polite received a letter from one of the event organizers thanking the group for its hard work: “I’ve been managing large events and meetings for over 26 years and would work with this group of students any time! They were not only extremely professional but they were willing to do what it took to get the job done effectively and efficiently.”

Polite said he’s already laying the groundwork to take a team of students to the 2008 Super Bowl.