Camp Horizon Lets Kids be Kids

Lindsey Sharpe, a UTC 2004 physical therapy grad, grew up going to summer camps. Her dad was a caretaker at a camp, and she worked at one while in college, even meeting her future husband there.

Now at Children’s Hospital in Chattanooga, Sharpe launched Camp Horizon in 2005, benefitting children with disabilities and UTC physical therapy students.

Based on Lookout Mountain, Camp Horizon is open to children from first grade up to 18 years old. And Camp Horizon costs campers nothing. Sharpe provides programmatic support and UTC physical therapy students—for whom their involvement is a service learning opportunity.

“It helps our PT students see and understand that kids with physical disabilities are kids first,” says Cathie Smith, UC Foundation Associate Professor and Vanderbilt Professor of Physical Therapy at UTC. “They go outdoors and do things, they play games, make s’mores, roast marshmallows, and break water balloons. They happen to have a disabling condition. It influences them, but it doesn’t define them.”

Chamberlain Field Reborn

Robert Fisher, a UTC Rhodes scholar (left), and Chancellor Steve Angle join Nathan Harlan (right) in celebrating the reality of Harlan’s idea for a campus Power C.
Robert Fisher, a UTC Rhodes scholar (left), and Chancellor Steve Angle join Nathan Harlan (right) in celebrating the reality of Harlan’s idea for a campus Power C.

In his State of the University address, UTC Chancellor Steve Angle led the campus in a ribbon-cutting ceremony opening the new Chamberlain Field.

Chamberlain Field has expanded from a field of athletic achievement to a hub knitting the campus into a more cohesive community—blending the campus’s past and its future.

Originally named in 1908 for university trustee Capt. Hiram Chamberlain (and later rededicated in 1961 to include his son, Morrow Chamberlain, also a trustee), the field wears the name proudly.

While a student, Nathan Harlan noticed the absence of a prominent Power C on campus. “We brand the Power C and wear it on T-shirts, but there was nothing on campus that we could cling to and say, ‘Hey, this is our spot for students,’” he says.

“Having a giant Power C in the heart of campus is not only great marketing for UTC, but it lets us show pride in our university.” It now has been installed on the Oak Street hill.

Professor Rises to the Call for Smart Cities Initiative

Mina Sartipi on the Chatannooga walkway between the Aquarium and Hunter Museum of American Art
Professor Mina Sartipi on the road to success.

Mina Sartipi, UTC professor of computer science and engineering, recently received National Science Foundation funding to test how an urban network of connected vehicles can integrate to improve efficiency and operate safely in severe weather.

Sartipi’s grant is part of the White House’s Smart Cities Initiative launched in 2015 to make cities “laboratories for innovation” where communities, federal agencies and universities work together to develop new technologies “that can help make our cities more inhabitable, cleaner and equitable.”

As part of this initiative, Sartipi works with students to research the potential of smart electric grids to harness high-speed broadband to solve urban problems like pollution and congestion.