Olivia Reeves, a weightlifter and senior sociology major, won the U.S.’s first gold medal for weightlifting in 24 years. She is the first currently enrolled student in UTC’s 138-year history to be selected as a member of the United States Olympic team. Reeves competed in the 71kg weight class at the Paris Olympic Games. She lifted 258 pounds in the snatch, which set an Olympic record, and 320 pounds in the clean and jerk.
Wolford Center Opens
The Wolford Family Athletic Center, a $36 million project that includes a 37,500-square-foot addition to McKenzie Arena and 23,000 square feet of renovated space, was completed in September. The remodeled space houses a state-of-the-art sports medicine area, a hydrotherapy section and office space for a mental health professional available to all UTC student athletes.
Arena renovations include new locker rooms and meeting rooms for the Mocs men’s and women’s basketball programs, while the new addition features locker rooms, meeting rooms and offices for the football program.
The center is named in memory of UTC alumnus James “Bucky” Wolford, who died in September 2017.
The Supreme Court Comes to UTC’s Hometown
For two weeks this summer, UTC hosted The Supreme Court and My Hometown, a collaboration of the Supreme Court Historical Society, the U.S. District Court’s Eastern District of Tennessee and the UTC Department of Political Science and Public Service.
The Supreme Court and My Hometown provided an immersive, in-person civics education program for 20 area high school students. In the federal court system’s present form, 94 district-level trial courts and 13 courts of appeals sit below the Supreme Court. The UTC event was the second in the nation to take place.
The high school students who participated in the UTC camp learned about the 1906 Ed Johnson case that went to the Supreme Court as United States v. Shipp. This landmark case was the only criminal trial ever held by the Supreme Court and underscored the court’s authority to enforce its orders and ensure the protection of constitutional rights.
UTC Recognized for Cyber Development
UTC’s role in cyber workforce training was recognized in a White House report.
The Report on the Initial Stages of the National Cyber Workforce and Education Strategy Implementation cited UTC for achieving a National Center of Academic Excellence in Cybersecurity designation with its “Collaborative Research: CyberCorps Scholarship for Service: Strengthening the National Cybersecurity Workforce With Integrated Learning of AI/ML and Cybersecurity.”
“With the prestigious designation as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Cybersecurity and the NSF CyberCorps Scholarship for Service award, we demonstrate our commitment to excellence and our proactive approach to addressing the national challenge of workforce development in cybersecurity,” says Mengjun Xie, a UC Foundation professor of computer science who oversees the program.