UTK Alumni Generosity

Michael Folkerth

2 months ago

Jeffrey Julian and Jennifer Julian Nelson, left, honored their mother at the dedication ceremony for the Faye Julian Dean’s Chair Endowment. Also pictured, from center, are UT alumnus Peyton Manning (Knoxville ’97), Chancellor Donde Plowman and College of Communication and Information Dean Joe Mazer. Manning’s $4 million gift also supports the John Haas Director’s Chair Endowment. The endowments enable the dean of the college and director of the School of Communication Studies, one of the college’s four academic units, to support emergent needs and strategic opportunities that are common in the ever-evolving communication and media industries.

A group of people posing for a photo at a ceremony. — Jeffrey Julian and Jennifer Julian Nelson, left, honored their mother at the dedication ceremony for the Faye Julian Dean’s Chair Endowment. Also pictured, from center, are UT alumnus Peyton Manning (Knoxville ’97), Chancellor Donde Plowman and College of Communication and Information Dean Joe Mazer. Manning’s $4 million gift also supports the John Haas Director’s Chair Endowment. The endowments enable the dean of the college and director of the School of Communication Studies, one of the college’s four academic units, to support emergent needs and strategic opportunities that are common in the ever-evolving communication and media industries.

Vol basketball great and current NBA star Grant Williams (Knoxville ’19) donated $1.5 million to the UT Foundation, part of which will create a scholarship endowment within UT Knoxville’s Haslam College of Business.
UT Knoxville’s College of Nursing extended its partnership with UT Medical Center through the sponsorship of the college’s new nursing building. The new building is a key component of UT Knoxville’s commitment to providing a top-tier educational experience for its growing student population. It provides state-of-the-art design that will prepare future generations of nurses for clinical practice and leadership roles. At 117,000 square feet, the building nearly triples the size of the former space.
UT Knoxville leaders and community partners dedicated the new Poplar and Beacon residence halls. The new residence halls were built through a public-private partnership, the first of its kind at a university in Tennessee. Seven-story Poplar Hall, at the intersection of Andy Holt Avenue and 20th Street, is home to 799 students. Beacon Hall, between Caledonia and Terrace avenues, is a two-building complex (Beacon East and Beacon West) that houses 1,160 students.

UTK Awards

From left, Joseph Clark, Doowon Kim and Joon Sue Lee received National Science Foundation CAREER awards for their work developing molecules that facilitate pharmaceutical drug design and evaluation, designing phishing detectors and developing new materials for quantum technology.

Innovation and Collaboration

Multidisciplinary faculty teams at UT Knoxville, in collaboration with colleagues from Mississippi State University, are using a $5 million award to apply their expertise in advanced manufacturing, metallurgy and welding to create new steels for the U.S. Navy.
The Spark Innovation Center at the UT Research Park at Cherokee Farm launched the Spark BioHub to support start-up companies focused on health and wellness. The Spark BioHub will occupy 2,600 square feet in UT’s new Center for Precision Health.

Renowned Faculty and Research

The U.S. Department of Education awarded more than $2 million to the Institute of American Civics, which the institute will use to expand its K-12 civics outreach.
AI TechX, an initiative to empower Tennessee communities and industry partners to adopt AI technologies that create jobs, awarded more than $500,000 in seed funding to nine projects led by teams of UT Knoxville faculty and industry and community partners.

Campus Milestones

UT Knoxville achieved historic success in retention and enrollment to kick off the fall semester. The retention rate rose for the third consecutive year, with more than 92.4 percent of first-year students returning for their sophomore year. The university’s retention of students and keeping them on track to graduate has been a key driver of enrollment growth, which hit a record of 40,421 this fall.

Rankings and Recognition

Forbes ranked UT Knoxville as Tennessee’s top public university and one of the state’s top employers for 2025.
U.S. News & World Report ranked UT Knoxville among the nation’s top universities for innovation, value and academics.
UT Knoxville was named a finalist for several awards from the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities—the W.K. Kellogg Foundation Community Engagement Scholarship Award, Excellence in Student Success Award, and Innovation and Economic Prosperity Award.