Community & Outreach

A student works to machine a part in the Machine Tool Research Center at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, during the ACE Bootcamp training.
Grand Challenges

Manufacturing Renaissance

If the manufacturing industry were a brick-and-mortar building, the sign on its window would read “help wanted.” UT Knoxville, however, would be lined up outside the door.

Deborah Reed works with a student as part of the Tennessee Reading Research Center.
Grand Challenges

Good Reading

Tennessee’s literacy story needs a happier ending. UT is helping to rewrite one.

Mike Mayfield, owner of Mayfield Angus Farm, speaks to members of the Regional Leadership cohort.
Grand Challenges

Changing The Narrative

How can rural communities find success when dialogue about them shoves them into pre-constructed boxes? The Turner Center for Rural Vitality has a solution.

Nurse midwifery students hope to better maternal health in Tennessee.
Grand Challenges

Changing Outcomes

Tennessee has a maternal health crisis. The passion and education carried by the 16 students in the UTHSC nurse midwifery program can begin to rectify it.

Grand Challenges

Breaking Barriers

Nobody wants to talk about money. But, according to the UT Extension Family and Consumer Sciences team, everybody needs to be doing just that—even second and third graders.

Sreedhar Upendram (middle) demonstrates using a hot spot for broadband to James Mingie, a research associate, left, and graduate student Amrit Shrestha.
Grand Challenges

No One-Size Solution

What would life today be like without the internet? For many rural Tennesseans, the experience isn’t one that needs imagination—it’s a daily reality.

UT President Randy Boyd reads You Can't Buy a Dinosaur with a Dime to children during a Money Week class about financial literacy. Photo By Sam Thomas
From the President

UT Tackles Challenges

The UT System, with its statewide presence, people, expertise, resources and influence, is uniquely positioned to tackle grand challenges.

Decorative image
Grand Challenges

Grand Challenges in Tennessee

With our five campuses and two institutes, the University of Tennessee System can uniquely collaborate within the system and with communities across the state to solve problems so future generations can thrive.

Kerry Witcher, Randy Boyd, Melanie Smith Taylor, and Keith Carver
News and Updates

UT Martin Receives Largest Gift in UT System’s History

A $79.5 million gift will allow UT Martin to increase educational program offerings in veterinary health technology and other agricultural disciplines in the near future.

Chad Goldman pictured near the Cumberland river in Nashville
Alumni Association

Calling for Philanthropy

Chad Goldman wants to help others find acceptance. 

UT Alumni Association logo
Alumni Association

Meet the 2019-20 members of the Alumni Association Board of Governors

The Board of Governors serves as an advisory and advocacy group that works with the UT Foundation and the university administration on the management and direction of the UT Alumni Association.

historic photos show students at Morgan Hall on the agriculture campus in Knoxville
News and Updates

Department Celebrates a Century of Service

For 100 years, Agricultural and Resource Economics has been assisting agricultural producers and policymakers across the state and nation.

A Rwandan mother and child in the Musanze District.
Feature

‘Like a Boss’

Changing lives chicken by chicken in Rwanda.

Angela Ammerman teaches Thai children the proper way to hold the violin bow.
Feature

A More Musical World

UT Martin music education professor Angela Ammerman's life was changed after teaching violin to orphans in Thailand.

Feature

The Tangle: Tennessee’s Opioid Crisis

In unchecked growth of prescriptions, opiates caught millions of fathers, mothers, sons and daughters in the tangle of addiction. UT researchers, alumni and students are working to free the ensnared.

Feature

A Battle Worth Fighting

A discovery by UT Knoxville-based economists led to Gov. Bill Haslam developing a $30 million dollar plan to begin dealing with the opioid crisis.

Dr. Geogy Thomas
Feature

On a Mission

In the Tennessee county hardest hit by the opioid epidemic, UT Knoxville alumnus Dr. Geogy Thomas works to help the most innocent of victims—the babies addicted in the womb—along with their mothers and fathers.

Narcan branded naloxone nasal spray
Feature

Increasing Incidents

With the majority of drug overdose deaths attributed to opioids, UT Law Enforcement Innovation Center partnered with BlueCross Blue Shield of Tennessee Health Foundation to do something about it.

Dr. Shawn Hamm
Feature

Committed

The UTHSC Center for Addiction Science battles addiction through education, clinical care, research and outreach. “It’s a work in progress,” the center’s program director says.

Charme Allen
Feature

Standing Up to Big Pharma

UT alumna and Knox County District Attorney General Charme Allen has taken the war against the opioid epidemic to the courtroom – the civil one.

opioid fact sheet
Feature

Opioid Facts in Tennessee

Opioids, natural and synthetic, include: Opium, morphine, codeine, heroin, hydrocodone (vicodin), oxycodone (percocet), fentanyl, methadone.

Feature

Saving the Children

Each day, more than 1,600 American teenagers take a first step into a lifelong cycle of drug addiction. UT Martin alumni in Weakley County are fighting back.

Austin Holdsworth stands outdoors facing a sunset with a camera strap hanging off his right shoulder
Feature

He Had Enough

After UT Chattanooga student Austin Holdsworth lost his brother and friends to drug overdoses, he could not be quiet anymore.