Uncovering UT

The University of Tennessee is a vast array of buildings, courses, organizations and people – people most of all. It has more than 49,000 students in all of its campuses and more than 320,000 living graduates. Every year several thousand additional high school graduates and community college transfers show up on its campus ready for the UT experience. Many thousands of others who have not finished high school or community college await – often eagerly – their arrival in Knoxville.

The University is the flagship institution for higher education in the state of Tennessee and represents one of the state’s largest items in its annual budget. The University begins with its sprawling campus in Knoxville and spreads into every part of the state.

The University is famous for its football team, its women’s basketball program and its many connections with the nearby Oak Ridge National Laboratory. It has a world class library and an agricultural extension program that has gone far beyond the state’s borders. But there are many parts of the University that remain hidden from public view. They are important organizations that attract interesting and intelligent people.

This book, Uncovering UT, is devoted to bringing some of those people and organizations into view.

Uncovering UT is produced by the Journalism and Electronic Media 499 Business and Future of Journalism course (Fall 2015). This book is designed to give the seniors in the journalism program at UT a chance to produce an interactive, multimedia book that is focused around a central idea: what are some of the interesting things about the University of Tennessee that people might not know about. 

We selected 12 programs, centers or activities, but, of course, there are many, many others. Each of the chapters of this book was produced by a team of students, and the final part of each chapter tells you who those student are.

The book is part of the Tennessee Journalism Series, a set of interactive, multimedia books produced by the School of Journalism at the University of Tennessee.