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Alda reaches finals of qualifier before falling
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
PAGE 6 T H E
E D I T O R I A L L Y
Issue 10
PUBLISHED SINCE 1906 http://dailybeacon.utk.edu
Vol. 114
I N D E P E N D E N T
S T U D E N T
Eminem continues to clean out his closet PAGE 5
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UT on the road to finding new president Robby O’Daniel
Editor-in-Chief After constant reiteration from UT Interim President Jan Simek that he will not stay on as system president past his twoyear stint, the university is now on the road to finding a permanent replacement. Gov. Phil Bredesen challenged the UT Board of Trustees at the board’s June meeting to improve the vetting process of candidates. “I have been here through two (presidents) and various interim owners of that position, one of whom I asked to leave and as some of you may remember, another of whom I was frankly sorry to see leave,” Bredesen said. He said the situations could have been avoided with a deeper background check into the candidates. “In the case of both of the presidents that have left while I’ve been here, there have been issues surrounding what they brought to the university in terms of history and some issues,” he said. “It is striking to me that in both cases there was no lack of knowledge in other places about any of these particular issues that we were currently unable to discern in the process.” Bredesen encouraged an independent way of verifying facts outside of the search firm hired, who he said would have a bias for getting the search over and done with. “I think that clearly the process in vetting the candidates, we have come up a little short,” he said. He said he knew the job was difficult because laws dictate that the search must be transparent and public, but the presidency is a well-paid job at an important institution. And the search must be perfected in order to correct past mistakes. “(The university) has been slowed up and damaged in some ways by what has happened with a couple of the presidents
we’ve had here,” he said. Despite his suggestion, Bredesen assured that he would not get personally involved in the search. “Once again, I am not going to stick my finger in that process in any way,” he said. “If there’s any responsibility that any Board of Trustees has, picking the CEO has to be at the top of the list always.” The UT Board of Trustees approved at their June meeting compensation for the next president, including a base salary of $420,000 to $450,000, a housing allowance of $20,000 and an expense allowance between $12,000 and $16,000. At the Executive and Compensation Committee meeting on June 23, members disagreed over whether it was good to define the salary before the search. One member said setting the salary before the search handcuffs the university, discouraging star candidates from applying and narrowing the search’s scope. But it was also said at the meeting that a consultant said the president’s recommended compensation package had an adequate range and it’s better to put “all the cards on the table at the front.” Plus the cost of living in the state of Tennessee, when compared to other states, is lower, so lower salaries than for the same position in universities in other regions would be acceptable. At the UT Presidential Search Committee and Search Advisory Council’s first meeting on June 28, committee chair James Murphy outlined the timeline for the search. The next step is a July 8 meeting in Nashville where the committee will approve specifications of the position of the presidency and suggest the number of candidates to consider. This all leads up to the projected goal of naming a new system president in October. Murphy encouraged members to use faculty as it was a “rich
resource” in the past when conducting searches, since faculty members work with people all across the country in academia. In addition, he said it was important to verify everything that members hear about candidates and to look past bias, as some will have negative comments for one candidate because of a bias to see another candidate gain the position. Search firm Witt/Keiffer’s Dennis Barden said it was vital also to analyze negative comments about candidates and look at all sides of past decisions they made in other capacities. “One of the things that these two committees is going to be faced with is figuring out what is actually a negative comment, and what is actually an explication of leadership,” he said. “Because people who are leaders have to make difficult decisions, and those difficult decisions inevitably anger people whose oxen are gored.” Simek said a sign of the university’s instability in the president’s office is that he’s been with the university for 26 years and been through at least six different presidents, including himself. “This is, on the one hand, a momentous decision that we are beginning a process to make for our university,” Simek said. “Even a little bit of luck, at this point, I think will set us on a course for the next decade.” Even with past setbacks, Simek said the university was in prime position now. “We have resolved a number of issues that have plagued the institution the past four or five years: questions of authority, questions of responsibility, at all levels, not just at the president’s level but in how the president relates to the campuses, how campus officers operate and how they relate to the president’s office and the system,” he said. “I think we’ve come a long ways toward understanding the relationships and because of that, I think we have a great chance of success here.”
Health Center chancellor appointed Andrea Castillo Staff Writer
Kevin Letsinger News and Student Life Editor
Tara Sripunvoraskul • The Daily Beacon
Gallery 1010 hosted First Friday, a night dedicated to arts, on July 2. First Friday happens the first Friday of every month, and there are galleries throughout downtown Knoxville and surrounding areas that participate.
Steve J. Schwab, M.D., was recommended for election by UT Interim President Jan Simek to serve as chancellor for the UT Health Science Center. After the committee for the UTHSC, in conjunction with the annual meeting of the UT Board of Trustees, approved Simek’s recommendation, they forwarded it to the full Board of Trustees, who also approved the recommendation. Schwab, prior to joining the UTHSC as executive dean of the College of Medicine in 2006, also served as interim dean and chief clinical officer of the Medical College of Georgia, where he was also a regents professor and chairman of the Department of Medicine. Before that, he was a professor and vice chair of the Department of Medicine at Duke University. In addition, he was actively involved in administration and clinical practice, as well as having a long history in renal research
as a National Institute of Health-funded principal investigator. Schwab’s mission is to improve the health of the local, regional and global community and plans to do so by helping move the Health Science Center to a top quartile performance in its four missions. According to a Tennessee Today press release, Simek believes that, under Schwab’s leadership, the UTHSC will continue to expand its outreach and service to the community, in addition to increasing research capacity and sustaining its long-term commitment to educating competent, caring health care professionals to serve the region and global community. “Schwab demonstrated his commitment to thinking strategically, responding openly and acting in a collaborative and decisive fashion,” Simek said. “His management skills coupled with his ability to innovate and build strong, mutually beneficial bonds ... are tremendous assets that he brings to his role as chancellor.” “It is an honor to be selected to serve as the leader for the UT Health Science Center
team,” Schwab said. “We have much to do to meet our potential, but we are well positioned to move forward in our four missions of education, research, clinical care and service.” Schwab said he is ready for this position and, in addition to serving as the UTHSC interim chancellor for the last eight months, his experience as executive dean of the College of Medicine has provided critical experience. “I have a clear understanding of the demands and responsibilities of this position, and I am ready and eager to accept this leadership post,” Schwab said. Schwab also mentioned that in 2011, the Health Science Center will celebrate its centennial year. During these years, UTHSC has secured a position as a large academic health science center. Its six colleges: allied health, dentistry, graduate health science, medicine, nursing and pharmacy span the state on its primary campus locations (Memphis, Knoxville and Chattanooga). He said that UTHSC is ideally positioned to continue and advance its four missions.
Academy educates girls about transportation safety Staff Reports “It’s a week-long academy to get girls introduced into transportation-related careers using math and science,” explained Deanna Flinchum, research director at the UT Center for Transportation. “I’ve been having a lot of fun. This whole experience has been great,” participant Isabelle Defreese said. “I definitely want to do it again next year. I have learned a lot.” The Transportation Academy, run by the Center for Transportation Research, teaches girls about transportation safety and careers in fun ways using items such as remote control cars and a driving simulator. Behind each activity is a lesson. “We had them drive the course first just to get used to the simulator, then we had them do it again except while texting. Then we plotted the data to see how well they drove
compared to the first time,” said Carrie Groseclose, a counselor and transportation engineer masters student at UT. “We are just trying to enforce the idea that texting while driving is not a good thing, and it is a safety issue.” “I kept running into trees and stuff, and I went off the road, and I think if there were other drivers on the road, I would have been a really big hazard to them,” Defreese said. “It was much harder,” said Rachel Ryan, another participant. “I kept going off the road, and it was just a big distraction.” Girls also learned the lesson of wearing a seatbelt by meeting “The Convincer.” “They said it was to convince you to wear a seatbelt,” participant Keylee Troutt said. “So you can feel the impact, and that was just at 5 mph, and it hurt really bad when you lifted up. So that was to make you think if you were going way faster how it would feel if you got in a car wreck.”
All week long, girls traveled to transportation hubs such as the Tennessee Department of Transportation and the McGhee-Tyson Airport, where women in the field gave them a behind-the-scenes look. “We’ve pulled females that are in the profession now to work with the girls and I think that shows them that, yes, it is possible to come into this field,” Flinchum said. “I had no idea there were so many women,” Ryan said. “They are doing a great job. This is normally a man’s job.” The girls came to the academy not knowing much about the interesting jobs in the world of transportation and the driving force women have in it, but now they know and realize the world is open to them too. “This has been a lot of fun,” Ryan said. “I have learned a lot. I am definitely going to consider some of the jobs they have showed me.” The academy’s home base is the UT
Conference Center Building, but activities will take the participants to the Life Development Center ropes course in Anderson County, TDOT’s command center and traffic monitoring station in east Knoxville, the flight training school followed by a behind-the-scenes tour of McGhee-Tyson Airport, a trip on a rail car, the UT driving simulator lab and Neyland Stadium. The academy is made possible through a partnership with Knox County Schools and a U.S. Department of Transportation grant named after Garrett Morgan, an AfricanAmerican engineer who invented the first traffic signal and serves as the inspiration for the U.S. DOT program that encourages students to pursue careers in transportation. The academy is organized and sponsored by the CTR and the Southeastern Transportation Center. UT is also a sponsor. For more information on the academy, visit http://stc.utk.edu/transportationacademy/.