40% chance of scattered thunderstorms HIGH LOW 87 73
The National review is really long today
Morgado is pumped to begin his career with the Phillies
Friday, July 9, 2010
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Issue 11
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Summer program honors standout students Kevin Letsinger News and Student Life Editor Over the course of the summer term, many younger students roam around with particular UT-hosted events. One of these events is the Business Education for Talented Students Program, or BETS. The BETS program is in its third year of operation, the first being held in the summer of 2008 with just ten high school participants. Tyvi Small, coordinator of diversity initiatives for the College of Business Administration, is getting ready to host the next round of applicants, due to arrive in Knoxville on Saturday. “The participants come from across the state and even a few out of state,” Small said. “These are diverse high school students with at least a 3.5 GPA who have written an essay and have been hand selected by a committee.” Only the top 20 to 30 applicants get an invitation to the summer program. This year’s average GPA hovers around 3.7. The program is new and can be attributed to the efforts
and hard work from the College of Business Administration. When Small first arrived at the university, no such program existed. “The dean said that he wanted diverse high school students across the state to be educated on different (types of) businesses,” Small said. “It is an outreach program for rising high school seniors who are all college bound and interested in business.” Small said that all of the faculty in the college are highly involved and will be teaching classes during the morning sessions while corporate partners are in place for the participating students to gain a real-life perspective. Suntrust Bank, Ruby Tuesday and even the city of Knoxville are participating this year. Referring to past participants, Small stated that they came in thinking they wanted to go into business and the program was able to show what exactly that entailed. The program essentially allows the students to narrow their interests in the realm of business opportunities. “We even offer programs on how to brand yourself for the students to apply later in life, regardless of what major they choose or what university they attend,” Small said.
The different workshops planned for the duration of the program are set up to present a plethora of skills for the participants to use in their futures. “The program is eight days long, where the students live on campus, eat in the cafeterias, everything a college student would do except attend a football game,” Small said. “From the first set of 10, four attended UT for business. Out of last year’s 20, 16 came to UT, so it has shown a return on the investment.” The program is made possible by the PepsiCo Foundation, the philanthropic anchor of PepsiCo. The foundation provides a grant for five years, so the participants have no out-of-pocket expenses except for the 20 dollars to hold their spot in the program. Small later said that if finances are an issue, the fee can be waived. According to a Tennessee Today press release, of the 28 attendees, 25 are from Tennessee, representing 13 high schools from the Knoxville and Memphis areas. The out-ofstate representation consists of a student attending from North Carolina and Georgia. The PepsiCo Foundation grant is $350,000, geared toward the college’s diversity efforts.
Alumni donates to Knox schools Staff Report
Tara Sripunvoraskul • The Daily Beacon
Alex Collier observes his handiwork for the final group project in the summer Art 103 class. The project was to create an inflatable object, and Collier chose a snail.
Shaw works to improve greenhouses Staff Report Growing plants requires attention, dedication and patience. But more than anything else, it requires the initial seed. The Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at UT provided the seed for the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga greenhouse to flourish and become an essential tool for students to learn and deepen their education. Joey Shaw, assistant professor of biological and environmental sciences, began working at UTC in 2005 and found the greenhouse in shambles. It was meant for teaching and research but was nonfunctioning. “When I came down to Chattanooga, it was a shock for me,” Shaw said. “The greenhouse was being used as a storage shed. It had asbestos and fewer than five living plants. It took me a couple of years to renovate it,
because I had to literally start from scratch.” Shaw received a grant from UTC to improve the greenhouse but needed tropical plants to achieve his goals. He wanted the Holt Hall greenhouse at UTC to serve as a learning tool for students and a suitable teaching environment for professors. Remembering his doctorate work at UT Knoxville and the vast array of plants the Fred Norris greenhouse held, Shaw went to his former professor and friend Ken McFarland, lecturer in biology and organizer of the Wildflower Pilgrimage, to ask for help. “He was very willing to help me stock the greenhouse to facilitate all the classes here,” Shaw said. “Greenhouses trade specimens like trading baseball cards, but we didn’t have anything to give to him. It was a truly generous act by him
and his colleagues.” McFarland donated a wide variety of plants, some from Europe, Asia and Africa. Shaw and McFarland agree that many of the exotic plants donated exhibit unique characteristics that are vital for teaching students and conducting research. “A lot of these plants are hard to find,” McFarland said. “You acquire them through other greenhouse universities. It’s a common practice. We have extras so other people can benefit from that.” Having been with UT Knoxville for more than 35 years, McFarland has been able to help many universities start their own greenhouse programs. The department has given plants to Appalachian State, Eastern Kentucky and Austin Peay. McFarland also goes to local elementary schools to do demonstrations and usually
leaves a plant behind. “It’s kind of a public service to local schools and universities,” McFarland said. “We enjoy showing kids how plants can influence their world.” McFarland’s donation of 55 potted plants and numerous cuttings from other plants jumpstarted UTC’s program, which now benefits more than 100 students each semester and many faculty members who use the greenhouse for research and teaching. “Ken was the primary reason the greenhouse looks green from the outside now,” Shaw said. “It allows us to have plants to show our students, which stimulates us as professors. Before, we had to get pictures online and project them. Now, we have something tangible to show students. It makes classes more interactive and learning so much more interesting.”
UT and the Knox County Schools will partner to improve the lives, and education, of children at one local school, thanks to a three-year pilot project being funded by UT alumnus and Doyle High School graduate (now South-Doyle High School) Randy Boyd. Boyd, founder and president and CEO of Radio Systems of Knoxville, has given $323,850 to UT’s College of Education, Health and Human Sciences to further Professor Bob Kronick’s work through the Full-Service Community School Collaborative Project. “An overriding theme of the Full-Service Community School Collaborative Project is that students who are hungry and are lacking in other basic needs are at a disadvantage in their learning process,” Kronick said. “By meeting the noncurricular needs of children and families, the full-service school ensures that learning will happen for all students in the school.” Knox County Schools officials say Pond Gap Elementary School will be the focus of this project for the coming academic year. Through this project, Pond Gap’s mission will be broadened to provide health, mental health and other services for students and families. The goal is that the school provides some basic care — providing meals, doing laundry, etc. — that families, for various reasons, are unable to provide for their children. Among the long-term goals of full-service schools: preventing crime, mental illness and poverty. “The Full Service Schools initiative seeks to ensure that students have their basic physical, emotional and health needs addressed so that they come to the classroom ready to learn at high levels,” said Jim McIntyre, superintendent of the Knox County Schools. “We are very thankful for Mr. Boyd’s investment in this initiative and believe it has enormous potential to enable increased student academic achievement in our high needs schools.” Although Kronick already has initiated several smaller-scale full-service projects in select Knox County Schools, and plans to continue them, this is the first significant, dedicated funding the effort has received. Some of the gift will be used to hire an after-school coordinator to be located in the chosen school. UT student volunteers and UT undergraduates enrolled in Kronick’s “Service Learning and the University Student” course will be key players in the project. Details of the special services that will be provided at Pond Gap are still being finalized. “The best teacher in the world can’t reach these children without help,” Kronick said. “Hence, school clinics are established and staffed by pre-med students. UT graduate students in school and mental health counseling also work in the school and referrals are made to outside agencies, when necessary. Boyd said his work with other education programs has convinced him that many student-success efforts come too late. “We realized we needed to reach our youth as early as possible to really make a difference,” Boyd said. “Dr. Kronick shared with me his vision for a full-service school, and I thought it was a very compelling, smart solution. It leverages the physical infrastructure already in place in the school buildings themselves. It leverages the talents of hundreds of students from UT, and it leverages many other community organizations. “If it works as we hope it will, I believe it is very scalable and very sustainable. The leadership provided by UT is the catalyst for this program; the passion of its students will make it successful. We can really transform not just the lives of the students, but whole communities through this initiative.” Bob Rider, dean of the College of Education, Health and Human Sciences, said the project is a very forward-thinking initiative. “Full-service school projects attempt to improve a child’s academic performance by attacking many of the outside forces that threaten to hinder it,” he said. “We’re excited to receive this gift to further our full-service school efforts. This is not an educational fad; it is a realistic, tactical approach to improving education in the 21st century.”