Diversity Serves All Tennesseans
Tennessee’s Geier consent decree ended in September, shifting the legal landscape that for decades impelled public higher education in Tennessee to eliminate segregation. The Geier years gave us a solid framework for racial desegregation on the state’s college campuses, and now that the legal imperative is no longer active, UT is committed to continue to pursue diversity in its broadest definition, to embrace all of the bright and talented students of Tennessee.
It is important to note that a diverse citizenry does not automatically create diverse enrollments on our college campuses. We must work hard to ensure that all Tennessee students who want college degrees understand how the state’s leading public institution can support them in the pursuit of their dreams, no matter their financial, social, or cultural constraints.
Our goal at UT Knoxville is straightforward. We intend to apply all available resources to creating opportunities. We want to take major steps to remove barriers, particularly financial. Combined with Tennessee’s HOPE lottery scholarship, two new scholarships are making a UT education more accessible for more students. They are the Pledge and the Promise.
Dr. Loren Crabtree
The Tennessee Pledge Scholarship program guarantees that economically disadvantaged students (students whose family income levels are at or below about $27,000) can come to UT. Under this plan, which we launched last year, UT uses its scholarship resources, along with state lottery scholarship funding, to cover room, board, tuition, and fees. This plan makes a UT education an attainable goal for many who may have thought it was out of their reach. Eligible students can graduate in four years, debt free.
For the fall of 2007 we are proud to be launching Tennessee Promise—another innovative scholarship program designed to provide greater access to all Tennesseans and further diversify the campus. The Promise scholarship targets about 35 high schools statewide, many in the Memphis and Nashville metropolitan areas. The schools were chosen because their students face financial and other barriers to college enrollment. Students from these schools don’t often enroll at UT. Many of the students we attract will be the first generation of their families to attend college.
These opportunities are further diversifying our student body, and that’s good for everybody. UT will continue to be the academic home for students, faculty, and staff who represent a diverse spectrum—all ages and both sexes, many ethnicities, religions, disabilities, as well as both socioeconomic advantage and disadvantage.
A diverse campus setting provides our students a strong learning environment. By studying together among varied social, economic, political, scientific, and cultural perspectives, our students strengthen their critical thinking. They learn to coexist and cooperate, skills vital to the future of the globe. In this setting, they not only absorb today’s vast accumulation of knowledge, but also learn how to use timeless wisdom in applying that knowledge to their careers. UT graduates educated in diversity will see the big picture, practice discernment, and negotiate differences. They’ll be effective participants in local community and world culture alike.
Our dedication to attracting and retaining a diverse student body is not only the right course of action for the state’s land-grant institution, but it is the smart course of action to prepare our students to succeed in the 21st-century global society where they will take jobs and build lives. Any institution that does not respond to demographic trends will become less relevant to its citizenry. On behalf of our state and the nation, UT will enroll students from all of Tennessee’s diverse constituencies and see to it that they graduate and contribute to a stronger Tennessee.
A diverse campus setting where everyone finds support and feels welcome is UT’s continuing priority to prepare all the sons and daughters of Tennessee to live well now and for generations to come.
—Chancellor Loren Crabtree