[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 3 (Thursday, January 27, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[Congressional Record: January 27, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
COMMEMORATING THE BICENTENNIAL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE
Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate
proceed to the immediate consideration of Senate Resolution 179, a
resolution to commend the University of Tennessee on its bicentennial
submitted earlier today by Senators Sasser and Mathews, that the
resolution be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider laid upon the
table, and that the preamble be agreed to.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the immediate
consideration of the resolution?
There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the
resolution.
Mr. SASSER. Mr. President, I rise today to submit a sense of the
Senate resolution commemorating the bicentennial of the University of
Tennessee. It is with great honor that I join my colleague from
Tennessee, Senator Mathews, along with all of the university's student,
faculty, staff and administrators, past and present, and distinguished
alumni, to honor UT on the occasion of this historic milestone.
The University of Tennessee is a great institution with a richly
textured heritage and a long record of outstanding achievements. From
its founding 200 years ago as Blount College in Knoxville, to its
status today as a major university with 42,000 students on four
campuses, UT has built and maintained a tradition of excellence,
innovation, ingenuity and public service. When I ponder the many
reasons I'm so proud to hail from the Volunteer State, the University
of Tennessee, its people and its proud past come swiftly to mind.
A great institution of higher education affords many gifts to the
citizens of its host State. To be sure, the greatest wealth flowing
from the University of Tennessee is represented in its graduates. As
former university president Thomas Humes said back in 1879,
``Tennessee's brightest jewels have been and will be its upright sons
and virtuous daughters, trained in mind and heart and body for their
work in life.'' For 200 years, our State has indeed been blessed with
an abundance of such jewels--polished with great care and diligence at
the University of Tennessee.
Mr. President, there is much I would like to say about the University
of Tennessee--its history, its personalities, its accomplishments. All
of the campuses in the UT system, young and old, have played an
invaluable role in providing our State and Nation with leaders in
government, science, medicine, agriculture, and the arts. They are each
full partners in a noble tradition and heritage.
But instead, I would like to share with my colleagues the wisdom
found in the University's bicentennial commemorative publication, ``The
Vision Lives On.'' I believe all who read it will understand why all of
us with roots in Tennessee feel so strongly about its flagship State
university. I ask that the text of ``The Vision Lives On'' be printed
in the Record immediately following Senator Mathew's remarks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. MATHEWS. Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleague Senator
Jim Sasser in commemorating the bicentennial of the University of
Tennessee.
The University of Tennessee was founded in 1794, 2 years prior to the
creation of that State of Tennessee. Since that time, the history of UT
has been intertwined with the history of our great State. Its first
board of trustees was comprised of three future Governors of Tennessee,
as well as both of Tennessee's first U.S. Senators, William Blount and
William Cocke.
The University of Tennessee is renowned for its tremendous research
performance. Spending for research exceeds $100 million annually, and
the university has achieved numerous technological and agricultural
advancements. The University of Tennessee is also recognized for its
outstanding programs in the areas of business, education, nursing,
pharmacy, engineering, communications, social work, and law.
The university maintains an outstanding research and library holding
which includes the presidential papers of Andrew Jackson, James K.
Polk, and Andrew Johnson; as well as the papers of the Pulitzer price
winning author of ``Roots,'' the late Alex Haley.
Since its founding, the University of Tennessee has been at the
forefront of education and leadership. The alumni rosters exceed
270,000, while distinguished graduates included former Senators Estes
Kefauver and Howard Baker, Jr.
For 200 years, the University of Tennessee has enjoyed the
designation as the academic flagship institution for the State of
Tennessee, influencing and enriching the quality of life of all
Tennesseans. Therefore, it gives me great pleasure today to recognize
the rich history and outstanding achievements of the University of
Tennessee. I would like to extend congratulations to the students,
alumni, faculty, staff, and administrators of this distinguished
institution, and offer my best wishes as they enter into their third
century of academic excellence.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
The Vision Lives On
the university of tennessee bicentennial--1794-1994
There is a timelessness here, a lingering presence that
hovers over stone stairwells and filters through leaded glass
panes, stirs the branches of an ancient magnolia, catches the
edge of a yellow page and turns backward, then leafs ahead.
Standing on the Hill, you sense it: histories intertwined,
new branches on the old tree. A young women glides up the
steps from Cumberland, her ascent slow but steady. She
carries a backpack. Her spiritual ancestors made the same
journey, dressed in white lawn carrying parasols. They
trained as teachers, as homemakers; this woman is a law
student, perhaps, or an architect, or an engineer.
South College, brick mellowed by a century of seasons,
holds its own secrets. Once it was a dormitory a warren of
tiny student rooms where gas light flickered and coal burned
in grates. Scientists work there now, eyes fixed on the
future, on a universe of dazzling possibilities.
Once the road below was a muddy track that led from a
frontier outpost on the edge of the unknown. Once cannon fire
echoed from nearby Fort Sanders; once soldiers camped on this
hillside. Lives changed forever on this rise of land. Once,
two hundred years ago a handful of pioneers decided their
fledging school had a future. They looked beyond the unpaved
streets and the uncharted forest and envisioned the possible:
a stronghold of knowledge, a proving ground for new
generations of leaders, a steady beacon of light in the
wilderness.
It was a vision sustained by courage, wisdom, often sheer
force of will in the years that followed. The college,
lacking leadership and funds, closed for 11 years in the
early nineteenth century; the Civil War closed it again
between 1862 and 1866. Designated Tennessee state university
in 1879, UT would wait another 24 years before the state
legislature offered any financial assistance. Two World Wars,
the Depression, the upheaval of the sixties, the economic
uncertainties of the present, have offered new challenges at
every stage of the University's development.
And at every new visionaries have appeared, each with a
clear picture of all that could be, all that must be. Their
presence lingers, their timeless voices blend: now stubborn,
now strident, exhorting compelling. The ascent, slow but
steady, continues. The muddle tract widens; the forest
recedes. From the Hill top, the view expands.
The vision lives on.
light in the wilderness (1794-1840)
Knoxville in the late eighteenth century was a frontier
town edged by montains and forests where Indians still
roamed. Amenities were scarce for the few hundred
inhabitants, although the settlement boasted seven taverns.
By 1794, it also had a college.
Blount College, an outgrowth of the seminary Presbyterian
minister Samuel Carrick had started in his Knoxville home,
was chartered on September 10 of that year. Named for
territorial governor William Blount, the institution was open
to ``Students of all denominations.'' Tuition was $8 per
session. The syllabus was classical, with an emphasis on
Latin and Greek.
The college's early history is a study in pioneer spirit.
James White, Knoxville's founder, provided a lot for a new
building at the corner of Clinch and Gay Streets in 1795.
Governor Blount's daughter, Barbara, was enrolled in
classes there in the early 1800s, and she was joined by four
other young women, Polly McClung, Jenny Armstrong, and Mattie
and Kitty Kain. Though the girls probably studied in the
preparatory department, their presence has led some
historians to name Blount the first coeducational college in
the nation.
Carrick himself was a rare blend of courage, wit, and
energy. He had founded two churches before opening his
school. Legend has it that he left his wife's burial to repel
an Indian attack. He taught all the classes, ran the
struggling college on a shoestring, and in 1803 turned an
attempt to close it down into an impromptu fundraiser. He
netted $1,000 and kept the doors open, skimping on his own
salary. When he died in 1809, the college owed him $87.82.
Carrick's death left East Tennessee College, as it had been
renamed in 1807, without leadership and on shaky financial
ground. The college closed until 1820. It reopened under the
guidance of Reverend David Sherman and operated in
conjunction with Hampden-Sydney Academy. In 1826, as fortunes
gradually improved, 40 acres were purchased west of town, and
by 1828, East Tennessee College had moved to the Hill.
The Reverend Charles Coffin, former president of
Greeneville College, led the school until 1833. He was
replaced briefly by James H. Piper, who resigned after one
year.
The expanding college had its critics, chief among them
local politicians like John Gunn, a candidate for the
legislature in 1829. He hoped to win votes from the rural
poor by condemning ``that building for the rich man's son * *
* this tomb of extravagance--this wild goose scheme * * *.''
The vision of another charismatic leader shaped this era in
UT history. Joseph Estabrook, named president in 1834,
brought stability as well as innovation to the college. He
organized the curriculum into regular classes, hired new
faculty members, built dormitories, and published the first
catalog. The first meeting of the Alumni Association was held
during his tenure. Under his leadership, East Tennessee
College became East Tennessee University in 1840.
a growing flame (1840-1879)
Estabrook looked to the day when the newly minted
university would be truly worthy of the name. He worked
tirelessly to raise academic standards, both for students and
faculty. He dreamed of abolishing the Preparatory Department
and founding a medical school.
The course Estabrook charted, with new emphasis on science
and on the training of teachers for the state's emerging
public education system, wavered after his resignation in
1850. The perennial problems of sporadic leadership and
inadequate funding plagued the University through the next
decade. Four presidents--W.B. Reese, Reverend George Cooke,
Reverend William Carnes, and Reverend J.J. Ridley--served
brief terms between 1850 and 1862.
The outbreak of the Civil War closed the University's doors
again in 1862. Confederate troops occupied the campus until
1863, when the Union army took up positions on the Hill in
the Battle of Fort Sanders.
Thomas Humes, who assumed the presidency in 1865, struggled
to restore the ravaged campus. Students helped to fill in
wartime trenches and to plant the trees which shade the Hill
today.
Seeds of academic change were also taking root. The Morrill
Land Grant Act of 1862 provided federal funds for at least
one college or university in each state whose primary object
was the teaching of agriculture and ``the mechanical arts.''
In 1869, East Tennessee University was named Tennessee's land
grant institution.
Meeting the stipulations of the Morrill Act occupied the
attention of administration and trustees in the decade that
followed. In keeping with the provision for military
training, the University was organized along military lines.
Cadets wore uniforms, lived in barracks, and drilled on a
parade field.
In the classroom, the classical syllabus yielded slowly to
the ``scientific study of agriculture'' and mechanics
mandated for land grant universities. But curriculum reform
had become a priority for many trustees. By 1879, agriculture
and ``mechanical philosophy'' had separate chairs, with a
provision for additional faculty and equipment. The trustees
also approved the establishment of medical and dental
departments through affiliation with the Nashville Medical
College and authorized the granting of advanced degrees. East
Tennessee University, now the University of Tennessee, was
poised for growth.
A VISION DEFINED (1879-1919)
The stirring rhetoric of the University's inauguration in
1879 heralded ``a new era'' both for the state and its chosen
school. The immediate outlook, however, was not so promising.
Growing opposition to President Humes, criticized as an old-
line classicist and one-time Union sympathizer, came to a
head with his forced resignation in 1883. Once again, the
University was without a strong leader. It would be four
years before a new president was found.
Charles W. Dabney, named UT's 11th president in 1887, saw
clearly the path that would lead the University into the
twentieth century. Former director of the agricultural
experiment station in North Carolina, he had recently
completed a Ph.D. in chemistry at the University of
Goettingen, in Germany. He was 32, energetic, and convinced
that the future of Tennessee depended on the education of her
youth ``in the sciences and the useful arts.'' Dabney
reorganized the curriculum to stress science and
engineering, replaced much of the faculty, and abolished
the Preparatory Department and the military regime. The
entire University was opened to women in 1893, and any
objections were silenced with Dabney's succinct
pronouncement: ``The ladies have not only come to the
University, but they have come to stay.''
Dabney's achievements were dramatic and far-reaching. The
first direct appropriation of funds from the state
legislature to the University was make during his
administration. He oversaw the founding of the law school and
a summer school that was the largest teacher training
institute in the South, tripling of enrollment, and the
building of dormitories, a library, and a gymnasium. His
national reputation as an administrator and agriculturist won
him the appointment of Assistant Secretary of Agriculture in
1894, a post he filled while continuing as UT president. When
Dabney left the University in 1904, it bore little
resemblance to the small, shabby college he had inherited.
The promised ``new era'' had truly begun.
Brown Ayres, Dabney's successor, built on this strong
foundation. He recruited experienced faculty and
administrators like Harcourt Morgan to head the Agricultural
Experiment Station and Theodore Glocker to run the new School
of Commerce. He raised admissions and academic standards and
gained accreditation from the Association of American
Universities. Both enrollment and faculty size tripled during
his tenure. The Medical and Dental Colleges were moved to
Memphis and merged officially with the University.
But it was Ayres' vision of a state university supported by
state funds that resulted in the most significant achievement
of his administration. Marshalling the persuasive talents of
his colleagues Philander Claxton, later U.S. Commissioner of
Education, and Seymour Mynders, State Superintendent of
Public Instruction, he lobbied the state legislature to
increase appropriations for the University and for all public
schools in Tennessee. UT received its first $1 million
appropriation in 1917, and began a building campaign that
included the landmark Ayres Hall.
the beacon widens (1919-1969)
Harcourt Morgan, Ayres' successor, worked to increase
legislative funding and to extend the University's statewide
presence. Hall-Moody Institute, later UT Martin, came into
the UT family at this time. A graduate school of Medical
Sciences was established in Memphis.
Morgan won the support of gubernatorial candidate Austin
Peay in a famous 20-minute meeting that stretched to an
entire day. Peay remained a forceful ally during his three
terms, garnering $2,500,000 in building funds for UT.
Despite the severe cutbacks of the Depression, Morgan kept
the University moving forward. Agricultural experiment
stations increased in number, as did agricultural extension
offices. A division of continuing education offered evening
courses, correspondence courses, and library and audiovisual
aids. When Morgan resigned in 1934 to become a director of
TVA, his vision of a statewide university had begun to
take shape.
James Dickason Hoskins, who guided the University through
the latter years of the Depression and World War II, brought
the fierce loyalty of a native son to the job. An 1891
graduate of UT, he had served as professor and dean before
becoming president.
Hoskins' organization of alumni was one of the key
achievements of his administration. Encouraged by the
president's enthusiasm, alumni secretary Victor M. Davis
worked to build a strong base of alumni support that
continues through the present day.
The University that President C.E. Brehm inherited in 1946
was experiencing growing pains. A wave of returning veterans
had swelled enrollment to an all-time high of more than
10,000. Expansion of the physical plant and development of
the academic program were urgent priorities. Brehm, former
Dean of the College of Agriculture, set about finding the
money to meet these pressing needs.
Legislative appropriations increased dramatically during
Brehm's administration. New building burgeoned on each of the
three campuses. Knoxville added McCord Hall, Glocker, Claxton
and Taylor buildings, Carolyn P. Brown University Center, and
UT Hospital, which opened in 1956. Martin built its
Administration and Agriculture buildings, and Memphis added
new facilities for dentistry, cancer research, and pathology.
Graduate programs were expanded and new academic departments
created, including fine arts, journalism, and special
education. The Tennessee School of Social Work in Nashville
became part of the University in 1951. In the public service
arena, the Municipal Technical Advisory Service was created
to provide specialized help to cities throughout the state.
The land grant college mandate to provide education to all
qualified students regardless of race or color had been an
issue since the nineteenth century. African-American students
in the past had been offered ``separate but equal''
facilities through arrangements with Fisk University and
Knoxville College and later at a second land grant college,
Tennessee Agricultural and Industrial, created in 1912.
Partial integration at UTK was achieved in 1952 with the
enrollment of African-American students in graduate programs;
Lillian Jenkins was the first to receive a degree in 1954.
Extracurricular activities, both athletic and cultural,
thrived. UT football, nationally prominent in the pre-war era
under General Robert Neyland, again took the spotlight with a
national championship in 1951. The Carousel Theatre, a joint
effort of the University and the community, opened the same
year.
Brehm presided over a period of record growth and change in
UT's history. Enrollment doubled during his administration,
state appropriations increased 210 percent, and alumni
membership quadrupled. But the wave had not yet crested.
The Baby Boom generation was about to enter college, and
new challenges lay ahead.
Andrew D. Holt, UT's 16th president, was well matched to
the task at hand. He had served as UT vice president under
Brehm and was former president of the Tennessee Education
Association. Holt had traveled the state raising grassroots
support for UT and had cultivated a network of advocates
among alumni and legislators alike. As president, he
assembled a strong management team and encouraged his
deputies to ``spread their wings.''
The results were impressive.
Academic Vice President Herman Spivey urged an expansion of
graduate programs and research. Ties with Oak Ridge National
Laboratory were strengthened with the help of a grant from
the Ford Foundation. Distinguished professorships were
created on all campuses. Graduate enrollment quadrupled; the
number of master's degree programs grew from 79 to 117.
Research dollars skyrocketed to an all-time high of more than
$11 million by 1970. The Space Institute at Tullahoma was
founded in 1964. A definitive benchmark in this period of
academic improvement was the long-awaited founding of a
chapter of Phi Beta Kappa in January 1965.
Another building boom was under way, led by Vice President
for Development Edward Boling. A major urban renewal
acquisition of 135 acres west of the campus provided land for
new buildings including Hodges Library, McClung Tower, and
the Communications and Extension Building. Boling lobbied
successfully both for vastly increased state funding and for
a new level of private gifts. Tom Black Track, Stokely
Athletics Center, and Clarence Brown Theatre were funded in
large part by private donors.
Statewide expansion of the University culminated with the
merger with the University of Chattanooga and the formation
of the University of Tennessee System in 1968. Primary
campuses at Knoxville, Chattanooga, Martin, and Memphis were
each to be headed by their own chancellors and unified by a
central statewide administration headquartered in Knoxville.
The Holt era also marked the end of segregation on UT
campuses. The first black undergraduates enrolled in 1961. An
equal opportunity employment policy was established in 1965.
Early in Holt's administration, the University participated
in a self-study designed to target areas for improvement and
set goals for the future. The study's results were published
in a 300-page document entitled Reaching for Greatness. As UT
celebrated its 175th birthday in 1969, the reach seemed less
daunting than ever before.
focus on excellence f1970-1993
President Edward Boling's 18-year administration began on a
stormy note. The student-faculty protest over his appointment
centered on the Board of Trustees' autonomy in making such
decisions without consulting the faculty. But it was
symptomatic of a nationwide spirit of dissent and challenge
of authority. The Vietnam War was raging; on other campuses,
like Kent State University in Ohio, protests had tragic
consequences.
Boling initiated meetings with faculty and students in an
attempt to improve communication and suggested that the Board
admit students to non-voting positions on various standing
committees. In 1974, Governor Winfield Dunn signed
legislation providing for a voting student member of the
Board of Trustees.
The dream of establishing a Nashville campus was realized
in 1971, when the Nashville Extension Center became the
University of Tennessee at Nashville. It would operate as
part of the statewide system until 1979, when it merged with
Tennessee State University.
Growth and change on all campuses continued under Boling's
leadership. The Institute for Public Service was founded in
1971, incorporating many of the services the University has
provided to city and county governments as well as business
and industry into one centrally administered entity. At
Knoxville, a College of Veterinary Medicine was founded, as
well as a School of Nursing. A College of Community and
Allied Health Professions was established at the Medical
Units in Memphis; clinical education centers opened at
Chattanooga, Knoxville, and Jackson. Following the enactment
of the Governor's Better Schools Program, the first Center
and Chairs of Excellence were created.
Boling's reputation as a fundraiser reached new heights in
1980, when the ``Tennessee Tomorrow'' campaign concluded with
more than $57 million, far exceeding its $35 million goal.
The campaign, organized by Vice President Joseph Johnson, was
the first major development effort the University had ever
undertaken. A significant portion of the money raised was
earmarked for improving academics, attracting and retaining
high quality faculty, and increasing student aid.
Former Governor Lamar Alexander succeeded Boling in 1988.
Improving public education had been a priority during his
governorship. As University President, Alexander lobbied
vigorously for aggressive recruiting of Tennessee's brightest
students and for the innovative programs and scholarships to
retain them. A five-year plan was developed in 1990 with
special emphasis on educating the work force of the new
decade. The Whittle Scholars Program, funded by UTK alumnus
Chris Whittle, was inaugurated in 1990. The full scholarships
with an additional stipend for a year of study abroad now
attract the cream of Tennessee's high school graduates
each year.
The Academy for Teachers of Science and Mathematics, co-
sponsored by the University, Martin Marietta, the U.S.
Department of Energy, and the Tennessee Department of
Education, was founded during Alexander's administration.
UT received national recognition for its academic and
research programs. The University ranked among the top 50
research institutions in the United States in 1989. In 1990,
UT was listed for the first time in the prestigious Fiske
Guide to Colleges.
Alexander resigned when he was appointed to serve as
Secretary of Education by President George Bush in 1991.
The appointment of Joseph Johnson as UT president in 1991
was the crown of a long and distinguished career with the
University. A 1958 graduate, Johnson had served as special
assistant to Andy Holt and later as vice president for
development and as chancellor at Memphis. He had helped to
design the statewide system and had participated in an era of
unprecedented growth at UT. His encyclopedic knowledge of the
institution and personal acquaintance with much of its vast
population made him a leader uniquely equipped to guide the
University into its third century.
The faltering economy of the early 1990s presented a
formidable challenge to Johnson and his administration. Like
many of his predecessors, he was confronted with the task of
doing more with significantly less.
While working to cut costs and to reallocate resources,
Johnson and his staff focused on specific initiatives to
serve students better, help the state's local governments and
businesses, improve public education at every grade level,
and to increase the University's efficiency.
As UT enters its bicentennial year, progress toward these
goals continues. The signs of achievement are evident on
every campus and in the institutes.
At Knoxville, a new science and engineering building, 60
percent of which will be designated for research and
laboratory use, is scheduled for completion in 1995. The new
graduate program in business has been ranked in the nation's
top 12 percent. The Academy for Teachers of Science and
Mathematics received national recognition. The College of
Education was awarded a grant from Philip Morris Inc. and a
mandate to provide a national model for training teachers and
administrators. This innovative project is now in its final
phase.
At Memphis, the colleges of medicine and pharmacy were
ranked in the top ten of ``America's Best Graduate Schools''
by U.S. News and World Report. UT Memphis was selected as one
of 16 medical centers to conduct a national study of women's
health problems. The college of Pharmacy received a U.S.
Public Health Service grant for a Minority Center of
Excellence to attract and retain black students.
At Martin, the new Children's Center, a state of the art
childcare facility, has opened. Graduation rates rose by five
percent, enrollment increased, and a new addition to the
library has begun. The NASA Regional Teaching Resource
Center, the first in Tennessee, opened.
At Chattanooga, the Fellowship of Southern Writers
established its archive in UTC's Lupton Library. This
distinguished organization includes such luminaries as Eudora
Welty and Shelby Foote. Minority enrollment increased, and a
number of innovative programs aimed at reaching prospective
students and retaining undergraduates were established and
developed.
The UT Space Institute continued its groundbreaking
research in such areas as energy technology and laser use in
outer space.
In the Institute of Agriculture, the future of farming is
the focus of the Agri-21 Farming Systems Program. Developed
by the Agricultural Extension Service, the program will use
40 farms in Tennessee as test sites for experiments in
sustainable agriculture over the next decade. Construction is
due to begin soon on a $38.5 million research complex on the
Agriculture campus. The College of Veterinary Medicine's
efforts to recruit more in-state students resulted in a 24
percent increase in Tennessee applicants.
The Institute for Public Service and Division of Continuing
Education introduced new interactive classrooms to four
Tennessee cities. Environmental issues were emphasized in
programs designed to help leaders in government and industry
reduce hazardous waste.
a light to the future
The expanded view now visible from the University's
campuses did not simply materialize over the centuries. The
horizon cleared slowly, often painfully, and at great cost.
The five pupils who made their way to a wooden house on Gay
Street in 1794 took the first faltering steps on an epic
journey, an odyssey that the University's 42,000 students
continue today. The pioneers who chartered Blount College and
willed it into life share a certain kinship with those who
guide UT into the next century. Financial hardship,
competition, a new set of challenging questions link today's
leaders with the Carricks and the Blounts, the Estabrooks and
Dabneys. Their lingering presence evokes struggle and
strength, continuity, progress. Their voices speak of a
rickety little schoolhouse with a future, a light to be
nurtured, a vision undimmed by the passage of years.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the resolution.
The resolution (S. Res. 179) was agreed to.
The preamble was agreed to.
The resolution with its preamble is as follows:
S. Res. 179
Whereas, under a succession of able leaders including its
current president, Dr. Joseph E. Johnson, The University of
Tennessee has become one of the nation's major institutions
of higher education in endowments, research funding, and
library holdings; and
Whereas, the University has produced distinguished alumni
who have achieved national fame in the arts, sciences,
medicine, nursing, pharmacy, education, engineering,
business, communications, social work, librarianship, law,
the military and sports; and
Whereas, those alumni include in their numbers one Nobel
Laureate, six Rhodes Scholars, four Pulitzer Prize winners,
two National Book Award winners, one justice of the U.S.
Supreme Court, nine U.S. senators, and one chief of staff to
the President of the United States; and
Whereas, in the field of athletic competition, the Lady
Vols basketball team has won three national championships,
the Vol track program three national championships, and the
Vol football and swimming teams one national championship
each; and
Whereas, 1994 marks the 200th anniversary of the founding
of Tennessee's flagship state university: Now, therefore, be
it
Resolved, That it is the sense of the Senate that--this
distinguished body, recognizing the rich history and
tremendous achievements of The University of Tennessee over
the past 200 years, extends heartiest congratulations to the
students, alumni, faculty, staff, and administrators of this
great institution on the occasion of its bicentennial, and
offers best wishes for continued success in its third
century.
____________________