method - UTC's College of Arts & Sciences

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FALL 2018 A MAGAZINE FOR UTC’S COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES ALUMNI & FRIENDS

CHANGING STAGE CULTURE WETLANDS BECOME OUTDOOR LAB MAKING MUSIC WITH LIGHT The College of Arts and Sciences broadens student learning by emphasizing EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING— learning that involves research, internship opportunities, study abroad, and community collaborations.

Lupton Hall Renovation Renovation of Lupton Hall, formerly known as the Lupton Library, is scheduled to start early next year.

Designs are underway that will modernize both the exterior and interior of the building to create a fully renovated, state-of-the-art learning environment. The “new” Lupton Hall is scheduled to open in the winter of 2020. Plans for Lupton’s three stories call for it to become an academic center for the College of Arts and Sciences, housing classroom space, the CAS dean’s office and the CAS Student Success Center.

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Table of Contents 04 Message from the Dean 06 News & Notes

UTC Theatre Company Recognized Taking the ‘Ick’ Out of Ichthyology Making Music from Light Intentional Observation Students Document Lives of Local African-American Women 20 Urban Opportunity 24 Southern Writers Return for SouthWord Literary Festival 08 10 14 16 18

26 Accolades

28 Learning & Leading 30 Building a Better Chattanooga 32 Alumnus Takes Down Aryan Brotherhood of Texas

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We are proud, indeed, of the exceptional work of our faculty and what they provide to our students in the form of an outstanding education.

What a year it’s been! Under the leadership of Dr. George Hynd, who served as dean this past academic year and who will serve the institution as interim provost in the year ahead, our students and faculty continued to excel in ways that highlight the outstanding education we provide in the arts, humanities, mathematics, social, behavioral, and natural sciences. Like my colleagues all across the College of Arts and Sciences, I appreciate Dr. Hynd as a positive and enthusiastic leader and supporter of our work.

As the largest college on UTC’s campus, our 260 faculty educate and mentor students in more than 70 highly acclaimed undergraduate and graduate degree programs. Indeed, we are proud of the fact that many of our faculty and academic programs are nationally recognized. The courses and programs we offer in the College of Arts and Sciences provide a strong academic foundation for our students, one that prepares them for a lifetime of growth and learning, as we likewise serve students in the professional and technical degree programs offered by other colleges on campus. Through our 13 academic departments, we foster our students’ critical thinking skills, problem-solving skills, skills that are required to collaborate across and with diverse groups, and communication skills—verbal and written—that employers of our graduates so highly value. We are very proud of our graduates! They reflect the quality education that we provide.

In the pages that follow, you will find representative activities and initiatives that demonstrate a broad array of what we offer our students, our academic community and, by extension, the Chattanooga region. In addition to representative accomplishments of our UTC Theatre Company, you will find in these pages that our students are engaged in an incredible variety of activities beyond the walls of our classrooms and outside the borders of our campus. Our students are studying fish that inhabit the Tennessee River and other inland waterways. They are creating music with light. One of our alumna was named the new CEO of the Chattanooga Regional Manufacturer’s Association.

And one alumnus confronts the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas. Read, be inspired, and connect with us in the weeks, months, and years ahead!

We are proud, indeed, of the exceptional work of our faculty and what they provide to our students in the form of an outstanding education.

Celebrate these accomplishments with us. Visit our homepage from time to time and keep up with what’s happening in the College of Arts and Sciences. If this past year is an indicator of what lies ahead, we can only imagine the opportunities and achievements that await in 2018-19!

our mission

Provide an environment for intellectual curiosity and a foundation for life-long learning, thinking, reflection and growth. Equip students with transferable skills that are needed to adapt and succeed in a rapidly evolving world.

Advance cultural and intellectual diversity, new knowledge through research and creative activities and integrated service as a part of personal and social responsibility.

our values

Our values are collaboration, inclusion, creativity and innovation. The College of Arts & Sciences embraces cultural and intellectual diversity, practices innovative teaching and mentorship, provides a foundational education that leads to a life enriched by continuous learning, scholarly research and creative expression and engagement with the Chattanooga community.

our vision

The College of Arts & Sciences’ enduring vision is to transform lives through a modern liberal arts and sciences education.

Message

Dean

from the

Joe Wilferth Dean College of Arts & Sciences

Publication Resources

EDITOR Dr. Joe Wilferth College of Arts and Sciences ASSISTANT EDITOR Paul Clark Office of Development and Alumni Affairs CREATIVE DIRECTOR Stephen Rumbaugh GRAPHIC DESIGNER Meghan Phillips WRITERS Laura Bond, Sarah Joyner, Shawn Ryan CONTRIBUTING WRITER Valisa Griffin PHOTOGRAPHER Angela Foster CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS Jaimie Davis, Taylor Slifko

Students work in Dr. Dominique Belanger’s Light and Life physics lab in Grote Hall.

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arts sciences

news & notes features

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UTC Theatre Co. recognized for diversity of playwrights in season productions Sarah Joyner

T

he International Centre for Women Playwrights (ICWP) recently awarded their 50/50 Applause Award to UTC Theatre Company.

According to ICWP, theater companies honored with the award support and recognize women playwrights equally to their male playwright counterparts. They bring female-written productions to stage just as often as they produce male-written works.

UTC Theatre Co. was one of 60 international theater companies to receive the award, which is not restricted to universities. Any theater company worldwide can be considered.

The award is season specific, but UTC Theatre Co. makes an effort every season to bring a diverse selection of productions to campus, says Gaye Jeffers, associate professor in directing and theater history in the Department of Performing Arts.

“We feel that it is important to support the voice of women playwrights and to promote the stories of women as lead characters,” Jeffers says.

Jeffers, along with Steve Ray, chair of the Division of Theatre, direct UTC Theatre Co.’s productions.

Their 2016-17 season included Eurydice by Sarah Ruhl and Luna Gale by Rebecca Gilman.

Ruhl’s Eurydice adds a modern twist to the classic Greek myth of Orpheus by retelling the story through his wife’s eyes.

Gilman’s Luna Gale tells the story of Caroline, a social worker from Iowa, as she tries to find the best home for six-month old baby, Luna Gale. Choosing between the baby’s drug-addicted parents or her evangelical grandmother should be easy until Caroline unveils truths that turn her decision into a moral dilemma.

UTC Theatre Co.’s most recent 2017–18 season was diverse with Silent Sky by Lauren Gunderson and Elemeno Pea by Molly Smith Metzler.

Gunderson’s Silent Sky follows early 19th century astronomer Henrietta Leavitt as she struggles for visibility and recognition in the maledominated science.

Metzler’s Elemeno Pea is a story of two sisters enjoying the lavish beach estate owned by the youngest sister’s boss. The comedy explores themes of ambition, regret and how choices can alter a person beyond recognition.

“The lack of women in theater and film has long been an area that needs to be addressed. The majority of playwrights and directors in theater and film are predominately men,” says Jeffers.

“To push for voices to be heard that are more representative of the community as a whole has been a personal goal since I came to UTC in 2007. I consider every effort a step in changing the culture.”

Opposite: Eurydice 2016 Above: Silent Sky 2017 Below: Elemeno Pea 2018

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ire-engine red life vests around their chests, three UTC students stand in a boat on the Tennessee River. On opposite sides of the boat, two of them hoist long, orange-plastic poles with a baremetal pole connecting them at the front end. The other holds a fishing net, also on a long pole.

Every couple of minutes, the metal pole is dipped into the water at the front of the boat, then pilot Rob Mottice flips a switch on a rectangular box—he calls it the “magic box”—whose face is covered with switches, knobs and lights. The sound of a small generator kicks in and, a few seconds later, fish float to

the water and out to the boat to examine the fish in the cooler.

Blue herons, buzzards, ducks and osprey wheel through the sky as the students examine the various fish and Schorr throws questions at them. What kind of fish is that? What is its Latin name? What are the identifying features of this species?

There are smallmouth, spotted and rock bass, as well as bluegill sunfish, catfish and—somewhat shocking and exciting to the students—an eel-like chestnut lamprey. Once the questionand-answer is over and the fish have been ID’d, measured and examined to see if they have any anomalies such as fin rot, spinal

Mark Schorr, Ph.D. Professor of Biology, Geology and Environmental Science

taking the ‘ick’ out of

the top of the river, stunned by a zap! of electricity. The students scoop them up in nets and put them in a 3½-foot, water-filled cooler. Within a few seconds, the fish start to twitch and flutter, then swim again.

After about 20 minutes on the river, the boat pulls into shore, where Dr. Mark Schorr, UTC professor in biology, geology and environmental science, and a group of other students—each in chest-high waders—squelch across a muddy “beach,” into

scoliosis or excessive parasites, they’re released back into the river.

Schorr teaches an ichthyology course each spring, combining classroom lectures with two visits to the Tennessee River so students can “dive” into what they’ve learned. When the course is finished for the semester, he hopes students leave with “an appreciation for science, to have a fundamental understanding of the biology, the anatomy, the physiology of fishes and know

Mark Schorr’s students get up close and personal with fish in the Tennessee River Shawn Ryan

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“Any of these students could, one day, be one of OUR next state or federal fish biologists, So it’s good to give them as much instruction and training as possible. Not every university has this sort of program.”

Rob Mottice Tennesee Aquarium 12 | method

something about their evolutionary history and know how they are important in the fact that how they’re related to other animals.

“We talk about their evolution, but also how fishes have been important to our culture in terms of recreational and commercial subsistence.”

Students in his ichthyology class are “learning techniques that biologists use in the field,” Schorr explains a few days later in his Holt Hall office. “I try to teach them in the most practical way I know that relates to what I was taught and what I do when I’m collecting fishes for research.”

Crunching the numbers, Schorr says more than 90 percent of students who’ve taken the course over the past four years are biology or environmental science majors, but there also have been students majoring in history and psychology.

Jarid Prahl says the class fits in well

with his goal of earning a master’s in environmental science with a focus on wetland ecology and disease transmission.

“I decided to take the class in order to not only aid in my ability to identify fish species, but to better help me understand their impact on aquatic ecology,” Prahl says. “This plays into my research interests, which focus on wetland and river ecology—specifically, I am looking into fungal disease transmission between amphibians and other aquatic organisms such as crayfish and mosquitofishes.”

Schorr “has given me a larger understanding of fish morphology, the ability to confidently identify many native species and how fishes factor into the ecosystem,” he adds.

As a senior majoring in environmental science, taking the ichthyology class was a no-brainer for Taylor Mulliniks who says, “I love fish.”

“I have a pond in my backyard and

five aquariums in my house. I also grew up with a dad whose favorite hobby was fishing and I spend almost all my free time around rivers.”

Schorr’s “enthusiasm and passion for fishes are contagious, and I have learned so much about fish evolution and ecology. Plus, the labs we have done in the field have provided me with incredibly unique experiences capturing and identifying fishes in local waterways. The electric fishing boat was my favorite lab that I have ever done at UTC. “ For more than 20 years, Schorr has partnered on the river lab and other research projects with Mottice, the senior aquarist at the Tennessee Aquarium.

“Any of these students could, one

day, be one of our next state or federal fish biologists,” Mottice says.

“So it’s good to give them as much instruction and training as possible.

Not every university has this sort of program.”

If a fish is especially interesting or colorful, Mottice will take it back to the aquarium for its native fish collection.

“It provides us with an opportunity to add more fish to our exhibits, especially our native fish exhibits,” he says, “and it allows the students to achieve their bragging rights that they’ve provided fish to the Tennessee Aquarium.”

“I’ve told Rob that he has the most popular part of the lab,” Schorr says with a smile.

Opposite and above: Dr. Schorr and students study fish they took from the Tennessee River.

Each spring, Dr. Schorr teaches the ichthyology class, while every fall he has a class in limnology, the study of lakes, rivers, streams and other inland waterways, examining their biological, chemical and physical characteristics.

Both have two outdoor visits to the Tennessee River.

light

making music with

Chemistry Student Researches the Photoacoustic Effect Laura Bond

Rachel Peters is making music with a laser.

Peters and Dr. Han Park, assistant professor of chemistry, are researching what is called the photoacoustic effect.

Discovered in 1880 by Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, the effect occurs when light is absorbed by a material, such as glass or a mineral like selenium, and transformed into sound waves through changes in heat and pressure. The photoacoustic effect explains how sound can be generated by light.

Rachel Peters works in a lab in Grote Hall.

To create an acoustic sound wave in her experiments, Peters uses a laser to strike a glass tube filled with ethylene gas.

“When the laser hits the glass cell, the gas warms up, changes in pressure and generates a sound wave. I then use a high-powered microphone to record the sound,” she explains.

By changing the variables in her experiment, like the length of the tube or the concentration of the gas, Peters is able to change the frequency of the sound wave and create different musical notes.

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So far, she has been able to record multiple, distinct notes and organize them on a musical scale. By the end of her research, she hopes to be able to record a full song to demonstrate the fundamentals of the photoacoustic effects and thermodynamics in a fun, engaging way.

“It would just be something simple, like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star or The Star Spangled Banner,” she says.

When Park approached Peters to assist with his research, she jumped at the chance.

“UTC offers many opportunities for student research. It’s usually something that’s only available to graduate students at other schools,” she says.

“This experience has sharpened my critical thinking skills. Being in a lab, you can’t always predict what’s going to happen.

“I’ve also been able to use a lot more equipment than what I’ve used in the classroom. Doing something like this will give me an edge when it comes time to apply for graduate school.”

Rachel Peters researching the photoacoustic effect in a lab in Grote Hall.

UTC offers many opportunities for student research.

It’s usually something that’s only available to graduate students at other schools. fall 2018 | 15

ecology and art classes collaborate, compare research Sarah Joyner

Above: Astri Snodgrass’s Drawing Research and Ideation class sketches on Guild Trail.

Left: DeAnna Beasley, left, and ant ecology student search for insects on Guild Trail.

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ow do artists and scientists see the world differently? What could they learn from each other?

On a crisp January morning, armed with coffee, coats and sketch pads, art students are dotted along the Guild Hardy Trail at the base of Lookout Mountain. Some sit on rocks or next to patches of moss and fallen trees. They dig through mounds of leaves, run their hands over tree trunks or look into cracks of boulders. They open up sketch pads and begin to draw, mimicking the veins in the leaves, the geography of the trees.

The following afternoon at the same location, groups of science students gather. They, too, cluster around trees and boulders, inspecting plants and insects. They pull out their notepads and snap photos, recording what they see.

This spring, Astri Snodgrass, painting and drawing lecturer, and Dr. DeAnna Beasley, assistant professor of biology, geology, and environmental science, are teaming up to teach their students about intentional observation— the practice of slowing down and taking the time to examine their environment.

The approach might be different, but it’s a process that both artists and scientists rely upon. The collaboration is giving students unique perspectives on how their different fields approach the process, but it’s also creating a bridge and enlightening students on how their work is a lot more alike than they’d think.

THE BRIDGE The process started with Snodgrass and Beasley taking each class to Guild Hardy Trail for the semester’s first field experience. There, the ecology and art students practiced observation. As the semester progresses, their work from the trail is put to use as they assemble their own research projects, which require observational skills.

Funding and materials for this collaboration are supported with a High-Impact Practices Development Grant from UTC’s Walker Center for Teaching and Learning.

Throughout the semester, the two classes meet to discuss their research and the steps they take in each project, comparing methods. In late April, the classes featured their works in an exhibit at Apothecary, a contemporary arts project space supported by the UTC Department of Art. For his project, biology student Adam Lawrence is studying ants from two different locations—Signal Mountain’s Walden Ridge and a spot near Collegedale’s Southern Adventist University—to see if there’s a difference in activity level based on the different temperatures at the two locations.

“It’s been interesting to see their [art students] different perspectives on the environment and the scientific process,” Lawrence says.

The art students seem to have the “flexibility to be abstract” when approaching their subjects, he says, while he and his fellow biology students are more rigid, taking

a “somewhat more quantitative approach.”

On the other side, art student Katlynn Campbell finds the collaboration refreshing and the scientific approach more flexible.

“As artists, sometimes we focus too much on portraying an object in an interesting way, not necessarily realistically, and do not really take the time to look at the object and appreciate it for what it is,” Campbell explains.

Since the collaborations started, she says she’s begun to sit and soak in her subjects, instead of immediately searching for what makes them interesting.

Art student Hilary McWilliams is pleasantly surprised by how similar the scientific and creative approaches to research have turned out to be.

“The first meeting between the artists and the ecologists felt similar to an alien encounter, but over time we’ve come to understand that both groups are made up of inherently curious and creative people,” McWilliams says.

“I’ve learned that our practices are more similar than I expected in terms of motivation and process.

Both artists and scientists go through similar processes of research, application and creation.

I’ve become more comfortable with the use of the word ‘research’ in relation to artistic practice.”

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Students Document the Lives of Local African American Women for Mayor’s Herstories Initiative Sarah Joyner

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Shalonda Barnes admits she was intimidated.

In her course, African American Women, Assistant Professor of History Susan Eckelmann Berghel has students engage with history beyond the textbooks, getting personal with local history makers and recording their stories and perspectives. The end result is the Voices of African American Women Oral History project.

“As an educator, I always think of ways to involve students in the community, to think about how they can apply history-specific skill sets,” Berghel explains.

The project partners with the Mayor’s Council for Women’s History subcommittee, a group that is recovering, archiving and publishing the experiences of local women leaders, advocates,

educators and community builders.

Not just telling “history,” as the subcommittee’s website says, but telling “herstories.”

To gather these stories, UTC, along with Covenant College and Southern Adventist University, is supplying a pipeline of oral history collectors: students.

Berghel was already teaching courses on African American history, women’s history and post-1945 history when the chance to work on the oral history project came along. It was a natural fit that takes students beyond what they read in their textbook and shows them how worldwide history connects with their own backyards.

In a grant proposal to raise money for the oral history project, Carolyn Runyon, assistant head of collection services and director of special collections for UTC’s Library, writes: “These interviews provide the opportunity to connect historical issues to present day challenges, understand the complex junctures of oppression over time, and highlight an understudied group’s unique approach to leadership, activism, and community.”

NEW PERSPECTIVES Shalonda Barnes admits she was intimidated.

Walking into an office to conduct an interview with Dr. Autumn Graves, head of Girls Preparatory School, was out of Barnes’ comfort zone. The junior political science major was approaching research in a whole new way. There weren’t any library books or a computer screen to hide behind; Barnes was face-toface with her subject.

“It was kind of scary at first,” Barnes says.

She had spent weeks researching and planning the interview, an assignment in her history class to interview local black women who are movers and shakers in Chattanooga history.

So, list of interview questions in hand, she met with Graves.

“Initially when I did it I was like, ‘OK, maybe I don’t want to steer away from these questions. Maybe I just want to stay right here, just ask these questions and get it over with,’” Barnes explains.

The experience, Barnes says, gave her a new perspective on research, an approach not familiar to a lot of students.

“We just know to go to the internet, cite it and that’s it,” she says.

DIGGING DEEPER Nicholas Cooper saw Marva McGee, an administrative assistant in Social, Cultural and Justice Studies, in UTC’s Brock Hall almost daily. A senior secondary education history major, he jumped at the chance to interview her for the oral history project, to talk to her beyond the surface-level interactions. Even though she had been a friendly face and helped him out with logistics of registering for classes, she was a stranger to him.

“You see someone every day, but you don’t know anything about them. Now I

know that woman’s entire life, which is really cool,” Cooper says.

In the interview, he developed a skill that is valuable in many professions, but is especially useful for historians, whose work focuses mainly on written texts, “but not a lot on oral history because, in today’s age, it’s just now becoming more and more accessible. So I think it’s really rare that we’ve gotten to do that,” he says.

THE INTERVIEWS There are currently 83 interviews transcribed and archived online through UTC’s Digital Collections under Chattanooga Women’s Oral Histories.

Among those is Ernestine Hall, one of the Howard High School seniors who sat at lunch counters in local fiveand-dime stores in February 1960, joining the civil rights sit-ins that were quickly gaining popularity throughout the Southeast.

“We were tired of things the way they were. We knew our parents would not do it because they would have repercussions,” Hall says.

To hear more: digital-collections.library.utc.edu

Opposite and right: Courtesy of the Chattanooga Public Library and University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Special Collections.

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Ray Marler donates wetlands to provide outdoor lab for UTC Shawn Ryan

Seth Pemberton, faded “Gulf Shores” baseball cap on his head, stands ankle deep in mud and water, a black plastic garbage bag in his hand. The bag sags with trash.

It’s been only about an hour that Pemberton, a junior in environmental science, has been picking up trash in a wetlands area off Amnicola Highway and about four miles from the UTC campus.

Around him, other university students do the same thing, their garbage bags also stretched with the trash they’ve found.

“It’s upsetting,” Pemberton says, 22 | method

looking at the garbage bag filling up with alcohol bottles, plastic soda bottles, fast-food wrappers and other assorted trash. Only about an hour after starting, he’s already on his second bag.

The same weekend as Earth Day, a group of UTC students, most from the Wildlife-Zoology Club, headed out to the 17-acre wetlands donated to UTC by Ray Marler of Marler Construction Co. “I didn’t go to UTC,” Marler says, “but I’m a small business fella in this town and I’d like to give something back. I thought that UTC, being that

close, could get more benefit out of it.”

Encircled by industrial supply companies, distribution warehouses and train tracks, the wetlands are virtually invisible from the road that runs right alongside it. It’s location near the transfer site for a refuse collection center might explain why, at the end of about two hours of work, students had pulled out a car muffler, a waterlogged mattress from a patio couch, more than 10 tires, a TV set, pieces of sheet metal and garbage bag after bag after bag of miscellaneous trash.

The combined mass fills the entire bed of a Ford F-350 pickup truck (a broad-shouldered, cornfed beast of truck) and forms a mound about a foot taller than the edge of the bed. In November 2017, a group of about 30 or so came to the wetlands and carried out about 2,200 pounds of trash, filling the same truck to the brim.

The time spent in the wetlands creates “a good opportunity to talk to students about wetlands conservation and the importance of water quality, to get them out there,” says Tom Wilson, UC Foundation associate professor and graduate program coordinator in biology, geology and environmental science.

He and David Aborn, associate professor, and Bradley Reynolds, senior lecturer, both in biology, geology and environmental science, are the faculty team leading the cleanup and restoration of the wetlands. They also are the advisors to the Wildlife-Zoology club. As far as the trash-gathering operations are concerned, the goals are twofold.

“We do believe the hands-on side of it is a good teacher,” he says.

“Not to say the textbook is not, but they’ve got to put it in context and the only way for the students to put it in context is to be involved with it.”

Cullen Harris, a senior in environmental science, was at the November cleanup and found it inspiring.

“What was really cool is that … we put on waders; we were in the mud; we were pulling up garbage, and people had smiles on their faces.

They were having a good time and were feeling really good about it once it was all said and done.”

LONG-TERM VISIONS On the recent Saturday, students in chest-high waders squish through mud that clutches ankles and step across fallen tree branches and trunks crunching under foot. In places, iridescent patches of oil glisten on top of the water. But there also are patches of brightyellow butterweed flowers and bird calls sing from everywhere.

Garbage hides among the mud and wood. Megan Reed, a senior

Students discover all kinds of things during the wetlands cleanup, like this beaver skull. in psychology with a minor in environmental science, says trash often hides in the muck or in the underbrush, making it hard to see.

Still, she resolutely slogs through the wetlands, eyes peeled. Picking up bottles and food wrappers and pieces of metal might not seem like a big deal in the vast scheme of things, but “small things can have a big impact,” she says.

There are longer-term plans than just getting students to do the dirty work of cleanup, Wilson says.

They can carry out research on plants, animals and insects living in the wetlands; they can determine whether the soil has been damaged by being in a mostly industrialized area; they can help with any restoration that needs to be done.

“It would be the only studentbased restoration project in the city and certainly the county,” Wilson says. “And for UTC, this could be the flagship property for us to do that type of work.”

Future plans including the construction of a boardwalk through the wetlands, giving visitors the chance to immerse themselves in the environment without damaging it. Students have wrapped green

ribbons around trees, plotting a possible path for the boardwalk.

Restoring the wetlands goes hand-in-hand with Chattanooga’s ongoing efforts to be a green city, Wilson says. And once city residents see the wetlands, they may be inclined to help clean it up, restore it, make it healthier and improve the overall environmental profile of Chattanooga, he adds. In turn, restoration work can broaden horizons and help a person see a bigger picture.

“It changes or influences, in part, who they are, so they can maybe think about things in a different way,” Wilson continues. “It opens up other opportunities in their lives, here and elsewhere.”

Cleaning and restoring a single urban wetland won’t change the world, he acknowledges, but it won’t hurt.

“Improving landscapes and green space proximate to homes is a healthier way of living. You’re putting in plants and you’re encouraging species to restore a system. We know healthier systems are healthier landscapes, and we know healthier landscapes, in theory, should mean healthier people.” fall 2018 | 23

Southern Writers Return to Campus for SouthWord Literary Sarah Joyner Festival JILL MCCORKLE “The pain of losing people you love is the price of the ticket for getting to know them at all.”

WENDELL BERRY “Be like the fox who makes more tracks than necessary, some in the wrong direction. Practice resurrection.”

TJ JARRETT “When the mountains said come, he left.

I took it personally; I shouldn’t.”

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K

entucky native Wendell Berry delivered the keynote address for last November’s SouthWord, a two-day literary feast celebrating the region’s writing. Southern literature writers and connoisseurs converged on campus for the conference’s first day of events, including the keynote address.

“We’re thrilled to have such a terrific lineup of writers. Among them is Wendell Berry—farmer, poet, fiction writer, essayist, novelist, and environmental activist,” says Joe Wilferth, UC Foundation professor of English and interim dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.

“Indeed, Berry blends beautifully his writing, his advocacy, and his daily life,” Wilferth says. “He is one of the most influential, recognizable, and widely celebrated champions of environmental issues today.

We are very fortunate to have him, along with so many other outstanding writers, on our campus for the SouthWord literary conference.”

SouthWord isn’t stuffy. It might appear academic in nature, but the atmosphere channels a reunion of

writers and readers as they talk all things southern literature. Among the events were informal coffees, conversation and book signings at such sessions as Books for Breakfast; stories and songs by Matraca Berg; Lee Smith and Jill McCorckle at Book Signings: The Roots of Literary Music. Other attending authors included TJ Jarrett, Wayne Flynt and many more.

Events included panel discussions on how to start a novel or short story, the crossroads of spirituality and race, and writing across gender to create powerful Southern characters.

SouthWord Literary Festival was hosted by the Fellowship of Southern Writers and presented by Southern Lit Alliance and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. The conference and its partners have roots that extend deep in Chattanooga and the campus soil, including the UTC Library, where the fourth floor is dedicated to the Fellowship of Southern Writers. The Library’s William Berger Collection of Southern Fiction features signed copies, first editions and international editions of works by members of the group.

Left to right: Verbie Prevost, Wendell Berry, Joe Wilferth and Anna Wilferth.

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faculty alumni students friends

accolades 26 | method

“Beat Hunger� performance in the Roland Hayes Concert Hall.

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learning & I-O Master’s Program One of Nation’s Best

Keese Lecture Series Reestablished

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hile the national profile of UTC’s industrial and organizational (I-O) psychology master’s program has been rising since its inception in 1975, it hit the stratosphere this year.

In three separate ranking studies of American and Canadian graduate programs, UTC ranked in the Top 10 in eight out of nine categories, hitting No. 1 or No. 2 in three.

Released by The Society for IndustrialOrganizational Psychology (SIOP)—the gold standard in the study and application of I-O psychology—UTC ranks No. 1 in terms of comprehensiveness of curriculum aligned with SIOP’s guidelines for graduate education and No. 2 for overall student satisfaction and the perception of the program’s quality. The rankings cement UTC as one of the best in the country, says Dr. Chris Cunningham, the graduate program coordinator of the I-O master’s program. “‘I’m with the UTC I-O psychology program’ increasingly elicits the response of ‘Oh, that’s a great program,’” he says.

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ndrea Wulf, historian and award-winning author, presented a lecture last October on her latest book, The Invention of Nature.

Chosen as one of the 10 Best Books of 2015 by the New York Times, Invention follows the extraordinary life of Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) and how he created the way we understand nature.

After several years of inactivity, the Keese Lecture Series was re-established with this event, partnering with the Raymond B. Witt “Perspectives” Lecture Series—a series nurturing dialogue among contrasting groups of people. William S. Keese Jr., staunch supporter of the University of Chattanooga and a founding member of the UC Foundation, developed the Keese Lecture Series in honor of his parents. Keese designed the series to focus on the humanities, explaining, “We in the present generation forget that these are the basis of our culture.”

leading Math Professor Selected for Cancer Research

UTC Mock Trial Team Beats Yale in Nationals

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inners of the first UT CORNET Awards in Cancer Research for the University of Tennessee system included Cuilan (Lani) Gao, Ph.D., assistant professor of mathematics.

Dr. Gao and her collaborating researcher Manish K. Tripathi, Assistant Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences at UT Health Science Center, had their project selected for funding along with two other projects. Dr. Gao and Mr. Tripathi’s research project is entitled The Role of lncRNA-NRON and NFAT in CRC Health Disparity. The project studies a divergent trend in mortality rates between AfricanAmerican and Caucasians with colorectal cancer over the last 40 years. The Gao-Tripathi team is looking at cellular and molecular mechanisms that dictate how the disease behaves and progresses in underserved populations.

he UTC Mock Trial came home from the National Championship with a serious bragging point. In a head-to-head battle, the team beat Yale University, which won the National Championship last year.

Having also competed in 2017, UTC was one of only 24 teams in the country who made it to the tournament, held in Minneapolis, in back-to-back years. In addition, the team doubled the number of wins from last year’s championship despite competing against mock-trial powerhouses such as Ohio State University, the University of CaliforniaIrvine, Xavier University and Tufts University.

Team member Zeke Starr, a senior in political science and history, has been invited to compete individually in a tournament of champions in Boston. In the semifinals leading up to this year’s national championship, he won an individual Best Attorney award, the only attorney to do so on both the prosecution and defendant sides of the case.

fall 2018 | 29

Nearly a decade ago, Megan King ’10 was taking notes during a communication class in Frist Hall. Now, she has a sweeping view of downtown Chattanooga from her office in the EPB building.

King was recently named the CEO and president of the Chattanooga Regional Manufacturers Association.

Founded in 1906, the Chattanooga Regional Manufacturers Association was the first local manufacturers association in the United States.

Now the organization has nearly 200 members, including local industry giants like BASF, EPB, Siskin Steel, Propex and Koch Foods.

King began her career with the nonprofit association as an executive assistant in 2011.

“It was a blind ad, so I didn’t know it was with the association when I applied. I had a huge learning curve, but now it’s something I’m really passionate about. Tennessee is a leader in manufacturing and the impact the industry has on our community is amazing,” she says.

In her new role, King plans to continue the association’s original mission of supporting local manufacturers. As CEO, she spends her days planning events and coordinating committees, among many other tasks.

“I like being in the nonprofit world because you get to work on so many different aspects of a company. A lot of what you do is with a small staff,” she says. “We don’t have someone in-house to do marketing, public relations or accounting.

You get a lot of cool opportunities because of it and no two days ever look the same.”

In a few years, King worked her way up in the organization, serving as events coordinator and operations director along the way. Her communication degree from UTC has helped her throughout her career.

“From the beginning, I’ve handled a lot of our member communications, whether that’s developing a newsletter, sending emails or promoting events. Having developed my writing skills and being able to communicate has been really beneficial,” she says.

Now, she regularly hires UTC students for internships. She urges students to go into their internships with an open mind.

“Be willing to do anything and everything because you never know what opportunities will arise. Sometimes you don’t know what will come out of certain opportunities. I’ve had interns that come to me thinking they want to go into a certain industry like advertising or marketing, but then they do a project for us and realize they want to do something else.

“Keep your mind open and don’t be afraid to try new things,” she advises.

30 | method

Megan King ’10, UTC alumna and new CEO of Chattanooga Regional Manufacturer’s Association, stands on the balcony outside her office.

Building a Better Chattanooga Alumna named CEO of local group Laura Bond fall 2018 | 31

Criminal Justice Alumnus Takes Down Aryan Brotherhood of Texas

Shawn Ryan

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R

ichard J. Boehning ’87 and other agents with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives had set their sights on an outlaw motorcycle gang in Texas. A member of the gang was suspected of supplying guns and silencers to other members.

When agents executed a search warrant at the suspect’s home, though, they learned the connections went far further. The man was friends with a high-ranking member of the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas (ABT), a white supremacist group with a habit of using firearms to commit violent acts, including murder.

“We saw this as an opportunity to target the leadership structure of the ABT,” says Boehning.

In 2008, a task force with 80 federal, state and local law enforcement officers dove deeply into the criminal group, using phone wiretaps, mail

monitoring, multiple search warrants and interviews with more than 100 Aryan Brotherhood members.

The end result was 73 defendants facing firearms, racketeering and narcotics charges in 2012.

Seventy-one eventually pleaded guilty and two were convicted at trial, resulting in an unheard-of 100 percent conviction rate for an investigation of this size.

Boehning, who earned a degree in criminal justice, gave a detailed presentation on the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, the investigation into it and the lessons learned at UTC last fall.

“Law enforcement can be a very competitive business and agencies are often reluctant to share information or intelligence,” Boehning says. “This case was remarkable in the unprecedented level of cooperation amongst our federal, state and local partners.”

The subject of white supremacy has been in the news since the deadly confrontation in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017, but the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas was a different level of danger.

“The ABT are all career criminals and operate under the premise of ‘respect for respect.’ It’s sort of like ‘cops and robbers’; some days we win and some days they win or, in better terms, some days we catch them, some days we don’t. But we all understand it’s not personal, just business.

“That said, the ABT ruthlessly enforces internal discipline and have killed numerous members/ associates whom they believed cooperated with the police.”

With white supremacist movements and groups in the news lately, Boehning has some simple advice for anyone who wants to physically confront these types of groups and argue against their beliefs.

“While our case was largely built on internal violence, we have seen instances where the ABT has killed store clerks, girlfriends, and even someone just for truck parts,” he says. “They have burned down churches or businesses and used their affiliation with the gang to intimidate the general public.

“Anyone that disrespects the members or the group is at risk, including the general public. My best advice is to simply not associate with the ABT—or any criminal group for that matter.”

fall 2018 | 33

Remembering Dr. Gavin Townsend Created in his memory, the Gavin Townsend Travel Fund supports UTC Honors students traveling abroad.

Visit give.utc.edu/townsend to donate or learn more.

Dr. Townsend passed away on June 3 of this year. Dr. Townsend taught Art History at UTC for over 30 years, mentoring and educating generations of students. He provided essays to numerous publications and was integrally involved in the Southeast Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians.

A vital contributor to campus and the community, Townsend was a former director of the Honors Program, Past President of the Faculty Senate and he was a member of the Board of the Tennessee Historical Commission. He will be missed.

NEW Student Success Center

for the College of Arts & Sciences Coming in 2020

s s e c c u S al ns for

P

The new Ce nter, to be housed in th renovated L e upton Hall, increases opportunitie s and emph asizes stude support. Pro nt fessional ad visors work hand-in-han d with each student to design a de gree plan ri c h with cours and experie es nces that se t our gradu apart and p ates repare them for careers.

“This isn’t ju st about a d egree or a se of classes— t we want stu dents to stu abroad, eng d y age in resea rch and give to the comm unity. Our c e nter will he the students lp find those o pportunitie and—as Ch s, ancellor An gle says—b bridges bey uild ond the cla ssroom.”

– Dr. John “

Matt” Matt hews Interim Vice P ro vost College of A rts & Scienc es

YOU! We want to hear from

State Office Building 288 Department 2602 615 McCallie Avenue Chattanooga, TN 37403 (423) 425-4635 P (423) 425-4279 F utc.edu/college-arts-sciences

Visit give.utc.edu to make a gift.

College of Arts & Sciences 2018 Dean’s Advisory Board Scott Leroy ’79 Udo Schroff ’67 Stacy Richardson ’10 Olga de Klein ’11 Tom Tohill ’87 Earl Brown ’88 David Erwin ’74 Greg Bagby ’93 Dr. Henry Aldridge

The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga is a comprehensive, community-engaged campus of the University of Tennessee System.

UTC is an EEO/AA/Titles VI & IX/ Section 504/ADA/ADEA institution.

Stay engaged with your alma mater.

Reach out to us today: alumni.utc.edu

Donna Lawrence ’81 President UTC Alumni Board