ETSU serves thousands across the region

East Tennessee State University is governed by its Board of Trustees. Since opening in 1911 as a two-year normal school educating teachers, ETSU has grown into a major, diversified university. It serves more than 13,000 students, many of them from the Tri-Cities Tennessee/Virginia region and surrounding areas. Students

Walters

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The Life Sciences Building, completed in December 1979, was essential to provide needed classrooms and faculty offices for a rapidly growing student body. This building, which was renamed the Math and Behavioral/ Social Sciences Building, was completely renovated during the 2001-02 academic year. It re-opened to students and faculty in the fall of 2002 and was renamed the Doggett Mathematics and Behavioral/Social Sciences Building in 2004. In the summer of 1979 the construction of the Humanities Complex began. The project was completed in the fall of 1980.

The Humanities Complex was renamed the Judge William H. Inman Humanities Complex in 2001. In December of 1979, the college added the Plant Operations Building to the physical facilities inventory to handle the functions of maintenance from all 50 states and from numerous other countries also attend ETSU.

ETSU is comprised of

11 colleges and schools: College of Arts and Sciences, College of Business and Technology, College of Clinical and Rehabilitative Health Sciences, Claudius G. Clemmer College of Education, Honors College, James H. Quillen College of Medicine, College of Nursing, Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy, College of Public

SEE ETSU ON PAGE 70 and repair. In 1994 the college began construction of the Campus Development Phase II master plan which includes a new Library, Math and Science Buildings, Public Safety Center, and Administration Building.

The new Library opened in May 1997 and was named the R. Jack Fishman Library in 2004. The Natural Science Building was occupied in July 1998 and renamed the McGuffin-Jolley Natural Science Building in 2005. The college’s Great Smoky Mountains Expo Center opened in March 1996 and additional support facilities were added during 1998-99 and 2007.

Walters State has established three additional campus sites; the Sevier County Campus, the Greeneville/Greene County Campus, and the Claiborne County Campus. In 1999, the first building on the new Sevier County Campus was named Maples-Marshall Hall. Two more buildings on the Sevier County Campus, Cates-Cutshaw Hall and the Conner-Short Center, opened in 2008. In 1995, the Greeneville/Greene County Campus moved into the former Laughlin Hospital building in the heart of downtown Greeneville. The college opened the Claiborne County Campus in 1995. The newest satellite campus in Newport was opened in August of 2020.

Walters State received accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools in 1972 and, after completion of an effective institutional Self Study Program, received reaffirmation of accreditation in December 1976. Extensive institutional Self Studies were completed during 1985-87, 1995-97, and 2005-07. Subsequent to the successful Self Studies, Walters State received reaffirmation of accreditation in December 1987, December 1997, and June 2008. In 2022, Walters State Community College was named Community College of the Year in the state of Tennessee.

Health, School of Continuing Studies and Academic Outreach, and School of Graduate Studies.

ETSU nurtures an educational environment which respects individuality and stimulates creativity. It expands educational opportunities for all who desire and need university preparation while maintaining a setting conducive to intellectual curiosity that produces an enjoyable campus life.

The university is committed to the needs of all of its students — from those who have emerging potential for university-level coursework to the gifted. ETSU also serves the region’s citizens by providing a number of opportunities to continue lifelong learning.

ETSU has expanded to include baccalaureate degree programs in many fields and graduate programs leading to the master’s degree, educational specialist degree, and doctorate degrees. For undergraduates, the university offers broad programming which embraces the philosophy of a liberal education for all with special programs providing a primary level of expertise in the arts and sciences disciplines and selected professional fields. Its master’s studies provide advanced and increasingly specialized preparation in academic, technical, and professional fields that meet the needs of our student population and promote regional development. Doctoral programs are available in a number of fields.

The university offers all programs and degrees during its regular day schedule; extensive evening programs and online course offerings are also provided. With a 350-acre main campus in Johnson City along with centers in Kingsport and Elizabethton, ETSU maintains a semester enrollment of more than 13,000 students and serves 5,000-10,000 persons annually through continuing education and extended service programs.

A statewide leader in transfer articulation, ETSU shares over 280 agreements with 15 state and regional colleges and universities, allowing students to transfer credit hours easily.

Affirming a commitment to the fundamental values of higher education, ETSU presents programs of study that promote curiosity, stimulate thought, encourage reflection and the free interchange of ideas, and foster a genuine desire for learning. Undergraduate and graduate education at ETSU broaden the students’ view of the world and encourage students to participate actively in creating a responsible, ethical society.

Through scholarship, research, and creative activity, the ETSU faculty both critically review and add to humanity’s knowledge and cultural achievements. Faculty and staff apply their knowledge and expertise in the service of the region and the world beyond. Throughout its history, ETSU has played a vital role in meeting the health care needs of the region. Programs in health education, public and environmental health, and nursing, some dating from the institution’s earliest days, have evolved into formal colleges. The expansion of ETSU’s Division of Health Sciences in the 1980s created still greater opportunities to serve the region, state, and nation through the development of a comprehensive academic health sciences center in Northeast Tennessee. The creation of the College of Pharmacy in 2005 further enhanced this aspect of the university’s mission, as did the 2007 division of the College of Public and Allied Health into the College of Public Health (the first of its kind in Tennessee) and the College of Clinical and Rehabilitative Health Sciences.

The university’s vision of education, scholarship, and service extends into the future, as outlined in “Turning Toward 2011: A Report by the Commission on the Future of ETSU.” The more than 100 faculty, staff, community leaders, alumni, and students who spent two years envisioning what ETSU might be like on the way to its centennial in 2011 described a university that continues to build alliances beyond its walls, exerting strong leadership in health care and health promotion, economic development, education, environmental concerns, crime and violence issues, and public administration. In doing so, ETSU seeks to balance the innovations of the 21st century with the need to preserve the human contact that has characterized education at ETSU since 1911.