Students Have Enriched Our Lives

Why We Give: Debbie '76 '90 and Michael Bell

To get a sense of how Debbie and Michael Bell think, look at a testimonial Debbie wrote for the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Honors College web page.

“I retired from UTC after more than 40 years; my husband, Michael, retired a few months later,” Debbie penned. “The last 23 years of my working life were in Honors. Beyond working with amazing students and dedicated colleagues, Michael and I were privileged to travel and to develop close personal relationships with many of the students. (In fact, we’ve attended 26 weddings, including 11 where honors students/alumni married each other!) We saw first-hand the impact that enriching opportunities and a community of shared experiences has on a student.

“Our lives were enriched through our association with Honors and we want to see students continue to benefit from what the Honors College offers. This is why we choose to continue our support of its mission to help students grow personally and professionally.”

The Bells provided a combined 85 years of service to the University (Debbie 44, Michael 41). Following their recent retirements from UTC—Debbie in June 2020 and Michael in April 2021—they decided to include the Honors College in their estate plan, creating a planned gift that named the UC Foundation as a 40% beneficiary of their estate.

Those funds, when received, will be used to support the Gavin Townsend Memorial Travel Scholarship Endowment.

“If you can afford to make opportunities available to students, whether that is through scholarships or travel or mentoring—whatever the case may be—it’s a really positive thing, and I’m glad that we can,” Debbie says. “We don’t have children, so Michael and I jokingly talk about the students as our adopted children. They have been very important in our lives.”

“None of us got where we are on our own; we all had people who helped us along the way,” Michael adds, “so the opportunity to contribute to somebody else’s success is important to us. Being able to help students who might not have opportunities or resources is a way of paying back for the help we received from others.”

Debbie arrived on campus first, receiving a bachelor’s degree in English and American language and literature in 1976 (and later a master’s in education in 1990) before being hired as an administrative assistant in the Department of Psychology.

Michael joined the UTC Library staff in 1980, the first position in an academic setting offered to him out of graduate school. “I literally drove from Nashville to Chattanooga with whatever I had in my dorm room from Vanderbilt,” he says, “and never left.”

“Possibly because he met me a year after he got here,” Debbie says with a laugh. “I came here for my bachelor’s and just stayed. It worked out very well for us.”

Over time, Michael progressed from reference librarian to head of circulation services to head of acquisitions to acting dean to assistant dean.

Meanwhile, after stints in several different departments, Debbie was hired by Gavin Townsend in 1997 to work in what was then known as the University Honors program.

Participating in the day-to-day operations involving students was a turning point in the Bells’ lives. Thanks to Townsend, they were introduced to the world of travel.

“Gavin taught art history here at the University, and his mission was to introduce students to the world through art,” Debbie says. “He led these travel seminars and we went on every trip, leading students through the ancient sites, the great museums and art galleries.

“I loved traveling with him. When we went through museums, he made me appreciate things that I didn’t see before. For students to have that same kind of experience was pretty phenomenal.”

Says Michael, “I was a pair of willing hands and another pair of eyes on these trips, doing anything I could to shepherd students when we were abroad. Being part of that, you really got to know the students.”

Townsend passed away suddenly in the summer of 2018. After an endowed scholarship was established in his honor, the Bells and many others began contributing to that fund.

The Bells’ planned gift, however, may have a significant impact on the endowment’s value.

“As Michael and I have seen, so many students have never been away from home, never been out of the South, never been out of the country, never been on an airplane,” Debbie says. “Being able to see 18- to 20-year-old students catching the travel bug has been a really rewarding experience for us.”

“The students have certainly enriched our lives,” Michael says, “and we’re pleased with the opportunity to give something back. We both feel the University has given us a lot over the past 40-something years.”

from left: Gavin Townsend and Michael and Debbie Bell touring together in Alaska.

photo credit: UTC Honors College