RESIDENTIAL COLLEGE

Eighty-five students signed up for the Residential College in its initial year.

“These students are full of passion, energy and purpose, which Residential College coordinators, resident assistants and Housing and Residence Life partners help channel into actions that build habits for academic success,” Tejero says.

Plans call for three additional RLCs to launch in August 2023. They are:

 Content Creators, sponsored by the Department of Communication. For students interested in creating content to share with others, whether that’s taking photos, making videos, writing, making podcasts or other methods of reaching out. Open to students from all majors and will acquire the skills to build a social media brand from the initial idea to content creation.

 Data ChAMPS: Chemistry, Analytics, Math and Physics, sponsored by the Department of Chemistry and Physics and the Department of Mathematics. For students interested in data analysis in the fields of chemistry, physics and mathematics.

 MEDIC: Medical Dental Interests Company, sponsored by the Department of Biology, Geology and Environmental Science and the Department of Chemistry and Physics. For students planning to apply to medical school or dental school after the completion of their four-year degrees at UTC.

Since the creation of the Trembling Troubadours, Katherine Goforth

Elverd—director of music therapy at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga— had a goal of having the group perform the national anthem before a Chattanooga Lookouts minor league baseball game.

On July 24, 2022, that goal was achieved.

The Trembling Troubadours, a choir comprised of singers with Parkinson’s disease, sang “The Star Spangled Banner” before the Chattanooga Lookouts baseball contest against the Tennessee Smokies.

Joining the nearly two dozen singers were Elverd and her mother, Kathy Goforth, the area business development director at Life Care Centers of America.

The mother/daughter duo created the Trembling Troubadours in 2019, shortly after Elverd joined UTC.

Elverd says the idea of the choir itself is very much rooted in the fundamentals and principles of music therapy.

She explained that music therapists use music as a tool to facilitate interaction and achieve non-musical outcomes.

“The great thing about music therapy is that it is related to music. It’s enjoyable. It’s soothing. It’s pleasurable,” she says, “but we’re working on these functions that someone may have difficulty engaging in. They may be doing speech therapy or occupational physical therapy that isn’t as fun and enjoyable.”

An example of that would be in the pediatric medical setting, where music is used to help decrease pain and increase relaxation.

“Or with Trembling Troubadours, it’s our Parkinson’s choir—where I’m going to use music to help with increasing breath support,