At the UT Board of Trustees meeting on Thursday afternoon, Chancellor Jimmy Cheek outlined the university's progress since the announcement of its goal to become a top-25 public research university last year.
In year-to-year changes, the university raised its retention rate from 84 percent to 86 percent and its six-year graduate rate up one percent to 61 percent.
"Six-year graduation rate is slow to move, but we did move one percentage," Cheek said.
But he cited that recent four- and five-year graduation rate rises means good news for the six-year graduation rate in the future.
The five-year graduation rate went up from 56 percent with the class of 2004 to 59 percent with the class of 2005. The four-year graduation rate rose from 34 percent to 36 percent from 2005 to 2006.
"The class of 2014 is our test case," Cheek said. "We need a lot of them to graduate in four years. We try to communicate that all types of ways, and that's where we need major progress."
Cheek blamed a lack of class sections for struggles in raising the graduation rate.
"One of the reasons our students have not graduated as they should is we haven't provided sufficient courses for the semester they needed," Cheek said. "So we are targeting new resources to make sure we solve those course problems."
In addition, he said the university needs to target salaries, graduate student financial support, endowed chairs and professorships, research facilities, instructional space, deferred maintenance and advanced information systems.
"Each time we help students graduate in a more timely manner, we are improving the quality of this institution," Cheek said.
One way to improve graduation rate is to admit more students, but he said, with this budget, the university is looking to graduate students faster instead.
Since last year, the university has added faculty, advisers and tutors; added graduate student teaching assistants; hired governor's chairs; recruited high-quality graduate students and faculty for the Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Graduate Education; increased faculty diversity hires; established a partnership with Y-12 National Security Complex; expanded research support services; and revised the drop policy.
Cheek emphasized that the top-25 schools are not staying in the same place while UT pursues becoming one of them.
He said top-25 schools have increased in number of Ph.Ds awarded, number of master's degrees, faculty awards and endowments per student in the past year, making larger the distance between UT and the top-25 schools.
Program created; department merger takes place
Also, the doctor of social work Ph.D program was created, a part-time program that is unique in the nation, Provost Susan Martin said.
"Social work is a very fast-growing field, and there is a great deal of need, both in the state of Tennessee and nationally, for social workers prepared to practice at this advanced level," Martin said.
She said it went with top-25 goals of improving the number of graduate degrees awarded.
"Everybody is enthusiastically in support of this program," Martin said. "We really think this program will offer us the opportunity to contribute to the well-being of individuals in Tennessee, especially in the rural areas where there is a great deal of need."
In addition, the Department of Pathobiology and the Department of Comparative Medicine were merged to create the Department of Biomedical and Diagnostic Sciences.
This will "open up potential national accreditation," said Katie High, interim vice president for academic affairs and student success.