Vice Chancellor for Student Life Vincent Carilli led a ribbon cutting ceremony to celebrate the opening of UT’s newest residence halls, Dogwood and Magnolia. The celebration was held on the bright green grass in front of the new dorms, under a white tent adorned with orange curtains. The tent, nestled between the new, clean walls of Dogwood and Magnolia, was lined with chairs each containing a goody bag with a cookie and a cookie cutter. The gifts were shaped like magnolia and dogwood plants, both of which are wildlife native to the Smoky Mountains and the inspiration for the buildings’ names .

The $60 million project represents just one small part of the renovation process that has been continuing on the west side of campus for years. Orange Hall opened in 2016 and construction for a new dining hall, located at the former site of Humes Hall, is currently underway.

Dogwood and Magnolia feature 240,000 square feet of apartment, community and suite style housing. Every floor in both buildings is equipped with 2 study rooms, 2 lounge areas, 2 sitting areas, a laundry room, a kitchen and a large, multipurpose living room.

Vice Chancellor Carilli discussed the campus improvements at the ribbon cutting event.

“We’re very proud of the latest edition to our west campus project and the upgrading of our inventory of state of the art housing options for our students,” Carilli said.

The extensive campus expansion was created with the collaboration of different teams and people, dozens of whom Carilli thanked at the ceremony, including Chrisman Management Team and the 175 faculty members in the University Housing Department.

Jasmine Wilcox, a senior at UT and President of the United Residence Hall Council, also spoke at the ceremony. To exhibit the benefit of the new technology implemented in Dogwood and Magnolia, she shared an anecdotal experience of accidentally stumbling into the wrong dorm building on one of the first days of her freshman year.

“They say that most of the learning you do in college is outside of the classroom, and I learned my first of two very important lessons that night,” Wilcox said. “1, always lock your doors and 2, Reese and Humes hall look identical. I stood in a hall that looked a lot like mine but definitely was not. Luckily for this incoming class and future Vols, they will have some lessons to learn but not the same as mine, because with newer buildings we are getting card access.”

Wilcox also discussed the sense of community that she finds so prevalent in dorm life.

“Each of our residence halls has its own personality and sense of community that changes from year to year. The head staff, residence assistance and residence hall association are vital to the experience that residents have in our halls,” Wilcox said. “I’ve already met the [Dogwood and Magnolia] staff, and I know that they are ready to get to work in creating a warm and welcoming community in these new halls behind us.”

Dr. Donde Plowman, UT’s new chancellor, also addressed the crowd at the ceremony. Chancellor Plowman herself spent 6 years living in a freshman dorm; she was a resident assistant as an undergraduate student, and she was also employed in university housing after she graduated college, so she is very familiar with residence hall life.

Chancellor Plowman attributed her job as a resident assistant, her first leadership position, as the reason she holds the title of chancellor that she does today. She also noted that she has met several other chancellors whose leadership careers began while working as resident assistants as well.

“A big part of my undergraduate career was through the residence halls and residence hall life,” Chancellor Plowman stated.

She went on to explain that she truly hoped to see residence halls here at UT become a new home for students on campus. She described the feeling of watching her own parents drive away from her university after dropping her off in a strange place filled with complete strangers and the experience of first finding community on campus through her residence hall.

“We’re continuing to try to create homelike, family-like experiences for all of our students who come here, and this is just one beautiful representation, one example of how we’re doing it,” Chancellor Plowman stated. “I believe it’s important for our students to be able to feel like it’s home here. It’s awkward to leave home and come to college.”

Chancellor Plowman also expressed her gratitude to be able to supply students with these new living facilities.

“We’re so fortunate to have these beautiful buildings for our students to call home. There are campuses, trust me, all over this country who are not building new residence halls for their students. They’re not renovating any residence halls. There’s no money to do that,” she said.

The ceremony concluded with several university housing faculty members triumphantly cutting the ribbon, including Chancellor Plowman, Vice Chancellor Carilli, Chandra Myrick, Jasmine Wilcox, Frank Cuevas, Brendan Miller, Steve Syoen, Ethan Johnson and Ruth Ann Reason. Chancellor Plowman stood in the middle of the group, sporting enormous orange scissors to welcome Magnolia and Dogwood in a big way.