People lined the walls of room 501 in the Haslam Business Building Tuesday night, filling the room for Chancellor Jimmy Cheek’s annual CheekSpeak Town Hall. As students shuffled around in search of a place to sit with their complimentary pizza, provided by the Office of the Chancellor, Chancellor Cheek prepared to answer his first, randomly selected student question.
“I look forward to your questions,” Cheek started. “I hope you look forward to my answers.”
Cheek on Tenessee Promise:
Last year in the General Assembly, the governor proposed and was supported for the idea of providing free college tuition for students who attend community colleges and technical schools.
Cheek met the next morning with all the community college presidents and the UT community college coordinator to discuss how UT Knoxville wanted more transfer students from community colleges. Now, UT has now hired two additional recruiters, one in Memphis and one in Nashville, to increase collaboration with community colleges.
“The person who goes to community college, takes the right courses, earns the right grades and earns a degree, does very well when they transfer here,” Cheek said. “We do not think it’s going to make a major impact on our enrollment with freshman, but we do think the freshman class may change a little bit, because a person who is close to home and close to a community college and has financial issues, they may choose to stay there.”
Cheek on Opt-In:
Cheek confirmed the amount of students opting in is at about 82 percent. He also stated the new opt-in process has affected programming by about $125,000.
“We would prefer not to have to go to an opt-in or opt-out program with that particular fee,” Cheek said. “We hope over time that we may not have to continue that program, but right now it’s committed by our board for about a four-year period of time. ”
Cheek on the Sexual Assault Task Force:
This summer, UT’s administration looked at all the policies and procedures related to sexual assault on campus to create an interim sexual assault and misconduct policy for the fall semester.
“We spent the whole summer working on a policy that’s about 51 pages long,” Cheek said. “That’s a long policy.”
After this interim policy was complete, administration put together a task force of 35 UT affiliates which Cheek deemed the largest task force he has ever put together.
“It represents every possible person on the campus,” he said, with a nod to task force member Connor Dugosh who sat in the crowd.
Cheek said the task force is responsible for looking at the policy and making comments about changes which need to be addressed while leaving policy guidelines that are required by the federal government.
“They will help us think about how we can do a better job in informing our students and our faculty and our staff about sexual assault, what it is and what you should not do,” Cheek said.
He said the policy should be complete by Dec.1 and shared broadly across campus. He said he hopes students will contribute feedback of the final task force report, and the final policy will be implemented in the spring semester.
Cheek on Top 25:
Cheek started by noting Fred Brown Hall and the new bridge as part of the movement to become a better university.
“My idea was to benchmark ourselves against the best universities in the country, and find out how we do,” he said, citing some improvements from the past five years like a 12 percent increase in UT’s four year graduation rate and a nine percent increase in UT’s six year graduation rate. He also noted the freshman retention rate has increased by three percent.
“That’s what Top 25 is about,” Cheek said. “It’s about becoming a better institution and having some evidence that you’re better.
“We have a billion dollars worth of construction going on this campus and its going to change the way the University of Tennessee is looked at, it’s going to change the experience that UT students have … We already have a great student body, what we want to have is all the other things that great universities have in addition to great students … We want to make the University of Tennessee more world-class.”
Cheek on the student section:
After the Chancellor sent out an email addressing the student body on Oct. 6 calling chants from the student section during UT’s game versus Florida “unacceptable,” students have expressed an irritation at Cheek for potentially restricting free speech on campus.
“I can’t control (the student section) … ” Cheek said. “But, what we did at the Florida game does not reflect well on the University of Tennessee.”
He mentioned how head football coach Butch Jones expressed concerns about recruiting after the student section’s chants went live on national television.
“When a parent comes and says, ‘This is what your fans did, is that typical of Tennessee Volunteers? … You’ve got TV’s that are sitting in people’s family rooms and their five-year-old kid is sitting there, and they hear what they’re saying at the University of Tennessee and they say, ‘is this representative of the University of Tennessee?’
“I understand freedom of speech,” Cheek said, “but I also understand that the reputation of this great university is at stake, and I would hope that we would be welcoming to our opponents.
“I wish we would beat them on the field, but when they walk off the field, I’d like to shake hands with them and say, we are glad you came and we are glad we beat you.”
Cheek on tuition:
Cheek audibly groans at the question, and the room fills with laughter at his obvious distaste for the question.
“If the governor were here and the general assembly were here, here’s what I would say to them about that,” Cheek started. “First: we need the state of Tennessee to continue to invest in higher education. We need their partnership and support for higher education.”
Cheek noted since his arrival on campus six years ago, a third of the state budget for higher education has been cut resulting in an approximate about a $66 million loss. He said the budget for this year is $1.3 billion, and $3.7 million of that budget was covered by the state.
“I want to keep tuition as low as possible,” Cheek said. “I want as many students to come here and graduate as we can possibly handle. But, we also have to have the revenue necessary to keep the right professors here, to build the right buildings here and do those types of things.”
Cheek on primary and secondary education:
“We have a critical role in encouraging public education in our department,” he said. “We need our primary and secondary schools to be the best they can be. If I had my wish for Tennessee as a total, I would say we need to make our standards very high all through the curriculum and that we need to encourage students to prepare well for college … and do everything that we can to make sure that our Tennessee students are well prepared to go to universities like the University of Tennessee Knoxville.”
Cheek noted the “talented” group of students already present at UT, citing an average ACT score for Tennessee high schools being at 19.8, while the average ACT score of an entering freshman at UT is 27.
Diana Howell, a sophomore in political science and senator of Apartment Residence Hall said she appreciated the Chancellor’s emphasis on primary and secondary education and was surprised by the standard set at UT.
“It’s really important talking about that relationship we have primary and secondary schools and keeping the ACT scores up,” Howell said. “What was surprising was seeing how high the ACT score that UT has … I knew that it was high but a 27? That’s really good.”
Cheek on divestment:
“(The university’s) stance on divestment is that we don’t think that’s a good strategy to maximize the return that we have on our invested money. There are other ways that we should be focusing our attention on … I think we have to look at a different strategy.”
Cheek on preparation for Ebola:
“I hope it never comes here,” Cheek joked. “But, believe me, we have spent a great deal of time and effort in the last few weeks dealing with that issue … It is a world-wide issue, not just with Ebola, but all types of emerging pathogens.”
Cheek talked about other pathogens coming from outside countries that states in the US are not prepared to fight.
“We desperately need, in my view, more support, more money invested in NIH to help prevent and ultimately control things like Ebola,” Cheek said. “We are under-investing in the research enterprise to solve those critical problems.”
Cheek on parking:
Cheek mentioned how construction has already begun on the Gibbs and Stokely site for a 1,000 car parking garage. Cheek also said the university has just received approval to begin construction planning for an additional parking garage on the Agriculture Campus, and another parking garage plan is in the works.
“Parking is an issue, we try to resolve that as best we can,” he said. “Clearly, we need additional parking availability for students, faculty and staff, that does not necessarily mean one right next to where you need to be.”
Cheek on making UT’s campus more pedestrian friendly:
“What we’ve done with the bridge is one of those pedestrian friendly ideas, and we will move over time to a more pedestrian friendly campus and to more green space,” the Chancellor said.
Design plans for the new residence halls on campus include more green space and walkways as well, Cheek said.
“That is a key component of our master plan.”
Cheek on the living wage:
Cheek said the university has increased compensation for the lowest paid workers on campus from $8 an hour to $9.50 an hour.
“We have a major commitment to making certain that we are compensating the people at the lowest pay grade well,” Cheek said. “And, if you look at our compensation plus our benefits, I would compare us to any institution in the country as far as our pay and the country as far as our pay and benefits.”
Cheek on his goal for UT:
“I hope all of you in five years, ten years, 15 and 20 years, come back to the campus as proud alumni,” he said. “I hope you stay involved with the University of Tennessee. My greatest hope would be that you go out and lead this university and accomplish great things for yourself … I hope you go out from this university and be very, very successful.”
Dean of Students Melissa Shivers said she was encouraged by the depth of student questions and the interests that students showed Tuesday night.
“The questions were incredibly thoughtful,” Shivers said. “It was really exciting to hear a student interest in our journey to the Top 25.”
Kelsey Keny, SGA President and senior in journalism and electronic media, said it was great to see students take advantage of their Chancellor’s willingness to candidly discuss campus issues.
“We don’t have the chance to do this all the time,” Keny said. “Sometimes we have issues that we are working on, and topics that we’re focused on and initiatives that our organizations are working towards and you always want to hear about how our Chancellor, the top guy, feels about it, and this is an avenue to ask.
“Our administrators are so open to answer questions and provide feedback, we’ve just got to take the initiative to come out and ask them.”
