Dr. Strand talks with a client whose dog is in the ICU at the veterinary teaching hospital.

By Elise LeQuire

From an early age, Elizabeth Strand was blessed with biophilia: an interest in nature in general and animals in particular. She knows first hand that animals have curative powers unlike those of physicians and pharmacists. “If we could bottle new puppy feeling, we wouldn’t need antidepressants,” she says.

Today Strand, a licensed clinical social worker, is the director of Veterinary Social Work (VSW) at UT’s College of Veterinary Medicine, and she helps deliver a dose of TLC to people who care for animals.

As a graduate student in UT’s College of Social Work, Strand focused on the link between domestic violence and animal abuse. “At the time I was very interested in issues of racism and efforts in American culture to overcome racism,” says Strand. She studied with Catherine Faver, a former professor in the College of Social Work. Faver’s interest in animal abuse and animal rights raised unsettling questions about how humans could treat animals with such objectivity, or even cruelty. “These issues are linked,” says Strand. “It’s important to treat all beings with respect.”

Upon completing her Ph.D. in 2004, Strand was named director of VSW, which she helped launch in 2002 with the support of the College of Veterinary Medicine’s John New, James Brace, and former dean Michael Blackwell.

VSW Director Elizabeth Strand addresses a group of veterinary students.

VSW offers counseling and outreach services to the community, focusing on four areas: exploring the link between human and animal abuse, offering support to people grieving the loss of a pet, using animal-assisted interventions to take pets into varied settings in the community, and helping animal professionals cope with compassion fatigue that arises from the stresses of their jobs.

Abusive Relations

Strand’s research on the link between human and animal abuse led her to the Fourth Circuit Court of Knox County, where domestic violence cases are heard. With the blessing of Judge Bill Swann, Strand collected data on animal abuse and found that in a three-year period, 35 percent of victims who owned pets and had taken out an order of protection also reported animal abuse.

Working with Knox County’s Animal Abuse Task Force, Strand has helped launch an animal haven program, through which battered women seeking shelter for themselves can find a temporary haven for their pet. “Our goal is to reunite the animals with the women,” Strand says. “Out of 45 women, we had only one case where the pet and its owner were not reunited.” This service is important because many victims of abuse postpone seeking shelter in order to protect their pets.

Unconditional Love

The depth of bereavement over the loss of a pet can at times surprise even its human companion. “Grief over a lost pet is not like grieving over humans,” says Strand. “Unlike humans, pets offer unconditional love.” One client whose pet had died was surprised by the level of her grief. “By talking with a social worker, who honored and respected her grief, she was able to lose weight and reach out to people. It gave her a new lease on life.” VSW offers a Pet Loss Support Group that meets once a month from May through August and twice a month from September through April.

Intervention

Animal-assisted interventions take many forms, from teaming troubled teens with dogs that need basic training, to bringing pets for visits with elderly people, to helping children improve reading skills through the Ruff Reading Program that sends dogs to area schools.

H.A.B.I.T. volunteer golden retriever Maggie brings joy to residents at the Emory Valley Center in Oak Ridge.

Recently a canine volunteer has been helping alleviate the severe anxiety about dogs that a young child developed for no documented reason. Robin French, a Knoxville-based paralegal, could not find professional help for her six-year-old daughter Rachel. “Finally, someone told me to call the vet school,” French says. That call led to weekly meetings with Strand; a volunteer dog owner and her golden retriever, Maggie; and Rachel and her mother. The goal of these sessions is to take slow but deliberate steps to overcome Rachel’s fear. After a couple of meetings, Strand introduced Rachel to Maggie.

At first, Rachel became afraid at the sight of Maggie, but as therapy progressed, she surpassed the goals set by Strand with surprising rapidity. At a recent session, Rachel was able to meet Maggie off the leash. She first hid behind her mother on the couch, but was finally able to pick up Maggie’s leash, take it to the owner, and give Maggie a pat. Maggie’s owner is a volunteer from Human and Animal Bond in Tennessee (H.A.B.I.T.), an organization with representatives from the College of Veterinary Medicine, the local community, and area veterinarians.

Compassion Fatigue

Dave Head, a career animal control professional and director of Knox County Animal Control, knows all about compassion fatigue, the emotional exhaustion that comes from being constantly empathetic to those who are suffering. “We deal with compassion fatigue all the time,” says Head. “We are the bad guys. We are looking out for the animals, but 99 percent of the time we are dealing with people.” Head cites a mentality that is widespread among animal owners. “You can take my wife and my children, but not my dog.”

Most animal control officers are compassionate, says Head, but they are subject to a great deal of stress.

“We pick up about 15,000 animals a year—dogs, cats, snakes, goats, tarantulas, pigs, cows, birds.” Animal Control also refers people who have lost a pet to the Pet Loss Support Group, and they referred one client, a cat hoarder, to Dr. Strand for help.

VSW also has a help line and offers three free consultation sessions for any animal professional—rescue group workers, euthanasia technicians, zookeepers, and animal control officers suffering from stress and compassion fatigue. “Animal control officers are not dog catchers, they are first responders,” says Strand.

Just like people, healthy horses need a nutritious diet and plenty of exercise. Photo by John McCormick.

By Elise LeQuire

Tennessee horse enthusiasts and professionals spend nearly $300 million a year subsidizing their passion. From the idle “yard ornament” some keep on a small acreage to the high-dollar performance horse on the show circuit, Tennessee’s equine population of more than 210,000 is an important driver of the state’s agricultural economy.

An increasing number of owners, however, come to the sport, or hobby, with little or no agricultural background. For first-time owners especially, the learning curve in the responsibilities of horse stewardship can be steep. UT Extension has filled the need for education with a new program for horse owners.

“There is a big need for Extension to provide educational programs that help improve the management of our horses and horse farms,” says Bridgett J. McIntosh, assistant professor and extension horse specialist with UT’s Institute of Agriculture. McIntosh, who grew up on a horse farm and has been showing hunters and jumpers since she was seven, has developed a statewide program, the Tennessee Master Horse Owner (MHO) program, to deliver science-based information to horse aficionados, from the novice to the professional. “Traditional outreach from UT Extension has targeted youth through 4-H programs,” she says. The Master Horse Owner program targets adults, although it is suitable for all ages.

Training the Trainers

The first phase of the Master Horse Owner program consisted of in-service training for state extension agents to help them feel more confident and competent in delivering equine information to their clients. In 2008 and 2009, three 16-hour sessions were held in east, middle, and west Tennessee, covering the equine industry, health, nutrition, reproduction, genetics and selection, behavior and training, farm management, and business management. Nearly half of the state’s extension agents and a number of equine specialists completed the training, which served as preparation for delivery of the information on a county or multi-county basis.

Bridgett J. McIntosh is an assistant professor and extension horse specialist with UT’s Institute of Agriculture.

The first program, based on McIntosh’s curriculum, took place in July 2009 in Shelby County, which has a horse population of about 4,000. “Traditionally, Extension has focused on priority programs such as beef cattle and row crops,” says Becky Muller, the county agent who organized the area-wide program. More than 50 horse people from the Memphis area, Arkansas, and Mississippi participated. The program offers 16 hours of classroom instruction, spread over three days, by equine specialists. “It’s like a mini-equine science class,” says Muller. “Where else could you get this level of training for only $125?”

The next Master Horse Owner program will be offered on a multi-county basis by Lake, Lauderdale, and Dyer Counties in October 2009. In winter 2010, Williamson County Extension, with a horse population of about 5,000, from Shetland ponies to polo ponies to draft horses, will host the program. “We hope to emphasize the responsibility of being an animal owner and the need for proper horse management,” says James D. Perry, extension agent and county director for Williamson County. “The welfare of the animal is the first priority.” That includes underscoring responsible breeding to keep a rein on the burgeoning horse population and on the number of unwanted animals. “A horse needs to be useful and have a purpose,” he says.

Perry, who has six years experience delivering a class in master beef production, says horse people tend to be less economically driven than other farming operations. “Horses are considered by many as companion animals.” For some, however, horses are also a business, but it can be tough for a boarding facility to remain profitable. “In our training program, McIntosh brought in the Tennessee Farm Bureau’s state tax coordinator and CPA Brennis Craddock to advise people on the business aspects of running a profitable horse operation,” says Perry. “It’s a rare thing to make it succeed, but our boarding stables in Williamson County do a good job of offering training, riding lessons, and other opportunities to their clients.”

Diet and Exercise

One of the most basic issues addressed in the program is nutrition and forage for horses. “Surprisingly, veterinarians receive very little nutrition training in vet school, and there is a need for education on equine nutrition in our industry,” says McIntosh, whose research focus is insulin resistance and laminitis, a systemic condition that leads to inflammation and lameness of the hoof and is common in obese horses.

The MHO program features information on nutrition and forage for horses.

In 2009, to support continuing nutrition education for horse owners, horse professionals, 4-H leaders, and youth involved in horse activities, UT and Mississippi State University co-hosted the Southeast Equine Conference, a multi-state, fee-based program delivered through a consortium of 11 southeastern land-grant universities. The program was held at the Agricenter International and Expo Center in Memphis and is available online through the Mississippi State extension website.

A healthy horse diet starts with a firm foundation of pasture forage and top quality hay. Like people, horses also need exercise from workouts or time in a turnout paddock to stay fit. “There’s a lot of folklore out there that people are exposed to,” says McIntosh. That includes expensive, and unproven, supplements, and an astonishing variety of sacked feeds available in feed stores. “Some people just buy a feed that smells good even if their horse does not need it,” she says. “The goal of the Master Horse Owner program and the Southeast Equine Conference is to deliver science-based information to the horse community to improve all aspects of equine management.”

For more information and a schedule of upcoming events, visit the Master Horse Owner program website. Agents who completed the in-service training will find downloadable materials through this site.

Support of these programs has been provided by Alltech, Inc. (sponsor of the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games 2010) and the Tennessee Farmers Cooperative.

Richard Reizenstein, founder and former director of the Executives-in-Residence (EIR) program.

By Elise LeQuire

In the summer of 2009 Richard Reizenstein retired from the College of Business Administration, stepping down from his 35-year role as founder and director of the Executives-in-Residence (EIR) program. Reizenstein leaves behind a robust program that has evolved from a couple of executives speaking to students by phone, to on-campus visits by top-flight executives throughout each fall semester.

Reizenstein is turning the reins of the EIR program over to J. Paul Dittmann, director of the college’s Supply Chain Forum. Plans to broaden the scope of the program include extending executive visits to students in the Global Leadership Scholars Program, an undergraduate honors program that adds a concentration in international business to the student’s major. “Virtually all our speakers have global operations in their companies,” Dittmann says.

Executives scheduled to visit campus in the fall of 2009 include Steve Harmon, vice-president of Kimberley-Clark Corporation; Laurie Tucker, senior vice president of FedEx; James Haslam, founder of Pilot Corporation; Alan Wilson, CEO of McCormick Foods; Joe O’Donnell, CEO of INMAR Corporation; and Ruben Sloan, executive vice president of OfficeMax. “We invite them to share with students their philosophy, their company’s philosophy, and their philosophy of leadership,” Dittmann says.

And thanks to the global information network, a couple of students studying in Europe in the fall can participate in the curriculum. “We will deal with them on a remote basis so that they can get credit while studying abroad,” says Dittmann.

A Cut Above

“EIR is a program that differentiates UT from many other universities,” says Tonya Hinch, a 1985 UT graduate. A former executive with Procter & Gamble, Clairol, Neutrogena, and the Edison Schools, Hinch was a visiting executive in 2008. “Dick Reizenstein and the EIR program were the primary reason I was able to achieve my life goals. If he asked me to sweep floors for him, I would,” says Hinch, who considers Reizenstein one of her important life mentors.

Tonya Hinch (CBA, ’85) was the first alumna to be honored through a new initiative, the Accomplished Alumni Program, in fall 2008. Pictured here with UT Interim President Jan Simek.

“A motivated student can get an education on par with any Ivy League school,” she says. At prestigious schools such as the Wharton School and the Harvard Business School, Bill Gates might talk to an auditorium of hundreds, but he does not sit down at the dinner table or meet face-to-face with students.

In 2003, Hinch, a former Fortune 500 executive, retired from the corporate world and launched her own business, Life Planning Unlimited. In the workshops she offers, Retiring Backwards, she teaches her own philosophy of success.

Hinch entered the workforce at a time when your life in the business world was your work and executives, especially women, were expected to work 100 hours a week. “I did not buy into that,” she says. She has always strived to reach a balance between her career and her life. Early on, her goal was to retire early and live in New York. Life, however, dealt her another card. She returned to her hometown of Crossville to care for her ailing father and took over management of the local family business, Don Hinch & Associates. She holds on to her big city aspirations by maintaining an apartment in New York City.

Hinch recalls the give-and-take of the group sessions and the no-holds-barred exchanges with executives she enjoyed as a student in the EIR program. In the 1980s, students were grappling with issues such as sexual harassment on the job and the difference between male and female bosses. “It’s very unusual to get the small group and one-on-one contacts students enjoy with EIR,” she says. “Where else would you get the opportunity to bring these issues up?”

A Legacy of Engagement

“The fact that a lot of former students of Dr. Reizenstein return to participate in the EIR program testifies to the influence he had on everyone,” says Brian Spaid, who received an MBA in marketing in December 2008 and was a student in the EIR program his final semester. Spaid is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in marketing in the College of Business Administration, with the aim of pursuing an academic career.

Richard T. Clark, Chairman and CEO of Merck & Co., Inc., speaks to a recent class.

The program puts some of the most powerful executives in the world into the classroom and in informal settings, from group meetings to small meetings over a meal to one-on-one sessions. “It reminds you that there are real people behind these big companies,” says Spaid. “These corporations are not just ‘faceless monolithic multinationals.’” In fact, Spaid found that executives are increasingly interested in finding the best solutions to serving both their shareholders and their communities. “The shift toward greater corporate responsibility is encouraging,” he says.

And though the executives don’t reveal any top corporate secrets or hand out stock tips, they sometimes do give students a glimpse into the psyche of the company and a peek behind the curtains of corporate enclaves. In one of the group meetings after class, for example, FedEx’s Laurie Tucker mentioned casually that FedEx was not airing any advertising for Super Bowl 2009. “A month later, I heard it on the news,” says Spaid.

A view from Newfound Gap.

By Dennis McCarthy

It was a spectacularly beautiful day when a dozen cars pulled into the parking lot at Newfound Gap. At almost a mile above sea level, with the humidity below 30 percent, the temperature in the mid-60s, and the cloud cover near zero, the day seemed more like mid October than late April. Twenty-two pilgrims were headed to Charlie’s Bunion, four miles away on the Appalachian Trail—this was Trip 109 on the program for the 59th Annual Spring Wildflower Pilgrimage in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

The Wildflower Pilgrimage

In 1951, a handful of UT botany professors, the Gatlinburg Chamber of Commerce, and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park organized the first Wildflower Pilgrimage. “The Chamber of Commerce initially suggested the idea as a promotional for Gatlinburg and the Park,” said Ed Clebsch, a professor emeritus in UTK’s Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and one of the organizers of the Pilgrimage for almost 30 years. “But the university immediately saw the education outreach benefit of the idea.”

The Pilgrimage has been a cooperative venture ever since. “In the 1960s, the Gatlinburg Garden Club replaced the Chamber of Commerce,” Clebsch added, “and other sponsors were added in the ensuing years—Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, which provides food and housing for the leaders, the City of Gatlinburg, Friends of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the Great Smoky Mountains Association, and the Southern Appalachian Botanical Society.”

The Pilgrimage runs for five days, culminating in the fourth weekend in April. This year, about 800 people attended, from England, Canada, and 35 states. There were 155 trips and 100 leaders. Some trips lasted all day, some but a few hours. A team made up of members of UTK’s Division of Biology and the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and the Tennessee Valley Authority selects the trips each year, UTK provides the leaders, and the other sponsors provide logistical support.

Ken McFarland, a lecturer in the Division of Biology and one of the people largely responsible for running the Wildflower Pilgrimage today, said that “most of the leaders have a UT connection—either they teach or taught at UT or they were students here at one time. The Wildflower Pilgrimage is a major outreach program for the university. Leaders keep coming back year after year because they love doing it and they have such a good time.”

Not all participants come for the wildflowers, of course. There are trips scheduled throughout the day for those interested in mosses, ferns, giant trees, aquatic life, insects, salamanders, bears, wild hogs, ecology, history, folk culture, medicinal plants, photography, sketching, and a dozen other topics. Bird trips begin at sunrise; spider walks begin after dark.

Trip 109

The Wildflower Pilgrimage’s Trip 109–from Newfound Gap to Charlie’s Bunion and back–is largely an ecology walk, offering participants the chance to see some of the dramatic changes that have occurred in the Great Smoky Mountains in recent years. The trail winds through what’s left of beech-birch and spruce-fir forests, with periodic vistas of many of the other forest communities that make the Smokies one of the most ecologically diverse locales in the temperate world.

These dead Fraser fir trees have fallen victim to the balsam wooly adelgid.

The most startling feature of the landscape at Newfound Gap, apart from the intoxicating beauty of the mountains themselves, are the gray boles of dead fir trees poking out of the understory like giant matchsticks. As trip leader D.K. Smith, a professor in UT’s Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department, explained, “These skeletons are almost all that’s left of the Fraser fir, a Southern Appalachian endemic. The villain is the balsam wooly adelgid, an insect not much larger than a gnat. The adelgid attacks the cambium layer—the generative layer of tissue between the bark and the wood—deforming the new wood-forming cells and preventing the tree from moving water up the trunk. The diseased trees die of dehydration.”

Further along the trail, Smith pointed out stands of table mountain pine at mid-elevation on the southwest slope of Mt. LeConte. “Almost all the trees have been killed by pine bark beetles,” Smith said. The dead trees stand as sentinels, waiting for the next fire to open the buried pine cones and release the seeds to regenerate the forest.

“The last few decades have not been kind to these forests,” Smith added. “We also lost the beech trees to beech bark disease and the dogwoods to dogwood anthracnose.”

At Charlie’s Bunion, Smith noted the gray stands of hemlock that cover at least a quarter of the valley between Charlie’s Bunion and the Greenbrier Pinnacle. “Two years ago, these stands were a rich green,” Smith said. “Unless you looked at the trees closely, you wouldn’t have known they were under attack by the hemlock adelgid. The hemlock adelgid is killing much faster than the balsam wooly adelgid. These stands don’t have a chance of reproducing themselves.”

Education Outreach

“Fifty-nine years ago, when Jack Sharp, Royal Shanks, and Fred Norris in the UT Botany Department were putting together ideas for the first Wildflower Pilgrimage, they wanted to promote the incredible diversity of the spring flora in this region,” said Smith. “Sure, there was an education component to it, but mostly they wanted to showcase the spectacular spring flora, promote the Park and the botany department, and have some fun along the way. Today, education is a much more important reason for the Pilgrimage than ever before.”

“The Park is changing and frankly we don’t know what the changes will bring,” Clebsch added. “When the chestnut blight hit the Southern Appalachians in the 1930s, it wiped out the chestnut stands, which were probably a third of the forest vegetation in the Park. Now, we’re losing other dominant trees—beech, hemlock, Fraser fir, table-mountain pine.

“The Smokies look different today than when I first saw them 70 years ago, and in another 70 years they won’t look like they do today. Insects are killing forest communities in the Park, but air pollution is a major factor, too. Air pollution weakens the trees and makes them vulnerable to attack.

“People who come to the Wildflower Pilgrimage see the impacts and learn about the causes,” Clebsch concluded. “When they go home, will what they saw here today affect what they do tomorrow? I don’t know . . . but I sure hope so.”

For additional information, visit the Spring Wildflower Pilgrimage web site.

Malcolm Truss and Jonté Smith.

By Shirley Moore

While many of their friends were hitting the beaches and sleeping in during their time off school this past summer, four high school students from Chicago decided to spend a month working full-time at the Innovative Computing Laboratory (ICL) at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

The ICL is led by Distinguished Professor Jack Dongarra and is internationally renowned for its cutting-edge research in high performance computing.

Shirley Moore, a former full-time staff member at the ICL, conceived of the internship. While teaching at Lindblom Math & Science Academy, a college preparatory school on the south side of Chicago, Moore realized that students could gain valuable experience working with high performance computing at the UT laboratory.

The National Science Foundation Office of Cyberinfrastructure agreed to fund the internship, and Moore solicited applications from both Lindblom Academy and Northside College Preparatory High School, where one of Moore’s colleagues was teaching. Malcolm Truss and Jonté Smith were selected from Lindblom; Ciara Proctor and Klaudia Leja were selected from Northside.

Ciara Proctor and Klaudia Leja.

The four students arrived in Knoxville for their internships at the beginning of July and were provided office space and laptop computers. Truss and Smith worked together on one set of programming problems while Proctor and Leja worked on a different set of problems. The students made software improvements, which the program developers were able to use, and they developed a tutorial. At the end of their internships, the students gave excellent presentations of their work at the weekly ICL lunch seminar.

Reflecting on his summer research experience, Truss said, “It was definitely a positive experience—not just learning about high performance computing, but also living on a budget and doing without TV and video games for a few weeks. The experience helped me focus my efforts at school, and it reinforced my desire to be a computer programmer.”

Proctor concurred, “It was an amazing, once-in-a-lifetime experience,” Proctor said. “I learned so much—more than I ever expected to learn. I found out what’s out there in terms of computer science. It didn’t feel at all like work; I was having fun and learning at the same time. Computer science is definitely what I want to do, and it made me more confident of my career choice.”

Dongarra is so pleased with the outcome that he wants the program to continue. “Klaudia Leja was honored with an Award for Aspirations in Computing by the National Center for Women & Information Technology,” Dongarra says. “That award speaks to the quality of students we get for these internships. The payoff for the students and the ICL is impressive. I’m hopeful that the National Science Foundation will want to support these internships for years to come.”

Visit the Innovative Computing Laboratory website

Academic Outreach Award Winner

Michael Lofaro.

Michael Lofaro, Professor, Department of English
A specialist in American literature and culture, focusing on Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, and James Agee, Dr. Lofaro’s entire academic career reflects sustained commitment to integrated teaching, scholarship and outreach. His work has attracted local, state, and national funding and has resulted in numerous publications and international impact on public education.

Distinguished Award Nominees

Allison Anders, Assistant Professor, Educational Psychology and Counseling
Dr. Anders is integrating her scholarship and service by extending her classroom into the community; thereby, giving her students a chance to serve and learn. Her students in the “Social Justice and Education” class engage in service learning by tutoring and mentoring local refugee children and adults in the Knoxville area.

Michael Berry, Professor, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Since 2001, Dr. Berry has been the co-creator and host of math Jeopardy contests held throughout the southeast, where students demonstrate their ability to solve math problems quickly in a fun environment based on the game show. He recently collaborated with the School of Art for “Basics of Computer Science Animated”, a set of five animated modules that can be used in traditional classrooms or for generating interest in the field of Computer Science.

Gajanan Bhat, Professor, Materials Science and Engineering
As Director of the UT Nonwovens Research Laboratory, Dr. Gajanan Bhat has created biodegradable filter materials for household air and water filtration and protective garments for first responders. He devotes a significant portion of his time to unpaid consulting with local industries, lending his expertise to create flame-resistant mattress material, identifying materials to be used in wraps for horses’ hooves, helping develop more eco-friendly landscape fabric, among many other examples.

Joseph Carcello, Ernst & Young Professor, Accounting
Dr. Carcello is a cofounder and Director of Research at the University of Tennessee’s Corporate Governance Center. He has provided consulting services and training for a number of companies on fraudulent financial reporting and corporate governance. He has served the Securities and Exchange Commission as an expert witness and has testified before a United States Treasury Department committee on the future of the auditing profession.

H. Lee Dodds, IBM Professor, Department of Nuclear Engineering
Under Dr. Lee Dodds’ direction, the department has become a national leader in distance education and life-long learning for nuclear professionals, interested students, and the general public. The web cast Nuclear Colloquium series offers speakers on important public issues and has developed a broad following. Dr. Dodds runs an annual short course for middle and high school teachers, so they can introduce nuclear fundamentals into their science courses.

Ginger Evans, Assistant Professor, College of Nursing
As a forensic nursing expert and Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner, Ginger Evans teaches nursing students, law enforcement personnel, and other health care professionals about the process and impact of domestic violence and sexual assault. She also cares for victims locally as a nurse forensic examiner and her expert attention, documentation, and/or court testimony has resulted in a number of rape convictions including a federal child trafficking case.

Michael Fitzgerald, Professor, Department of Political Science
Dr. Fitzgerald’s expertise is American government and public administration. His credentials as an award-winning teacher and reputation as a spell-binding speaker have made him much in demand for media interviews and presentations to government agencies, schools, and community groups. He is one of the University’s best known faculty and public scholars.

Rena Hallam, Assistant Professor, Child and Family Studies
Dr. Hallam directs the activities of the East Tennessee Child Care Referral and Resource Center which operates in 16 counties in East Tennessee. She also works with Pastitos, an outreach program for low-income Hispanic mothers and with the TN Higher Education Commission to help Knox County low-income children transition successfully from pre-K to kindergarten programs.

Sally Horn, Professor, Department of Geography
Dr. Horn has involved teachers in her research for years, but her recent grant from the National Science Foundation funding the “UT Earth Science Project,” enables graduate students to share their research and hands-on inquiry to East Tennessee middle school students and to engage the teachers in laboratory and field research.

Veerle Keppens, Associate Professor, Department of Materials Science and Engineering
Dr. Keppens is a mainstay of the Pre-Collegiate Scholars program, participating every year in a program where high school students are mentored in UT engineering research laboratories, gaining real university-level research project experience. She has given demonstrations on materials in local high schools and kindergarten classes, and through her role as faculty advisor to the Society of Women Engineers, runs science demonstration days for local Girl Scout troops.

Norman Magden, Professor, School of Art
As community arts consultant and advocator, Norman Magden has been a public scholar in the truest sense, serving as officer and board member of leading community arts organizations, chairing community task forces, shepherding initiatives to ground the arts in the city, and consistently staging and promoting the work of local artists.

Garry Menendez, Associate Professor, Plant Sciences
With specializations in planning, landscape architecture and design, Dr. Menendez works with many schools, churches, and other local organizations to provide landscape design services they might not otherwise be able to afford. He also speaks to community groups and works with many community boards and task forces.

Matthew Murray, Professor, Economics and CBER
Dr. Murray works on regional, state, and national levels to provide information about economic development and tax policies. He advises local officials on economic issues and has worked extensively on projects involving the state of education in Tennessee and tax and welfare policy. Able to make complicated information accessible, he is often in demand as a speaker.

David Ostermeier, Professor, Forestry, Wildlife and Fisheries
As a scholar in natural resource policy, Dr. Ostermeier works on sustainability planning and policy, locally and globally. He brings together diverse stakeholders to address pressing environmental problems and arrive at collaborative solutions. He has contributed his expertise to sustainability of natural resources such as the Cumberland Plateau and worked with organizations that focus on natural resource management.

Dan Roberts, Professor, Department of Biochemistry and Cellular and Molecular Biology
As director of the Tennessee Junior Science and Humanities Symposium and creator of the Pre-Collegiate Research Affiliates Program, Roberts affords high school students throughout Tennessee the opportunity to engage in an original research project and to prepare a research paper summarizing the results for presentation at an annual research symposium

John Romeiser, Professor, Department of Modern Foreign Languages and Literatures
Romeiser has a stellar record of public service as founding board member and now president of the East Tennessee Veteran’s Memorial Association. He has been instrumental role in the fundraising efforts for a newly-dedicated monument honoring the 6200 fallen soldiers and Veterans History Education Center to be built on site.

Rupinder Sawhney, Associate Professor, Department of Industrial and Information Engineering
Dr. Sawhey applies his expertise in lean management, production systems and supply chain management to help local business, industry and government. He has worked with over 75 companies, using these projects to expose his students to practical, real-world problems. Rupy and his students have recently been contracted by the UT administration to look at the efficiency of several UT operations.

Penny J. White, Professor, College of Law
As Director of the Center for Advocacy, Professor White is responsible for developing outreach programs to promote interaction among the students and faculty of the Law School, other members of the University community, and members of the bench and bar. Under her leadership, the advocacy program is one of the most extensive, innovative, and well-recognized programs in the country. She oversees the College’s Judicial Externship Program and the Constitutional Law Moot Court Team.

UT Libraries and the English Department collaborate to draw attention to emerging authors.

By Jay Fields

According to Brian Griffin, the first UT writer in residence, you’d have to go in the card catalogue and look under “American Chemical Society” to ferret your way to the remote but beautiful writer’s space he was given—a space set aside for the year’s resident writer.

“I wrote a lot of poetry there,” he says, “received a small honorarium, and had access to the collection. I got lots of support. I wanted to return the favor.”

The Writer in Residence program began in 1998 as a UT library-based initiative to support emerging authors. When first approached by Paula Kaufman, who was dean of UT Libraries at the time, Brian was teaching creative writing at the university and readily accepted the appointment.

Opening the Doors

“I had bumped into several grad student gatherings at the University of Virginia where original works were read and I thought we had a wonderful opportunity to do that here,” Brian recalls. “The English Department got right behind it. We went ahead on a shoestring, held the first readings in the faculty lounge, and left the doors wide open so anyone who was walking by would be drawn in.”

Brian Griffin, the first UT writer in residence.

The idea exploded in its dimensions in subsequent years, with each resident writer working with the English Department and library to stage readings by student authors, local writers, and nationally known, award-winning poets and artists invited to take part in the series.

Called “Writers in the Library,” this now long-running string of literary events has featured national poet laureate Ted Kooser, poets Charles Wright and Yusef Komunyakaa, author and essayist Elizabeth Gilbert, and actor, poet and country rocker Steve Earle. Local authors reading in the series have included Linda Parsons and Jeff Daniel Marion, Marilyn Kallet, Michael Knight, Jack Renfro, and Kevin Bradley.

“I hosted Ted Kooser,” says Marilyn Kallet, author, English professor and devoted series advocate, “I also hosted Pulitzer Prize winner Yusef Komunyakaa a few years ago. We filled the auditorium and lots of overflow rooms. Everyone was so excited about Yusef’s presence. He did an informal presentation that was the jewel in the crown.”

Keeping the Doors Open

The Writer in Residence program will take a year’s hiatus in the 2009-2010 academic year with fall-offs in supporting endowments, according to JoAnne Deeken, director of technical services for UT Libraries, though the reading series will again set sail in the library’s auditorium, generally with readings each month.

“The program will continue,” says Marilyn Kallet. “All of us in the creative writing program will make sure that the widest possible diversity of speakers comes to campus, the highest quality of writing in diverse genres will flourish. Our students need the contact with major American and world writers, and they will find themselves in that excellent company in the months and years ahead.”

As an example, Marilyn says she’ll be hosting Prairie Schooner editor Hilda Raz in late October. Also scheduled to visit: Dorothy Allison, 1992 National Book Award finalist for her semi-autobiographical first novel, Bastard out of Carolina.

In the program’s history, fiction writer and playwright Pamela Schoenwaldt followed Brian Griffin, serving as writer in residence for the years 2001 through 2003. In that time frame, she helped double the number of readings in the auditorium series, focusing on local writers.

“One night we had a discussion on death, spinning a dialogue around faith and reason,” she says. “No matter the subject, it’s always a wonderful partnership with the library, a chance to meet local and regional writers, and, for students, a validation of their work.”

Making the Connection

Poet and non-fiction writer Patricia Waters served as writer in residence for 2003-2004, followed by RB Morris, poet, editor, and musician, from 2004 to 2008, an individual described by Barbara Dewey, Dean of Libraries, “as our first, and only, Writers in the Library performer to be backed up by a double bass.” The current writer in residence is Kali Meister whose writing grows out of acting and directing in theatre, performance art, and film productions.

Poet, editor, musician and most recent UT writer in residence RB Morris.

“During the time I was there we began archiving the readings,” says RB Morris. “That was probably my major contribution. That and the fact that I also included songwriters. The song lyric is a poetic voice that has enriched western culture and has been a major ambassador of the American arts to the rest of the world.

“Knoxville has a long and rich history in both literature and music. The Writers in the Library program is a great outreach program for connecting student and university writers with local and regional writers. And, of course, it’s always a powerful and often pivotal connection for student writers to be exposed first hand to internationally renowned authors. The program consistently brought all these connections together.”

JoAnne Deeken who, along with Martha Rudolph, coordinates the library-side of the reading series, says the community of Knoxville hugely benefits. “Families of the students come; there’s a lot of dialogue after the readings. We have audiences, depending on the subject matter, that include every age.”

“The best thing for me,” she says, “is the interaction between audience and presenter. I remember someone asking a writer, ‘How can you keep writing?’ and the writer said, ‘I can’t not do it.’”

And, as Marilyn Kallet says, there’s something to be said for the place itself.

“Any space where poetry and fiction have been honored consistently over the years becomes sacred space, and the library auditorium is no exception,” she says. “We have learned to gather there, in that venue, and our expectations of hearing strong new work have been raised and met. So the venue is important. A lot of creative energy and skill have found a home there.”

Considering the warp and bent and impact of the entire series, Brian Griffin says good humoredly, “I don’t think Paula Kaufman would have envisioned all this.”

The Writer in Residence program was named in honor of former UT Chancellor Jack E. Reese in 2005. Reese, who died in May 2005, was an active supporter of the UT Libraries and the local writing community.

Graduate student Ashton Fisher (left) counsels one of her clients.

By Jay Fields

Tricia McClam tells the story of a fourth grader in east Knoxville who shows up early for an appointment in her school’s library.

When asked why she’s there, she says, “I’m looking for my friend.”

Her friend is a graduate student who meets with her each week, reads to her, plays with her, and listens to her, as part of a grief outreach program begun in the fall of 2008 by the University of Tennessee.

The children in the program are dealing with major, usually stunning, instances of loss and grief. They face circumstances that involve divorce, abandonment, suicide, murder, custody battles, or a parent who’s been taken off to prison.

“Incredibly tough issues,” says Dr. McClam, professor and associate head of Educational Psychology and Counseling at the university. “The referrals I get, from school counselors, from principals, from social workers, take my breath away. It might be an uncle who was stabbed, a family member with a terminal illness, or a parent who died during the night.”

“Three of the four children I’ve met with,” says graduate student Ashton Fisher, “have fathers in jail. And when you have one or both parents missing, it can have a major, major impact on self-esteem. They want someone to trust. They want to know that whatever they say is okay, that it won’t get them into trouble.”

The Little Things

For 25 graduate students in the College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences engaged in grief counseling in the spring of 2009, signs of success may show up in “the little things,” says Dr. McClam.

Tricia McClam

“We all get together every Thursday morning and meet and talk about what’s going on for an hour and a half,” she says. “You might hear someone say that their client had started to talk, or ‘we had a great session,’ or ‘my client showed up yesterday.’ Little things.”

Little things that add up.

“The issues these children face have a major impact on performance in school and peer relationships,” Dr. McClam says. “We stay with them until they reach a point where they’re back on track academically and you can see behavioral changes in the classroom.”

“You cater to where they are,” says Ashton, “You give them the tools they need; help them refocus on strengths. Then that ability gives them the control to move forward. It spills over into every other area of their lives.”

In the Beginning

Grief outreach from UT—what Dr. McClam calls “the most powerful kind of learning”—began as a simple, heart-stirring experience.

It began with a child named Aliyah at Sarah Moore Greene Elementary School where Dr. Bob Rider, dean of the College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences, had been reading with students every Wednesday for four years.

When Dr. Rider asked the first-grader to read a book about Mother’s Day aloud to him, she told him her mother had died on the previous Valentine’s Day. Because of her grief, she had been held back in school, not adjusting socially and academically.

Bob Rider

“I was at a loss for words,” Dr. Rider says. “I was thinking, ‘We have wonderful counseling programs at the university and other support services.’ I wanted to know how we could help.”

On October 1, 2008, the program that Dr. Rider’s experience triggered began accepting referrals. Graduate students trained to become school psychologists, mental health counselors, and school counselors signed on. And they continue to sign on, as part of a cohesive team, taking an active role in choosing those clients they believe they can best help.

“Our students come into the experience committed,” says Dr. McClam. “They have to be. They know how important it is.”

Creating an Outlet

“It’s a very individual thing, getting to know your client,” says Ashton. “You don’t know how resistant they might be to being with you, to talking. In the four cases I’ve had, there was no resistance. These kids were hurting and they needed an outlet.”

The artfulness in drawing out the thoughts and questions and hurt the children carry is taken up in listening and patience.

“We talk about things and we skirt some things,” says Angela Mounger, another graduate student who worked with four children, “but if you listen, you can hear between the lines and ask a question and get something going.

“I was meeting with a boy who’d lost his father and he talked about a movie he didn’t like. I asked him what it was about and he said it was about a boy who’d lost his dad. That opened things up. Behind the silent stretches, there can be intense sadness and anger. So you want to give them a vocabulary, a way to label what they’re feeling,” Angela says. “They’re mostly in a family where everyone is hurting over what happened, so they have no one to talk to.

They can’t bring up anything at home. As a result, they’re looking for a safe place.”

The grief initiative has largely focused on a single area of high poverty, some 16 square miles in east Knoxville, designated an “Empowerment Zone” in 1998 under a Clinton administration urban rebuilding program. But Dr. McClam is also receiving referrals from other areas of Knox County, saying that the number of children dealing with grief and loss in our community “is much greater than we anticipated.”

As Angela Mounger puts it, “I was overwhelmed by the amount of need out there.”

Beneficiaries of the program are not only the children themselves and their families, but also the graduate students who pour in their skills and time, commitment and heart; who wait patiently for signs.

“There’s no timeline. It’s a process. We go at our client’s pace. And, moving that way, we watch them grow,” says Angela. “It’s very rewarding.”

“They’re resilient,” Ashton says. “It’s also impossible not to love them.”

For information and referrals, Dr. McClam may be reached at 865-974-3845 or mcclam@utk.edu.

Students expressing themselves at the theatre workshop.

By Jay Fields

High school students who participate in summer workshops at UT’s Clarence Brown Theatre come into the program from a wide sea of circumstance. One painfully shy. Another adrift in grief from the loss of a parent. A third, street-smart and angry, and worried about acceptance.

But for each teenager who makes the commitment, something invariably happens to change things. By the end of two weeks of voice lessons and improvs and performances, there’s a shift. The heart lightens, the world offers a new slate of possibilities, there’s a willingness to take risks that wasn’t there before.

“To begin with, there’s a lot going when you’re in your mid-teens,” says Carol Mayo-Jenkins, UT resident artist and workshop coach. “You’re trying to figure out who you are, how you fit in. You’re discovering you’re different from your parents. You’re learning to use your own voice, maybe for the first time.

“Then we get into this work, nine to four every day. It’s a lot of physical work. There are exercises and games and technique development in the morning, scenes and musical numbers to run through in the afternoon,” she says. “We set up a very positive experience. We suspend judgment. We encourage a sense of daring. So everyone is more willing to take risks. And when someone falls down, everybody supports them. We dust them off and they get right back in the game, usually with a lot of laughter.”

A Theatre of Change and Growth

The Clarence Brown Theatre High School Acting Workshop, founded in 2001, enrolls 30 to 40 high school students each summer in two separate intensive workshops. Past participants, from Tennessee and seven other states, have worked on skills that include basic acting, improvisation, voice, movement, and musical theatre technique.

“There’s no audition,” says Terry Silver-Alford, UT Theatre Department faculty member and director of the program, “just an interest in performance.

An acting couple.

“Over the past few years,” he continues, “we’ve added a musical theatre component. Students are assigned duets from Broadway musicals, receive voice coaching, and learn one or two large ensemble numbers that require singing and dancing. All these pieces are presented in a final showcase, which includes acting scenes from major American plays.”

For each student, the theatre at hand is a theatre of change and growth.

“You meet your coaches—like Carol and David Alley—and they’re really accomplished actors with great careers, and you realize, ‘You know, they’re people too. I can do this,’” says Rachel Winfrey, a workshop participant for four years and a recent UT theatre graduate. “What’s going on opens you up emotionally. And, let me say, there is some awesome socializing. You’re part of a family.”

Rachel, who has assisted in the workshops, talks about students adapting to games, to improv situations, to different ways of thinking and doing things.

“You might jump rope while delivering lines from Shakespeare,” she says. “It’s amazing. And it’s amazing to see how much it can mean.”

In a stage exercise, one young man wrote a rap song to his father whom he had never known. “It came out of a big group scene where the actors stepped forward with a monologue they had each written,” says Carol. “It was extraordinary. All the monologues were stunning.

Exposing the Talent

“The most surprising experiences for me are those times when this sort of unrealized ability just comes out in one of the kids. I don’t really know what talent is but I do know when a student puts something of themselves forward—that is amazing. Often it’s just for the moment—something they are able to reach inside themselves—something unforgettable.”

And, says Carol, “I think when it pops loose, when it comes up in a performance, yes, I think they recognize it too.”

“These are kids from across every spectrum,” Rachel says, “and they’re pushed at the same level. They grow, they learn, they come into a light heart.”

In addition to Carol Mayo-Jenkins and Terry Silver-Alford, David Alley, another honored professional actor and UT resident artist, takes a major role in workshop coaching, as well as Jimmy Brimer who has musically directed a raft of shows at the Clarence Brown over many years of service to the university and to its theatre.

“In Tennessee,” says Terry Silver-Alford, whose own daughter is a recent participant, “there’s nothing quite like these workshops.”

For further information, contact Terry via email at tsilvera@utk.edu or phone 865-974-6011. Student participants pay a fee for workshop attendance.

Knoxville attorney Donna Smith.

By Jay Fields

There’s a split second of recognition, a flash of light, a dam bursting, a note that rockets to self.

It says: “Ohmygosh, I’m in good hands here.”

For victims of domestic violence who make connections with the Fourth Circuit Court in Knoxville to file for protective orders and meet with an assigned student lawyer from UT, this appears to be the emotional bridgework that happens in the first meeting.

“One of the first things we learn,” says Maryam Kassaee, a former UT Domestic Clinic student lawyer, “is to listen. You just have to be there, listen, and stay clear.”

“I had a teenager filing for protection from the abuse of a boyfriend,” Maryam recalls. “I just kept listening. What came up was information that was really critical to her life, something I wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. Once she opened up, I could bring some other professionals into it.”

The Art of Lawyering

Knoxville attorney Donna Smith (UT College of Law, ’98), who supervises the program and teaches at the law school, says these third year students are really stepping off into the art of lawyering when they agree to take on domestic violence cases in the Fourth Circuit Court.

“They learn how to collect evidence, where to get a police report, how to get a photograph they need, where to find criminal records of an alleged abuser,” Donna says. “And they learn to listen and to look for signs of domestic violence, like issues of power and control. Very often, we’re talking about economic abuse in addition to physical abuse. There’s just nowhere to go when the abuser controls the financial resources. So when a victim shows up and sits down with one of our assigned lawyers, she’s often telling her story for the first time.

“Our students are provisionally licensed,” she says. “They’re going up against seasoned lawyers, so they know they have to work twice as hard. The client sees and feels how involved and how prepared their attorney is and their response has just been wonderful.”

Making the Commitment

For UT students (four per semester) who find themselves drawn to practicing domestic law while in school, getting deeply involved—listening, emotionally committing, presenting evidence, and arguing a case—can bring up its own set of trials.

“To some degree or other, all students are afraid when they step up to address the court for the first time,” Donna says. “I tell them to view fear as a doorway. You’ve got to walk through it or you’ll never get to the other side. The good news is I’ve never had a student who died.”

Judge Bill Swann.

The Fourth Circuit Court’s long-time presiding judge, Bill Swann (UT College of Law, ’75), is a “huge proponent of the program,” Donna says.

“He never treated us as less than full-fledged lawyers,” Maryam recalls. “Everyone in the court is good to work with; all the clerks, courteous, friendly. They appreciate us.”

From the bench’s perspective, what these students are doing is “changing lives.”

“Their work is uniformly excellent,” says Judge Swann, “We’ve come to call them the ‘dream team’ because of the relationships they build with their clients, their thoroughness, and their caring attitude.”

The one advantage of students practicing law as it pertains to gaining and enforcing protective orders in domestic violence cases is the “compact nature of the law in this area,” according to Ben Barton, faculty member and director of the UT Legal Clinic. “You can be up and running in two weeks,” he says, “and get right in there on the front line.”

“I had a good feeling that I knew what I was doing,” Maryam remembers. “In a hearing on an ex parte order of protection, there are certain things you can do and that’s it—it’s a narrow band of the law.”

A Powerful Experience

Students who are enrolled in Family Law or Women and the Law can take the Domestic Violence Clinic as an additional class. The idea of a domestic violence clinic evolved informally in the 2000–2001 academic year when several students approached Professor Deseriee Kennedy about the prospect of assisting victims of domestic violence in securing orders of protection. Professor Kennedy, enthusiastic about the opportunity, recruited Donna Smith, a recent law school graduate with an established family law practice, to supervise the students. Those choosing to engage in the work are provisionally licensed and practice under the charter of the UT Legal Clinic.

“It’s a service to the community,” says Ben, “and one that is very, very important. The students who pitch in have to have equal measures of sympathy and empathy when they’re digging into these cases. It’s a powerful experience.”

In addition to the assigned lawyer, there are many other agencies and programs that converge on the scene of domestic disputes and violence, not the least of which are support groups for any of the parties involved.

“It’s critical to know you’re not alone as a victim of domestic violence,” says Donna, “and that holds regardless of a person’s age, regardless of whether it’s a husband-wife issue, a grandmother and a granddaughter, a woman, or a man. We’ve represented the whole spectrum.