Tag: University of Tennessee

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Ford to Invest $16.5 Million in Watershed Restoration, STEM Research

The large lake and surrounding wetlands at Lone Oaks farm are part of the Cub Creek watershed. (Credit: UTIA)

Beyond its BlueOval City megasite, Ford is teaming up with the University of Tennessee to invest heavily in both education and conservation efforts in West Tennessee.

At the 2022 Memphis International Auto Show, Ford Motor Company and the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture (UTIA) announced a partnership that would see the restoration of stream waters flowing through UT’s Lone Oaks Farm in Middleton, Tennessee, about 80 miles east of Memphis. Ford’s planned investment of $16.5 million into the project would boost UT’s plans to turn the Farm into a 1,200-acre, 4-H and STEM education center. Educational programs at Lone Oaks serve around 5,000 K-12 students annually, but Ford’s investment will allow UT to grow its offerings and provide more overnight STEM programs and camps.

“Every year, UTIA provides valuable life skills as well as STEM education opportunities to nearly 112,000 students across Tennessee,” said UT President Randy Boyd. “Ford’s investment in Lone Oaks will ensure our 4-H programs will be able to expand STEM education to Tennessee students for years to come.”

Development projects that have an impact on streams and wetlands must offset that by restoring and permanently protecting an equivalent amount of habitat in another location, per the Clean Water Act of 1972. UTIA and the property at Lone Oaks Farm provided Ford a local opportunity to meet its regulatory requirements while constructing the BlueOval City project. The $16.5 million will specifically target the restoration of 20,000 feet of streams at Lone Oaks and provide long-term financial support for the educational programs.

“At Ford, our goal is to create a positive impact on people and the planet,” said Bob Holycross, vice president of sustainability, environment, and safety engineering at Ford. “We’re proud to enter into this innovative partnership with the University of Tennessee that will help restore and protect the streams and wetlands at the Lone Oaks Farm and create educational opportunities that will inspire and benefit future generations. This is just one way we can fulfill our purpose to help build a better world.”

Other organizations involved with the restoration project are the Tennessee Wildlife Federation and the West Tennessee River Basin Authority.

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News The Fly-By

University Employees Can Begin Carrying Guns Friday

CREDIT: Laura Iushewitz | Dreamstime.com

Handguns will be allowed on the campuses of Tennessee’s public universities on Friday, and Memphis’ two biggest universities began registering employees wishing to carry this week.

State lawmakers passed the bill to allow full-time employees to carry handguns on public university campuses in May. Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam expressed concern about the legislation at the time but allowed the bill to become law without his signature.

The bill was opposed by the Tennessee Board of Regents (TBR) and the University of Tennessee (UT) system. The two organizations will manage gun-carry programs at the 46 institutions they oversee.

“Our police chiefs and public safety officers will face greater challenges when responding to emergency situations with the complexity this law adds to their responsibilities,” TBR interim Chancellor David Gregory said in May.

Laura Iushewitz | Dreamstime.com

Employees must have a state-issued permit to carry a handgun, and they must register with their school’s police department if they want to carry on campus. University of Memphis opened its registration process to employees Tuesday. University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC) will open its registration process Friday.

Handguns cannot be carried into stadiums, gymnasiums, or auditoriums while school-sanctioned events are in progress. They are not allowed in meetings about student or employee discipline matters or in meetings about faculty tenure. At UTHSC, handguns cannot be carried into a hospital, student health or counseling center, or into an office that provides medical or mental health services.

U of M president David Rudd was expected to release a more detailed statement on the issue this week, but in a statement to the U of M campus community in May, he said “I don’t believe the presence of more weapons will make our campus safer.”

“The University of Memphis campuses have consistently been among the safest in the state, which is critical to student success,” Rudd said. “We believe our exemplary safety record is due in part to guns being prohibited with the exception of those carried by highly trained police officers.”

Stuart Dedmon is a U of M student, and he heads the Tennessee chapter of Students for Concealed Carry (SCC), which advocates for on-campus carry rights. He said the organization does not claim that on-campus carry will make campuses safer. Concealed carry is about personal protection, he said, not public protection.

“We realize that many individuals are uncomfortable with the thought of armed individuals on their college campus, but those same individuals worried about guns on campus are likely surrounded by licensed and armed individuals while off campus.,” Dedmon said.

Tennessee Senate Minority Leader Lee Harris, who is also a professor at U of M’s law school, surveyed 1,700 university faculty members across the state, and he said many criticized the move.

“Make no mistake. Special interest groups and the opinions of a very small minority of Tennesseans drive decisions like this one,” Harris said.

Southwest Tennessee Community College did not respond to an inquiry on this story.

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Editorial Opinion

All Have Won …

… And all must have prizes. We’re talking about the bounteous blessings that the holiday season has bestowed upon various local university athletic departments.

Closest to home is the University of Memphis, which (besides having one of the top-ranked basketball teams in the nation) finished its football season in a blaze of unexpected glory, winning five of its last six games to finish 7-5, becoming thereby bowl-worthy. In its finale against Southern Methodist University, Tommy West’s Tigers thrilled all who beheld the game with a triple-overtime victory. The team’s prize? A visit to the New Orleans Bowl and, one hopes, a bumper recruiting crop for next year.

Then there’s the University of Tennessee Volunteers. They won their heart-stopper against the University of Kentucky, triumphing finally in four overtimes, no less, 52-50, when the Vols stopped a two-point effort by the Wildcats, victors against mighty L.S.U. in a previous multiple-overtime game this year. All the Volunteers gained from Saturday’s game was the Eastern Conference championship of the Southeastern Conference. And a place in the SEC title contest. That’s all.

Speaking of L.S.U., those other Tigers from Louisiana State had long since recovered from their licking by Kentucky to regain the number-one ranking in the nation, until they encountered on Saturday yet another football team with a strong local following. This was the University of Arkansas Razorbacks, who played either well over their heads or up to their potential in downing the Bayou Bengals, 50-48, in, yep, another triple-overtime affair.

In the process, Razorback quarterback Darren McFadden surely enhanced his credentials for the Heisman Trophy. Meanwhile, the Razorbacks en masse enhanced their credentials for the Cotton Bowl with the victory. There was one cloud over Arkansas’ holiday sunshine, however: the resignation of longtime head coach Houston Nutt, victim of some passing strange northwest Arkansas soap opera which we don’t pretend to understand.

Mississippi State’s Bulldogs had suffered three straight losing seasons under head coach Sylvester Croom. But— eureka! — they emerged from Saturday’s Egg Bowl contest against arch-rival Ole Miss with one of the strangest come-from-behind victories we’ve seen in quite a while. That was owing to Rebel coach Ed Orgeron’s bizarre decision, with a 14-0 lead and 10 minutes left, ball at midfield and fourth and one, to go against logic and the odds in an effort to make a first down. Bad idea. The Bulldogs got the ball, the momentum, and the game, as they made two quick touchdowns and kicked a last-second field goal — 17-14 and over and out for Orgeron, who was let go as Ole Miss coach the next day.

So, is the University of Mississippi, winless in its SEC games for the first time since 1982, the only sad sack in the holiday saga of Mid-South college football? Actually, Arkansas’ loss became Mississippi’s gain with the hiring on Tuesday of the aforesaid Nutt as Rebel coach. Not since the late Johnny Vaught has Ole Miss possessed a football mentor with the record and reputation that Nutt, voted Coach of the Year in 2006, will bring. Nutt is what you might call glad tidings for the once-mighty Rebel program — the ghost of Christmas future, as it were.

Congratulations, all, and pass the cranberry sauce.

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Sports Sports Feature

Tigers Glide Past Tennessee-Martin; Rose Debut a Good One

(AP) – Derrick Rose didn’t take long to adjust to the college game.

The highly touted freshman had 17 points, six rebounds and five assists in his collegiate debut and No. 3 Memphis beat Tennessee-Martin 102-71 on Monday

Calipari said Rose might be the player Memphis needs this year to push them into the Final Four.

“You need to have a guy, that when the game is on the line, he can just dog the other guys and do whatever he wants when he wants,” Calipari said. “He can do that.”

Memphis senior forward Joey Dorsey has a sprained right shoulder sprain and did not play. He is also expected to miss Tuesday night’s game with the injury. Shawn Taggart, a transfer from Iowa State, started in his place and finished with 15 rebounds.

The Tigers will play Richmond, which beat Maine 44-42 on Monday, in the regional final Tuesday night. The winner will play in the semifinals at Madison Square Garden on Nov. 15.

Categories
Sports Sports Feature

FROM MY SEAT: Just Thinking…

A few
not-so-random thoughts from the world of sports:

• I
admire coach Tommy West and the University of Memphis football program for the
strength they showed in playing last week’s game against Marshall, as
scheduled, in the aftermath of Taylor Bradford’s murder. The marching band’s
rendition of “Amazing Grace” at halftime may have been the most poignant
moment I’ve experienced at the Liberty Bowl.

I
strongly disagree with the decision to play less than 48 hours after a member
of the team was shot and killed, but if three hours in helmets and pads in
front of 25,000 friends helped ease the pain, even briefly, the effort was
worthwhile.

It’s
now the responsibility of the U of M administration, of course, to be
proactive in raising awareness about gun violence in Memphis. Our flagship
educational enterprise simply must focus attention on this city’s single most
damning weakness. However isolated or “targeted” the administration considers
Bradford’s murder, guns taking the lives of young Memphians is epidemic. The
university owes this larger battle (and far more than a football game) to the
memory of Taylor Bradford.

•
Having caught my first glimpse of the 2007-08 Memphis Grizzlies at last week’s
public “Lunch Time” scrimmage, I’ve got a name for you: Casey Jacobsen. Mike
Conley and Darko Milicic will be popular new faces at FedExForum and will play
large roles in determining how close this team is to playoff contention. But
the sharp shooting Jacobsen — a college star at Stanford who cut his pro teeth
in Europe — is going to be among the most popular Grizzlies in the season
ahead.

• Can
SEC football get any better? The 12th-ranked Georgia Bulldogs go to Tennessee,
ready to put a beat-down on the sagging Vols, having won their last three
games in Knoxville. Instead, UT discovers it can run the ball and whips the
Dawgs by 21 in a game that wasn’t that close.

Then a
few hours later, top-ranked LSU finds itself on the ropes against the
defending national champions, only to rally with one fourth-down conversion
after another, scoring the winning touchdown with less than two minutes to
play. Don’t bet against these Tigers the rest of the season. (And how many
Mid-South football fans were shedding tears over Florida being eliminated from
the national-title hunt the first week in October?)

•
Tradition will take a beating in the National League Championship Series later
this week. The senior circuit’s two historical whipping boys — the Cubs and
Phillies — both went down in three-game sweeps, and at the hands of two clubs
(the Diamondbacks and Rockies, respectively) that weren’t playing baseball as
recently as 1992.

Consider these “historical” factoids. The greatest player in Arizona history —
the currently hobbled Randy Johnson — has pitched in more games as a Mariner
than he has as a Diamondback. In 10 years of baseball, Arizona has changed its
uniform design more often than the St. Louis Cardinals have in 116 years. As
for the Rockies, they aim to reach their first World Series having still never
finished atop their division. Bless the wild card.

Even
with tradition out the window, the NLCS will be a healthy introduction for
many fans to some of the best young players never seen east of the Rocky
Mountains. Colorado’s Matt Holliday (.340 batting average, 36 homers, 137
RBIs) is — with Philadelphia’s Jimmy Rollins — one of two viable NL MVP
candidates. Rockies shortstop Troy Tulowitzki (.291, 24, 99) is a likely
Rookie of the Year winner. And rightfielder Brad Hawpe (.291, 29, 116) could
stand — in full uniform — at Times Square and not be recognized.

As for
Arizona, reigning Cy Young winner Brandon Webb (18 wins, 3.01 ERA) would be
making commercials if he played in New York, and centerfielder Chris Young (32
homers at age 23) will be a perennial All-Star by 2010.

So
forget the uniforms, the swimming pool in one ballpark and a humidor in the
other. (Mark this down: If Colorado wins the pennant, we’ll see the first snow
delay in World Series history.) Sit back and enjoy some great baseball.

• How
does a King lose his kingdom? He starts by wearing the opponent’s baseball cap
to a playoff game in Cleveland. How tone-deaf must LeBron James be to show up
at Jacobs Field in a Yankees lid? Here’s a thought for the next time the
Bombers come to Ohio for a game, LeBron: Yankee boxers.