UT President J. Wade Gilley announced in February 2000 that the institutional streamlining of administrative duties and merger of UT Knoxville, UTSI, and the Health Science Center in Memphis were facets of his overall Tennessee Plan for Academic Excellence, designed to make the merged units that formed the University of Tennessee a Top-25 public research university. His plan provided for using $150 million in private funds and administrative savings of $40 million or so to enhance academic and research programs, to provide funds to attract the state’s top students, and to retain and recruit outstanding faculty. Douglas Olesen, chief executive officer of Battelle Memorial Institute, chaired Gilley’s Committee on the Future of UT, which prepared the plan. Faculty members and the board of trustees met in June 2000 to discuss and present the possibility of UT’s moving into the Top 25 of public research universities.