Under the direction of Music Professor David Stuzenberger, and accompanied by Professor John Brock on the organ, the UT Chamber Singers produced their first cassette tape, A UT Christmas Celebration, in fall 1988. Proceeds from the sale of the cassettes ($10) went to the School of Music Scholarship Fund.

Dr. Charles Hadley Weaver assumed the post of chancellor of UT’s Knoxville campus on July 1, 1968, with the reorganization of the university into a statewide system. He was a 1943 graduate of UT’s Engineering College, had taught at UT, and had returned to UT in 1965 (from Auburn, where he was Westinghouse Professor of … Continued

Engineering Professor R. C. “Red” Matthews introduced cheerleading and megaphones to the sidelines of the football field in 1907.

The first chess tournament, sponsored by the Chess and Checkers Club (organized in 1911) opened February 17, 1912, and continued a month. There were 11 entries, and 198 games were played. The winner received a handsome five-inch loving cup.

On June 11, 2007, a 108-member UT Choir, drawn from members of the Concert Choir, the Women’s Chorus, the Men’s Chorus, the Chamber Singers, and the UT Singers, presented a 7:00 p.m. prelude concert to the 8:00 p.m. New England Symphonic Ensemble’s performance and formed the core of a combined choir that performed Schubert’s Mass … Continued

The first recipient of the Philander P. Claxton Medal was Lisa Ann Stone in 1996. The award recognizes a student graduating with an arts and sciences degree who plans to enroll in UT’s graduate education program and then teach in a Tennessee public school.

At the spring 2010 SEC meetings, delegates voted to give the power to suspend coaches from coaching SEC games to the SEC commissioner. In November 2010 Commissioner Mike Slive first exercised the authority by suspending basketball coach Bruce Pearl from coaching half of the 2010–11 SEC basketball games—an eight-game suspension. The suspension came in addition … Continued

In 1958 Dr. Paul Cromwell, head of the Electrical Engineering Department, rented a Librascope General Purpose 30-bit computer (LGP 30). It was the institution’s first real digital computer and was restricted to use by Electrical Engineering. It took almost a second to multiply two numbers. The first computer for general university use was purchased in … Continued

In 1962 Jim Whipple, head of programmers for the UT Computing Center, used the university’s IBM 1620 machine to register 450 freshmen in the College of Engineering in 90 minutes. That saved an estimated two-thousand-person-hours of faculty and student time over manual registration procedures. In winter quarter 1963 the IBM 1620 was used to register … Continued

In 1968 UT was the site of the National College Band Directors’ Convention. The 92-member concert band served as the host, and a record was made of their performance at the ending.