In 1878 faculty members of the Nashville Medical College organized a dental department. When the Nashville Medical College joined UT in 1879, it brought with it the South’s oldest dental school.

In the late 1920s, Stanley Phillips Johnson, a member of the celebrated Fugitive Poets of Vanderbilt University and a published novelist, was hired to fill the new position of director of public relations. In 1930 he was given the additional responsibility of secretary to the board of trustees, and under President James D. Hoskins, added … Continued

Dennie Littlejohn was appointed the first director of the Black Cultural Center in 1975.

Ned H. Sams, comanager of the UT Bookstore, was appointed the first manager of the university center in January 1954. He was a UT graduate, having earned the master’s degree in marketing in 1952.

The first director of the physical plant (now Facilities Services) was John Neely, who assumed the newly created post in 1949. He supervised UT’s expanding properties and buildings in Knoxville, Memphis, Martin, and at various experiment stations. He was both a licensed engineer and a lawyer. He graduated from Vanderbilt School of Engineering in 1922 … Continued

Dr. Susan Deubel Becker, of the Department of History, was appointed the first director of the University Honors Program in August 1985, and the program began with the 1986 entering class. She was selected from the more than two dozen professors nominated and willing to assume the responsibility. She received a one-course load reduction to … Continued

Craig Chisholm, a first-year graduate student in industrial engineering, was the recipient of the first Disability Services Scholarship in spring 1996. Funds for the scholarship were created from those donated for scholarships through the Twenty-First Century Campaign by employees of the Disability Services Office. The scholarship award was $200. Chisholm, an undergraduate mechanical engineering student, … Continued

On the second floor of the 1937 addition to the Home Economics Building (later named for Dean Jessie Harris) were two kitchens, and the sink in one of the kitchens “disposed of its own garbage,” as Jessie Harris described it. The more than one thousand people who attended the open house after the wing was … Continued

Annie DeBauche of Chattanooga was the first student to earn a degree from UT through interactive video courses. She received the degree in communications through courses taught at UT and linked via interactive video to classes in Chattanooga. Her degree was conferred at fall commencement, 1996.

Dr. George Bertsch and Dr. Gerald Mahan were the first to be appointed as UT/ORNL “distinguished scientists” in 1984 with the creation of the Science Alliance. An offer was also made to David Prescott, a research scientist from the University of Colorado, who declined. Bertsch resigned effective August 1, 1985, to return to Michigan State … Continued