Orange Nation, the expanded official pep club of the university, made its debut at the Tennessee-Kentucky basketball game in January 2004. It replaced the Collegiate Club, the lineal descendant of the Vol Pep Club, which selected Smokey as the official mascot. The Vol Pep Club’s name changed several times before it became the Collegiate Club … Continued

Introduced in 1985, the Orange Passport was a credit-card-size plastic card that served as a season ticket to all women’s intercollegiate athletics home games—in all sports.  It represented the first all-out effort by the Women’s Athletics Department to promote attendance at women’s sporting events. Passport holders also received priority for purchasing tickets for postseason play … Continued

In 2004 the Athletics Department announced that the name of its Vol Hostess program would change to Orange Pride, and selection of the students to be hired was transferred to the Office of Undergraduate Admissions, where the students would assist with tours and recruitment of both nonathletes and athletes. The change was made to conform … Continued

The Orange Tie Club was founded in 1963 to be the men’s basketball boosters club. Coach Ray Mears suggested forming the club as part of his campaign to have fans wear orange and white. Henry F. (Hank) Bertelkamp Jr. (’53), himself an acclaimed basketball player for UT, and dentist Earl Keister worked with Mears to … Continued

In August 1972, dormitories throughout the campus began to sell an orange-flavored dairy drink developed by Dr. B. J. Demott of the UT Dairy Department and Dairy Department graduate student J. R. Park. The drink was made from whey, a by-product of cottage cheese production normally disposed of by cottage cheese plants. The drink contained … Continued

ORAU stands for Oak Ridge Associated Universities.

Mike Rader’s invention, the Orbitron, was said to be an impossible task. The graduate student in electrical engineering, however, invented the laser that works through microwave amplification by a stimulated emission of radiation—making it essentially a giant synthetic atom. For his contribution to the advancement of the invention, the Nuclear and Plasma Sciences Society awarded … Continued

The Order of Omega, an honorary leadership fraternity for members of fraternities and sororities, was established at UT in 1988. The organization was founded in 1959 to recognize individuals in the Greek community for their service to the fraternity system and their universities.

The UT chapter of the Order of the Coif, national honorary fraternity for outstanding scholarship in law, was installed November 30, 1951. Election of graduates to the order is made by the law faculty and is the highest academic honor conferred by the College of Law. In 1918–19 the college had started its first honorary … Continued

On March 17, 1919, a chapter of the student engineering society’s Order of the Knights of St. Patrick or Guard of St. Patrick was inaugurated. Eligible seniors were inducted into the knighthood and presented green certificates. During the initiation ceremony, each initiate was allowed to kiss the sacred Blarney stone and receive the gift of … Continued