Roger Peltz was a high school All-American basketball player in Royal Oaks, Michigan. For his first two seasons at Tennessee, he was an obscure reserve. In 1970 Head Coach Ray Mears suggested that Peltz ride a unicycle around the basketball court to spice up pregame warm ups. When the 1970 basketball season opened, Peltz took … Continued

The College of Business’s Physician Executive MBA program began in January 1998 under the direction of Professor of Management Mike Stahl. The program was designed to be 60 percent Internet-based, with students completing four weeks of onsite residency as well. UT’s program was the first in the country to employ this type of Internet teaching … Continued

Dick Penner joined the faculty of the English Department in 1965 and retired as professor of English in 1998. Highly respected by his students, his published works include Fiction of the Absurd: Pratfalls in the Void (New English Library, 1980); Allan Sillitoe (Twayne’s English Authors series); and Countries of the Mind: The Fiction of J. … Continued

In 1942 the membership of the Faculty Players, a popular campus organization since 1933, was greatly reduced by participation of its members in World War II. The players abandoned their customary schedule of producing three full-length plays during the academic year and embarked on a new project, employing the theatre-in-the-round concept that was coming into … Continued

The Vol Pep Club was formed in 1950 to increase school spirit. It initiated the Homecoming Queen contests and instituted pep rallies in the Rose Hole (the site of the large dormitory behind the law school) the night before each home football game, occasions that often featured a bonfire. It also sold orange and white … Continued

The 12,000-square-foot Percy Strength Facility in the Neyland-Thompson Sports Center is named for Frank Percy, state representative from Elizabethton, and his wife Stella. The facility includes over fifty thousand pounds of free weights. The dumbbell area includes over fourteen thousand pounds of dumbbells, ranging from 10 pounds to 190 pounds. It has 140 training stations. … Continued

In 1982 the Tennessee Higher Education Commission initiated the Performance Funding Project through which institutions across the state could achieve “bonus funding” of up to 2 percent of their total state allocation. The program was designed to measure and enhance the quality of undergraduate education provided by the institution. There were four outcomes assessment areas … Continued

The 80,805-square-foot Engineering Building, designed by Barber and McMurry and built by the V. L. Nicholson Company at a cost of $994,000 was completed in December 1949. It was dedicated on March 6, 1950, in a formal ceremony in Alumni Memorial Building, followed by tours of both Perkins and Ferris Halls. Ford L. Wilson, former … Continued

Born in Danielson, Connecticut, Angie Warren Perkins received the AB (1876) and MA (1879) from Wesleyan University (Middletown, Connecticut) where she was one of the first four women admitted when the institution adopted a coeducational policy (it later discontinued coeducation for many years). She was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. She served as assistant … Continued

Dr. Charles Albert Perkins held the PhD from Johns Hopkins when President Dabney recruited him to UT in 1892 as associate professor of physics and electricity. He was chair of the Engineering Department when it was a department within the College of Liberal Arts (now Arts and Sciences) and is said to have declined the … Continued