On July 1, 1968, the UT Board of Trustees approved the administration’s recommendation that the university be organized as a system, with chancellors for its primary campuses. The August 17, 1970, issue of From the President’s Office explained that “prior to the conversion, all campuses and centers and all other operations of UT were under the direct administration of the President, headquartered on the Knoxville campus. The Memphis Medical Units and the Martin campus had Chancellors, but the Knoxville campus was governed directly by the President in addition to his other administrative duties. With plans on the drawing board for yet another campus at Chattanooga, the University administration embarked on a self-evaluation program to determine the administrative organization best suited for a complex and widespread institution. The result of the study was the recommendation for a statewide system.”
The same newsletter explained that the organization would offer “each campus the advantages of certain services and expertise which can be provided by a statewide system but which would be beyond the resources of a single campus.” Knoxville was chosen as the location of the system administration because (1) “those who recommended the system deemed it essential that the Presidential staff be situated in an academic community where it could maintain contact with an educational environment instead of becoming an isolated bureaucratic operation” and (2) the Knoxville campus was chosen “because it was the oldest and largest in the University system” and (3) “because system-wide offices were located there at the time of the reorganization.” Originally, the appropriation for UT Knoxville also included the system administration and all statewide units (Agricultural Experiment Station, Agricultural Extension Service, Institute for Public Service, and system continuing education). In 1973, at the request of legislators, the budget was submitted separately for UT Knoxville for the 1974–75 year.