Dear Members of The University of Tennessee Board of Trustees, On behalf of the UTK Faculty Senate I welcome you again to campus and thank you for all the time you have been devoting this year to provide leadership and governance for UT. Two weeks ago I was a volunteer sound engineer for the Louie Bluie Festival in Campbell County honoring the memory of Howard Armstrong, perhaps the last living connection to the tradition of black string bands from the early part of the 1900's, and an artistic genius I was happy to have had the pleasure to meet and work with a bit before he passed away 3 years ago at 96. Howard was from La Follete and this festival included a reunion of graduates of the La Follette Colored School many of whom had not seen each other in over 40 years. Their reminiscences about growing up in La Follete focused a great deal on the importance of their teachers in this 4 room school house - how they were strict but cared deeply about the students and really wanted them to succeed. As it happened several went on to become teachers themselves, some attending Knoxville College (UT at the time was not open to them). Another focus of their success was the supportive community that surrounded them - they shared what little they had and everyone knew when you did something you shouldn't and made sure everyone else knew too! So what helped these people succeed was not material wealth but a caring community encouraging them to educate themselves. As I've worked closely with some of my colleagues around the UT System this year, I've seen how committed our faculty are across the State in encouraging our students. The community atmosphere at Martin may be the closest to providing the same attention that the students had at the La Follette Colored School, but even at UTK, with the strong support of our new Provost Bob Holub, we have endeavored to build programs that encourage students to connect to faculty and other students in more personalized settings. The voluntary response by numerous faculty to teach an additional small seminar course targeted at first-year students, with no reduction in their other responsibilities, is indicative of the faculty willingness to assist in increasing retention of new students. The UT System offers an appropriate mixture of diverse opportunities for all kinds of students across our State and faculty throughout the System appreciate the expressed desire of the Board and President Petersen to enhance campus autonomy as a means to strengthen this diversity of opportunities. President Petersen has been supportive of the establishment of the University Faculty Council that includes representatives from each campus and I encourage the Board to also utilize this body as a means to communicate effectively with faculty across the System. Managing the UT System is a challenging task that brings to mind an old song by Uncle Dave Macon, who some consider the grandfather of country music, one of the first stars of the Grand Old Opry - a prolific entertainer who spent most of his life in Readyville in Cannon County. The song is called the Wreck of the Tennessee Gravy Train and it has a line The people of Tennessee want to know who wrecked our gravy train, The one we thought would run so well, and now who can we blame? and has a chorus that ends The only thing that we can do, is do the best we can, So follow me good people, I'm bound for the Promised Land. Uncle Dave wrote this to satirize a scandal in the TN road building system in the early 1930's. To those of us who've been through the train wreck of changes wrought by the misadventures of two past UT Presidents, we have high hopes that this wreck won't re-occur. However, there are systemic issues at UT in part left over from previous administrations that I believe continue to limit our ability to best respond to the needs of the State. The Faculty have been encouraged by the plans outlined by President Petersen at the March Board meeting describing organizational changes for many parts of the UT System. This clarified what the System would continue to control and specifies campus-level authority for others. I had certainly hoped that these changes in responsibility would have taken effect by now, but many have not. In an article about a month ago in the Knoxville News Sentinel, Warren Neel (former Commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Finance and Administration and former Dean of the UTK College of Business) noted the importance of providing campus autonomy. He made several suggestions for structural changes in the UT System to encourage additional positive movement. He made a rational argument for moving control of Athletics in Knoxville to the campus pointing out that our current reporting structure is unique in the SEC. In fact, a month ago I asked Myles Brand, the President of the NCAA, if there was any other university in which Athletics reports not to the leadership of the campus on which the athletes are students but to a different authority. He was unaware of this occurring anywhere else in the NCAA. The UT System is evidently unique in this regard. The potential wreck that I am concerned with deals not with Athletics, but with the lack of clarity in the lines of authority for components of the UT System vastly more important to our educational, research and service functions than athletics. The President's outline would be a good first step once accomplished, but I encourage the Board to consider the other matters raised by Warren Neel. I'm not saying that this will ensure that we are bound for the Promised Land, but it could get us just a bit closer to the path.