To: UTK Faculty
From: Louis J. Gross, Professor of EEB and Math, Past-President UTK Faculty Senate
Re: Chancellor's request for comments on University of Tennessee Mission Statement
Date: August 15, 2007

This is to encourage faculty to respond to the Chancellor's request for comments 
on the Mission Statement promulgated by President Petersen. I have posted my 
response at 
http://www.tiem.utk.edu/~gross/facprespast.html
but I encourage you to consider the impacts of this statement beyond the points
that I raised. If you concur with my comments, you might simply so state 
in an email to chan-reply@utk.edu however there are numerous other points that
might be raised. These include the fact that the System administration has 
control of the only significant funding available to hire new faculty (the
Governors Chairs funding, which I believe is now in excess of $10M) and
this program has been successful in hiring only one new faculty member (an
outstanding one, in my opinion) despite being in existence for several years.  

During my term last year as Senate President, I became increasingly aware of 
ongoing conflicts between the campus and System administration which have 
created problems directly impacting faculty (the email system problem is
just one of these). 

I fully realize that the vast majority of faculty are oblivious to the 
machinations of the campus and System administration, but I do encourage you
to take a moment to consider the impact of enhanced System-level control
on your activities, and send a note to the Chancellor on the matter. 

Cheers,
    Lou