UT Wins Trailblazer Award

UT has won a prestigious national honor for improving its retention and graduation rates.

Earlier this month, the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities honored UT with its “Most Visible Progress” Trailblazer award. Now in its second year, the award encourages colleges and universities to make retention and graduation a high priority by rewarding and highlighting programs that work.

UT was presented with a sculpture and a $20,000 prize to further advance degree completion initiatives. APLU is an organization of 239 public research universities, and state university systems in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

“Our member institutions recognize that access—walking in the front door to college— is not the primary goal; it’s getting a complete education, learning to learn and walking back out with a degree in hand ready to contribute to the world,” said APLU President Peter McPherson. “UT has significantly advanced its goals to increase retention and degree completion success on its campus, and they’ve done it in their own way. APLU honors their accomplishments and will help share their efforts with other public universities so that these innovative approaches can be modeled and replicated elsewhere in order to reach the collective goals of the Project Degree Completion initiative.”

Accepting the award, Chancellor Jimmy G. Cheek said, “We have worked hard to make the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, a better place. It’s an honor to be recognized by our peers for these efforts. It’s an exciting time at UT and we’re proud of this award.”

Read more about the university’s progress at Tennessee Today.

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2 comments

Stuart Fynboe November 18, 2014 - 9:58 pm

I enjoy the electronic format very much. And as for an opportunity to reply, that way over the top! Thanks for keeping alumni informed of a very special place that has a spot close to our hearts.

Stuart Fynboe
BSIE 1968 (UT)
Now Retired

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Cassandra Sproles November 20, 2014 - 1:32 pm

Thanks so much Stuart! So glad you enjoy eTorch

Best,
Cassandra Sproles
Executive Editor

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