The University of Tennessee at Martin history

The institute changed its name to Hall-Moody Normal School in 1917, as teacher training became its primary focus.

The legislature’s first $1 million appropriation led to the building of iconic Ayres Hall, which opened in Knoxville in 1921.

As the school was found to be in danger of closing in 1927, area political and civic leaders asked the state of Tennessee to step in and operate the school under the auspices of the University of Tennessee.

During the hard times of the Great Depression, with tight state budgets and slow-growing enrollment that by 1933 had only increased slightly to 137 students, Tennessee slashed its annual budget by half to $36,000.

Executive officer Paul Meek repurposed a 1940 program training Army Air Corps pilots into a program training naval air cadets.

In 1943 this program was hastily expanded into one of the many centers for Navy pilot trainees scattered across the country.

The Municipal Technical Advisory Service was established in 1949 to serve local governments across the state.

The 1950's brought steady growth to the junior college in enrollment, higher education quality and the construction of new facilities.

The school was renamed University of Tennessee Junior College and operated under this name, until 1951.

Westview Terrace, a temporary housing complex for married students, was finished in 1955 and two years later, Clement Hall was built as a new women's dormitory.

President Andy Holt took office in 1959 and ten years later, enrollment had tripled and the University’s meteoric growth called for administrative restructuring.

Holt had already established the University’s first ties to Oak Ridge National Laboratory and, in 1964, the UT Space Institute in Tullahoma opened and statewide research dollars for UT reached an all-time high.

Until 1967, it was treated as an off-site department of the main campus in Knoxville.

Holt oversaw the transition of burgeoning UT entities from a statewide presence into a statewide system, made official by the UT Board of Trustees in 1968.

To accommodate these new programs, as well as to upgrade and enhance older programs, the university began construction on two new state-of-the-art facilities in the 1970's.

The Fine Arts Building was the first of these structures to be completed (1971) and currently houses the Division of Fine and Performing Arts.

Two years later, in 1973, what is today known as the Law Enforcement Innovation Center began was introduced as Southeastern Community Oriented Policing Education.

A Residence Hall Swimming Pool was built in 1975 as a recreational facility for students living in the dorms.

Efforts to establish a Nashville campus ended in a merger with Tennessee State University in 1979.

To assure that non-traditional students would have the opportunity to attend the university, a Child and Family Resource Center was built in 1980, followed later by the Children's Center.

Margaret Perry was selected as institutional Chancellor in 1985, the first woman to head a UT-system school.

The country's general economic expansion during the 1990's allowed student enrollment to rebound in time to completely modernize the library and student university center.

Joe Johnson, who served as an assistant to Holt; vice president for development; and chancellor at Memphis, was named UT president in 1991.

In fall 2005, there were 816 students enrolled in distance learning courses. It first offered distance learning courses in 1992.

UT celebrated its bicentennial in 1994.

With the official opening on June 9, 1995, the library expanded to 120,000 square feet, and the renovation included space for a Special Collections area, a Media Center, and group study space.

He ran aground over a shakeup in programatic priorities and accepted a reassignment to Knoxville as the University celebrated its centennial in October, 2000.

In 2005, UT-Battelle won extension of its contract – without having to re-compete – to manage Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

The National Science Foundation awarded a $65-million grant to the University in 2008 – then the largest NSF grant in Tennessee history – to build and operate a supercomputer through a partnership with ORNL, which has established itself as a DOE Leadership Computing Facility.

Jan Simek, a UT Knoxville administrator and highly regarded professor of anthropology, was named interim president upon Petersen’s departure in 2009.

In 2010, then-UT Institute of Agriculture Chancellor Joe DiPietro was selected by the Board of Trustees to become the next UT system president.

In 2015, DiPietro introduced a plan to transition the University’s business model away from historically heavy dependence on tuition and state appropriations toward long-term sustainability through more efficient, effective and entrepreneurial operations.

Following DiPietro’s announced retirement in 2018, UT Knoxville alumnus Randy Boyd was selected and appointed to lead the UT System as interim president beginning in late November 2018.

In 2019, Boyd announced the launch of UT Promise—a last-dollar academic scholarship guaranteeing free tuition and fees for Tennessee residents with family household incomes below the state median.

Formal discussions began in fall 2020 about the possible expansion of the UT System and acquisition of Martin Methodist College, a small, 150-year-old, private college located in Pulaski, Tennessee.