KNOXVILLE — The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, has been recognized for its diversity efforts and for its work to promote more international and intercultural opportunities for students.
At an awards dinner on April 26, UT’s Ready for the World initiative won the prestigious J. Carroll Bateman Best of Show award, as well as an Award of Excellence for internal communications, from the local chapter of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA). The university also won awards for its promotion of the Promise Scholarship program and a column written by Chancellor Loren Crabtree about the many diversity efforts under way on campus.
Ready for the World is a long-range plan to transform the Knoxville campus into a culture of diversity that best prepares students for working and competing in the 21st century. As part of the program, UT has earmarked more than $1 million for faculty recruiting and new initiatives, campus programming, transforming the curriculum, new scholarships and study-abroad opportunities, and further support of campus diversity efforts.
Crabtree’s column, “Diversity Serves All Tennesseans,” won an Award of Excellence. The column ran in the News Sentinel and Torchbearer, UT’s alumni magazine.
UT won an Award of Quality for its promotion of the Promise Scholarship program, an initiative designed to provide greater access to all Tennesseans and further diversify the campus.
The scholarships, to be awarded for the first time this fall, are available to academically eligible students from 35 high schools statewide. These schools, many in the Memphis and Nashville metropolitan areas, were chosen because their students face financial and other barriers to college enrollment and students from these schools don’t often enroll at UT. The university also is attempting to recruit students who will be the first generation from their families to attend college.
The Tennessee Promise Scholarship program will provide students with up to $5,800 per year for four years when combined with the HOPE and other university scholarships. The program is estimated to cost the university about $200,000 per year.
In all, UT won 13 awards from PRSA.
UT Public Relations won Awards of Excellence for its electronic alumni newsletter, E-Torch, and for its environmental conservation campaign, “Make Orange Green.” Media relations coordinator Amy Blakely won an Award of Excellence for her press release about a $25-million contract that UT’s College of Business Administration recently signed with the U.S. Air Force.
Chancellor Loren Crabtree won an Award of Quality for “A Big Idea for the Coming Year,” a column about UT Knoxville’s need to grow. The column ran in the Tennessean newspaper.
The public relations office also won Awards of Quality for its FUTure branding campaign, the campus kickoff to the branding campaign and the Torchbearer alumni magazine.
Blakely and Media Relations Coordinator Jay Mayfield won Awards of Merit for writing. Blakely’s award was for “Back on Their Feet Again,” an Alumnus magazine feature about Hurricane Katrina. Mayfield’s award was for a press release titled, “UT Researchers’ Work Reveals 220-Year-Old Hurricane History.”
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Contacts:
Amy Blakely, (865) 974-5034, amy.blakely@tennessee.edu
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