UT Chancellor Dr. Jimmy Cheek Meets Chamber Premier Partners
Newly appointed University of Tennessee-Knoxville Chancellor Dr. Jimmy Cheek was the featured speaker at a recent Premier Partner Event co-sponsored by BarberMcMurry architects and McCarty Holsaple McCarty Architects & Interior Designers. Dr. Cheek updated Chamber Premier Partners about the challenges and opportunities facing UT and about how he feels the university and the business community can work together to increase economic prosperity throughout the region.
“This area’s business community opens its doors to support experiential learning and to hire student interns and I’d like to encourage it to continue to do so,” Dr. Cheek said. “I believe we have some of the best students in the world.”
Dr. Cheek noted a growing business partnership with Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He has visited with ORNL directors over a half a dozen times during his short time in Knoxville (about three months) because the relationship is so important.
“We are strengthening our relationship with ORNL,” he said. “This partnership is going to expand over the next several years.”
The new chancellor is optimistic about the proposed development of university-owned Cherokee Farm. The site will soon become a state-of-the-art, technology-oriented research center that will impact economic development.
“We want that site to help take technology that we’ve developed at UT and at Oak Ridge to the point to where it can be commercialized,” said Dr. Cheek. “I think we need to move as aggressively as we can to make sure this happens.”
Dr. Cheek also asked that members of the Knoxville business community help promote the university so that the state, the nation, and the world realize the importance of the institution.
“I ask that you be advocates,” he said. “I’m here to say that this university is a great place with great students and I would hope that as you interact with people around the world that you would talk about the things that are happening at UT and in this community because it is a very important educational resource. We need to continue to communicate this. Quite frankly, we are underrepresented around the country about what happens at the University of Tennessee. One of my objectives is going to be to try to get more attention focused on the great things that our students and our alumni are doing at UT and we need you to be partners in that process.”
To find out more about the Premier Partner program or Premier Partner events, contact Michelle Kiely at 865-637-4550.