A suggestion to move a failed urban planning program from UT to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga received support in Knoxville on Tuesday.
UT President Jan Simek said he would support a proposal to create an urban planning program on the local campus.
“We are willing to hear a proposal for a program in Chattanooga,” he said at an UT board committee.
The academic affairs committee voted to eliminate the master’s program in urban planning from UT. Chattanooga leaders, including Mayor Ron Littlefield, have said the program should be moved to Chattanooga, which has a successful history with urban development.
Jim Hall, a UT trustee from Chattanooga, said he believes an urban planning program at UTC would be popular and create revenue for the school.
“We need to look at increasing revenue,” he said.
Phil Oldham, UTC provost, said he was glad that some trustees and administrators see the potential of a new program at UTC.
He said officials will begin looking at the marketability of an urban planning program and make a report by the next board meeting.
“The fact that Knoxville will discontinue the program opens the door for Chattanooga to have one, if we come up with a plan that makes sense,” he said.
Joan Garrett has been a staff writer for the Times Free Press since August 2007. Before becoming a general assignment writer for the paper, she wrote about business, higher education and the court systems. She grew up the oldest of five sisters near Birmingham, Ala., and graduated with a master's and bachelor's degrees in journalism from the University of Alabama. Before landing her first full-time job as a reporter at the Times Free Press, she ...
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