Dr. Roger Brown announces his retirement as chancellor of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in 2012.Q. Whatever happened to former UTC Chancellor Roger Brown?
A. Since Roger Brown retired as chancellor of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, the longtime administrator has been enjoying beach views and settling into a nonacademic life.
Brown, who led UTC for seven years and helped drive boost enrollment by 19 percent, retired early after his wife, Carolyn Thompson, died in the spring of 2012.
The loss devastated him, he told UT President Joe DiPietro in a leltter explaining his desire to leave the university. "I now realize that my emotional and physical health demand that I take some time to heal, reflect, and prepare for the next challenge in my life whatever that might be."
Now, 66, Brown said he has decided to stay in Chattanooga. He moved to a condominium on Lookout Mountain where he says his neighbors care for him and he cares for them. His two stepchildren live in South Carolina and California.
He also has a beachfront condo in North Carolina, where he said he is spending more and more time relaxing.
To keep busy, he has joined several nonprofit boards with missions that he believes in, such as the Bessie Smith Cultural Center, the Northside Neighborhood House and the Children's Advocacy Center of Hamilton County.
He said he has met the new UTC Chancellor Steven Angle and admires and respects him.
"I still watch everything that happens (at UTC) and I am very interested and proud of what goes on there," he said.
After he left his post as chancellor he did get a teaching offer from UT-Knoxville, but the timing wasn't right. He isn't ruling out teaching as a future side job, he said.
"I think that everybody is different," he said. "You have to find something that excites you and makes you feel like you are productive. I'm doing some of that but I am looking for more."
This update was written by staff writer Joan Garrett McClane. Contact her at jmcclane@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6601. To suggest a topic for Whatever Happened To, email news@timesfreepress.com.