Dr. Lori Mann Bruce, the first woman to lead the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, is an uplifting message. UTC ,as it is now known, is a university that sits in the older neighborhood part of the city of Chattanooga. UTC now encompasses the old Chattanooga Public Library that sat on a corner welcoming children and adults to enjoy the books and stories told by the library staff. In addition to the college and the library, McCallie Avenue showed off the largest churches in the city and businesses.
Dr. Bruce’s accomplishments are very exciting and what lies beneath them is intriguing; so I began to wonder if UTC would become an institution that will beacon the local students to its doors as the public library once did in the community. Will Chattanooga now see innovation that will bring all local
schools to its doors to gather the wisdom of old and infuse in the new?
The University of Tennessee has never delivered the promise after the merger with City College. I wonder if those boxes that were packed with hope are sitting in storage as they were sent with Dr. Horace Traylor when he came to the campus. Those hopes and dreams that a group of people had when City College began. If you look close to the hopes of City College, you will find the remnants in the history of UTC.
Chattanooga, as many people know, was a foundry town with all its fringe. There were many of the foundry workers who were paid more than schoolteachers. Question, why pay for a college education? But the people at City College had a wider view. Their dream was to widen their net and have the children they were responsible for attend college in their home city.
After all, there was Knoxville College and University of Tennessee Knoxville, Tennessee A& I (TSU) in Nashville, Morehouse in Atlanta, and the University Georgia—the list goes on. Maybe Dr. Bruce can find those boxes in UTC’s storage and resurrect the dreamers of City College.
Reverend Ann Jones Pierre