The Drama that is the Cherokee Campus

The Knoxville News Sentinel has had an article a day for the past few days on the upcoming development of the Cherokee Farm. In my opinion, the KNS has done a pretty decent job of cut and pasting the university press releases on this issue. I’ve tried to keep up with the various articles and have hit the media of late and have posted many of them at http://www.fultonbottoms.com/.

Related Articles
October 02 – UT forms advisory panel to look at Cherokee campus
October 03 – Cherokee Campus Committee to hear Editor of Architectural Review
October 05 – Expert Says Cherokee Farm Site Special

All of these stories focus on the research and development campus that President Peterson has proposed in budget hearings before the governor and the general assembly in the fall and then also outlined in a Sequoyah Hills Neighborhood Association meeting in April.

Related Articles
March 06 – New Campus in Sight
April 20 – UT to build on Dairy Farm

There’s lots of issues here to discuss – none of which have gotten much ink with the KNS.

2001 Master Plan
The 2001 Master Plan for the UTK campus included detail plans for the Cherokee Campus. These plans included intramural and competitive sports fields in the design. $32M has been allocated to UT for the development of an infrastructure based on this master plan. As a matter of fact, new athletic fields on this site have been dangled in front of the students as early as 1998 with the continual increase in the student activity fees.

Whose Campus is it?
What’s the deal with the management controversy associated with the initiative? The master plan is a UTK development blueprint for the Knoxville campus but now the research site appears to fall under the domain of the university system. This is an important aspect but is going relatively unnoticed by local media. As you may recall, this issue also comes up from time to time because the UT Athletic Department reports directly to the system rather than the UTK administration.

Link: www.tennessee.edu/system/cherokee/

Athletic Field Search
Months ago UTK formed a committee to review the recreational and competitive sports needs. Several locations and ideas were batted around in hopes of getting UT caught up with other major universities in this area. UTK lags far behind other SEC schools and actually many Tennessee Board of Regents schools in this area. The Cherokee Campus was at the top of their list. It appears that this committee was mothballed once the “official” Cherokee Farm Planning Committee was formed and announced. Their work remains unpublished to the pubic.

So, what does all that mean?
The original master plan called for athletic fields to be built around the flood plane areas of the dairy farm. The scope of this original plan has obviously been changed at the system level with the affirmation of the trustees. The student government association voted last week to encourage the university to build recreational fields either on the Cherokee campus or find an alternative. If the university decides it doesn’t want to put athletic fields right across the river from Sequoyah Hills, I’m OK with that. However, shouldn’t the university at least take part of that $34 million and go find land somewhere else to build these promised fields? That would seem particularly fair if indeed the funds were allocated to UTK but end up going towards a UT System project instead. The students and faculty at UTK seem to be able to figure that one out even if the Knoxville News Sentinel seemingly avoids the topic.

And finally...
In the past it has been implied that my outspokenness may be hurting this process. Well, I have a vested interest in these issues as not only a giving volunteer to the university but also as a taxpayer of the State of Tennessee. Just where do you think that $32 million is coming from anyway? I have some very good friends that live in Sequoyah Hills. I wouldn't want a lighted athletic field in my back yard with hundreds of screaming college kids either. But the fact remains that it appears the fix is in to scrap the master plan and pull the dairy farm away from UTK and thereby losing one of the few available assets for growth for the Knoxville campus. Bottom line: if the Cherokee campus continues down the path towards a research facility at breakneck speed, why must the recreational and competitive sports needs of the students languish in the "study" phase? If that's the way it is then so be it. But, President Peterson and the Board of Trustees owe it to the students and the community to acknowledge that so we all can all move on.