KNOXVILLE – As part of his six priorities unveiled in late November, University of Tennessee Interim President Randy Boyd announced an initiative geared toward providing greater and easier access to information for UT’s faculty, staff, students and the communities it serves.
Dubbed “Transparent UT,” the initiative directly addresses Boyd’s priority of providing greater transparency and accountability.
“As I have traveled across the state during the past nine weeks, a common theme I’ve heard from our stakeholders was the need for more information about how our system operates as well as data on our outcomes,” Boyd said.
UT will be launching a dedicated website in the coming weeks, tennessee.edu/transparency, to provide public access to information in a centralized location.
“In an effort to determine what information would be available, our team has reviewed frequently requested information from the general public, media and legislators for the past three years,” Boyd said. “While most of the information is already available on our websites, we want to create one central location for our most frequently requested information to make it easier to find and access.”
The website will feature:
- Comprehensive dashboard with information on enrollment, student demographics, degrees awarded, retention, graduation rates, post-graduation outcomes, student quality indicators, number of faculty, faculty workload, research activity, economic development, revenues and expenditures
- Information regarding UT’s presence and impact in each county
- Searchable employee salary database
- Tuition information
- Executive staff and coaching contracts for each campus
- Information about how the system is funded and how funds are spent
- Various annual reports
- Endowment investment information
Boyd also will be seeking to implement:
- Webcasting and archiving all board of trustee committee meetings
- Online access to materials for upcoming board of trustee meetings at least one week in advance
- Announcing all finalists in executive searches at one time – this includes the search for UT Knoxville’s next chancellor
- Webcasting and archiving faculty senate meetings
Boyd has assembled a Transparency Advisory Group to provide further input and guidance. This short-term group includes a cross section of representatives from UT campuses, institutes and constituencies. Members of the group are:
- Tiffany Carpenter, UT System, associate vice president for communications and marketing (chair)
- Sally Badoud, UT Health Science Center, assistant vice chancellor for communications and marketing
- Harry Brooks, retired legislator from East Tennessee
- Edie Gibson, UT Martin, chief of staff
- Scott Gordy, UT Institute for Public Service, information technology manager
- David Manderscheid, UT Knoxville, provost
- Rachel Smith, UT Chattanooga, student
- Lannett Edwards, UT Institute of Agriculture, professor of animal science
- Carey Whitworth, UT System, assistant vice president for government relations
The group will begin meeting in January.