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Seven Days

Wednesday, July 16
A Portland, Ore., consultant firm's vision for downtown Knoxville is put on display at the Museum of Art. The company repeatedly denies the rumor that part of that vision is to rename the Tennessee River the Columbia and rip out Ft. Loudoun Dam to make it flow more freely.

Thursday, July 17
UT President John Shumaker is quoted as saying he intends to reimburse the school about $25,000, mostly for flights he's taken on the UT plane. Guess this nixes any plans to drop the Rocky Top fight song in favor of "Come Fly With Me".

Friday, July 18
A ruckus is reportedly raised following the granting of a zoning appeal to allow Pilot Corp. to erect a billboard-sized sign at its headquarters on Lonas Drive. The company could have avoided controversy by agreeing in advance that the sign would not read: "Haslam for Mayor!"

Saturday, July 19
A state Office of Education audit suggests that the Tennessee Basic Education Program is already outmoded, according to the Associated Press. How can that be? It's been updated three or four times since 1818.

Sunday, July 20
A News Sentinel feature reminds those who may have forgotten that Confederate battle flags did not uniformly sport the familiar and controversial stars & bars pattern. One museum photo shows a regimental flag that bears an image in the shape of a football. It was a flag flown by Tennessee units, of course.

Monday, July 21
A report emerging from Cocke County explains that a grand jury there recommends that "all students from 10 to 12 years of age receive a hunter safety course at school. The idea is pooh-poohed by school officials, but it's not opposed as vigorously in the community as was an earlier safe-sex-ed concept. Wonder why?

Tuesday, July 22
Knoxville-based Regal Entertainment Group posted an earnings increase in the second quarter. That has to be good management; it couldn't have been good movies that came out during the quarter.

Knoxville Found

(Click photo for larger image)

What is this? Every week in "Knoxville Found," we'll print the photo of a local curiosity. If you're the first person to correctly identify this oddity, you'll win a special prize plucked from the desk of the editor (keep in mind that the editor hasn't cleaned his desk in five years). E-mail your guesses, or send 'em to "Knoxville Found" c/o Metro Pulse, 505 Market St., Suite 300, Knoxville, TN 37902.

Last Week's Photo:
Jeffrey L. Gleeson of Knoxville was the first of several to correctly identify this stick sculpture that sits in the yard of the Candora(o?) Marble Works at the corner of Candora and Maryville Pike in Vestal. The piece was created by Laurel High School teacher and artist Kelly Brown, who has a similar installation currently at Ijams Nature Center. For his keen eye, Gleeson will receive a collection of short stories, Words of the Witches, edited by Yvonne Jocks.

Meet Your City
A calendar of upcoming public meetings you should attend

KNOXVILLE TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY
Thursday, July 24
3 p.m.
City County Bldg.
Main Assembly Room
400 Main St.
Regular meeting.

KNOX COUNTY COMMISSION
Monday, July 28
2 p.m.
City County Bldg.
Main Assembly Room
400 Main St.
Regular meeting.

METROPOLITAN PLANNING COMMISSION
Tuesday, July 29
4 p.m.
Lucille Thompson Auditorium
East Tennessee Historical Center
600 Market St.
Information meeting concerning H-1 Historic Overlays.

EZ Takes a Turn
A couple of neighborhood projects are on the table

Last week's City Council workshop on Knoxville's Empowerment Zone tacitly confirmed that local officials are uncertain about the administration of the program. By and large, however, most of those who attended left feeling a little better about its efficacy than they had coming in.

"I had some concerns about the process," said South Knoxville Councilman Joe Hultquist. "Things had sort of floundered. There seemed to be a lot of money spent on administration without a lot to show for it."

Part of a federal effort to nourish economically disadvantaged urban areas, Knoxville's Empowerment Zone is a 16-square-mile region comprising most of downtown and its environs. Since Congress designated the zone in 1998, the city has received about $26 million in EZ funding, which has been administered through the local non-profit Partnership for Neighborhood Improvement (PNI). But to date, about $12.5 million of that funding has yet to be committed.

In late 2002, city development officials presented PNI with a new set of project deadlines and provided additional technical assistance through the Metropolitan Planning Commission in order to speed the allocations. The Thursday workshop was a progress report of sorts, a gauge of how successful those efforts have been.

Most heartening was the assurance that two large neighborhood projects—one a full-service supermarket in Mechanicsville across from the HOPE VI housing development, the other a commercial center, with a grocery, in the Five Points area—are now on a fast track. Developers' proposals for Mechanicsville were due this week; the deadline for the Five Points proposals is Aug. 15.

City Director of Development Leslie Henderson called the two developments "real good bricks-and-mortar projects," and even long-time PNI critic Zimbabwe Matavou of the local Black Business Contractors Association acknowledged progress.

"These priorities are well-placed, but they're late," Matavou said. "Neighborhood projects such as this should have been stressed much earlier."

Matavou went on to reiterate his complaint that many of the earlier EZ priorities—projects like the brownfield clean-up of two former industrial sites—had little to do with improving the lives of zone residents. He once again called for the restructuring or outright removal of the PNI board of directors, which he says is beholden to institutional interests rather than neighborhood residents and small business owners.

"The board's interests do not reflect those of the folks in the neighborhoods," Matavou said. "The board is like an anvil, weighing down concerned individuals and keeping them from doing what they need to."

There was little indication that Matavou's oft-heard complaints will change anything. Hultquist admitted later that PNI has sometimes been less than responsive to its neighborhood Zone Advisory Council (ZAC) members, but added that many of the proposals emanating from the ZAC's have been unrealistic. "Some of the ZACs' ideas weren't feasible, and rightfully fell by the wayside," Hultquist said.

"I had hoped there would be a little more scrutiny of the process," Matavou said after the workshop. "I feel like the Council members know in their hearts that if we examine it, we'll have to do something about it. And doing something about it is difficult and controversial."

—Mike Gibson

Class Action
How long does it take to graduate at UT?

Some UT students are complaining that the university simply doesn't offer enough class sections to get their degrees in four years. Limited availability of classes means students are tied to Knoxville for at least another year.

Most incensed students cite "The Big Orange Screw" as the reason for their woes. Natalie Brown, a May graduate in psychology, spent a solid five years enrolled at UT. "It was a case of the Big Orange Screw, of course," she says. "I've encountered lots of people who just can't get out in the time they wanted to. Classes get full in no time, even if you have priority registration." Brown admits that she did change her major midway through her education.

Other students insist that graduating in four years is very possible, as long as students take the initiative to be advised and register for classes on time. Nekos Barnes, a December graduate in Public Relations and Journalism, took four and a half years to graduate. Still, he says, "it's not difficult to graduate in four years. It just takes some determination.

"I just thought it was better to slow down and pace myself, to have the time to enjoy the college experience. Graduating in four years is overrated."

Whether a student changes his or her major can certainly affect graduation dates. Many students even choose to take a semester or an entire year off from school. Still, eager to blame anyone but themselves, some put their delayed graduation off on the university.

"Graduation will also become seemingly indefinite if students don't enroll in at least fifteen credit hours each semester," UT Chancellor Loren Crabtree says. "We cannot control how many credits [students] choose to take, since student situations are so varied. We do our best to provide adequate numbers of seats in our courses so that student demand can be met. If students take 15 credits per semester for four years, they will accumulate 120 credits toward graduation. That is becoming the norm across the nation. We will begin working this year with all our programs to come close to that number. In some instances, national accreditation standards mandate more than 120 credits. Several majors require more credits for graduation than can reasonably be accommodated in four years."

Indeed there are some programs that do require five years of schooling. UT's School of Architecture, for instance, offers only a five-year program. "In order for our degree to be a professional Bachelor of Architecture in an accredited program, students must take five years of consecutive design labs," B.J. Kirkland, an administrative services assistant with the College of Architecture, says. "This is standard."

UT's engineering program also traditionally takes five years to complete. However, it's not an official five-year program. "[Engineering is a] difficult program, one that involves co-oping," Kirkland says. "It's sort of a given that it's going to take five years."

One publication, The American Society for Engineering Education, identifies the average number of years it takes to graduate from various schools across the nation. UT Knoxville's School of Engineering reportedly takes an average of 4.7 years to complete. "We normally say that four and a half years is the average nationally," says Luther Wilhelm, associate dean of engineering at UT. "Just as a comparison though, for Texas A&M, they show numbers going from four years to 5.2 years. Auburn University shows five years across the board, as does LSU."

Wilhelm attributes that to "a combination of several things—one being that engineering is a fairly rigorous program. We have somewhat more hours that most other programs, but it can be completed in four years. Most students just tend to take it a bit easier."

"This issue is not unique to UT," says Engineering Dean Way Quo. "It's a nationwide concern."

Crabtree admits that he has observed recent and past student dissension over this subject. "We receive occasional complaints from students who are having trouble getting a required course. I've dealt with about three this summer. There are probably others that deans and advisers deal with without their reaching our office." Crabtree says he doesn't see the problem as a gargantuan one. "In general, we do not hear very often from students who are having this problem.

"Our goal is to remove all institutional obstacles that might hinder students from moving through their courses of study in a timely way," Crabtree says. "We have already added additional class sections to over-enrolled classes for fall semester and will continue to monitor enrollment levels to ensure that students can enroll for full loads."

—Ellen Mallernee