Added enrollment means more buildings needed

Making it happen will involve boosting enrollment at the University of Tennessee by about 8,000 students over the next several years.

UT has asked the state for $165 million in funding for capital building projects. UT President John Petersen told Gov. Phil Bredesen during a recent budget hearing that he hopes to increase enrollment over the next five to seven years, but that will mean building new facilities and shuffling existing academic buildings on a campus that’s already crowded.

Petersen envisions developing an existing site near the Knoxville campus known as Cherokee Farms into a research park to house research programs already located at UT and Oak Ridge National Laboratory as well as new programs. Moving existing research programs would leave space on campus that could be renovated for classroom space to help accommodate additional students.

At the same time, Petersen explained the importance of more students: More college graduates in the state encourage economic development and attract new jobs and jobs that pay better.

UT has a current enrollment of about 27,000, and adding 8,000 would bring the total to about 35,000, which was where enrollment stood until state budget problems in the 1970s forced the school to make cuts. That’s also more comparable to flagship universities in other states with populations similar to Tennessee’s.

There’s clearly a demand by prospective students. UT is Tennessee’s flagship campus, and more students apply to attend than the school can accept. Petersen said that more than 12,000 students apply for about 4,200 slots.