Kelchen Recognized by Education Week as Top Scholar Influencer

January 8, 2025 by Douglas Edlund

When a reporter seeks expert insight into higher education issues, it’s very likely that Robert Kelchen is at the top of their call list. Over the years, Kelchen continues to receive accolades from Education Week as a top influencer who shape educational practice and policy. This year is no different as Kelchen is once again recognized as a Top 200 education scholar at a United States university.

Kelchen, who serves as department head in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies in the College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, ranked 31 out of 200 scholars nationwide in Education Week’s Edu-Scholar Public Influence Rankings for 2025. In fact, Kelchen is the only scholar from the University of Tennessee to make this year’s list.

 “In a time of declining trust in higher education, I feel that it is crucial for faculty to demonstrate how our work benefits the public good,” said Kelchen.

Each year, Education Week selects the top 200 scholars from across the U.S. (from an eligible pool of 20,000)  as having the most influence on issues and policy in education. The list is compiled by opinion columnist Rick Hess, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and director of Education Policy Studies.

The selection process  involves a rigorous evaluation by a 24-member committee of university scholars representing institutions nationwide. Criteria include Google Scholar scores, book publications, Amazon rankings, mentions in the Congressional Record, and appearances in media and web platforms.

Kelchen’s reputation as a reliable and insightful source for higher education stories is well-earned. He has participated in more than 200 media interviews annually, with his expertise regularly featured in outlets such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Education Week, and The Chronicle of Higher Education.

“It is a pleasure to use my scholarly expertise to help inform policy conversations and the general public on pressing issues such as college affordability, financial aid, and college closures,” said Kelchen.

Through its seven departments and 13 centers, the UT Knoxville College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences enhances the quality of life for all through research, outreach, and practice. Find out more at cehhs.utk.edu

Vols Online Degree is Part of a 30-Year Journey to Create Lasting Change

January 6, 2025 by Douglas Edlund

Gladys Hunt vividly remembers the moment her life shifted course forever. Escaping civil unrest in her Central American homeland, her family left behind the comfort of the familiar for an uncertain future in the United States. What initially felt like an ending became a remarkable new beginning that helped shape her life’s path. Part of this incredible journey gave her the courage to reinvent herself and change careers, including enrolling in a Master of Public Health degree through the University of Tennessee’s Vols Online program.

When Hunt immigrated to Missouri as a child, she entered a foreign world. A week after her arrival, she sat in a classroom surrounded by unfamiliar faces, customs, and a language she couldn’t understand. Driven by resilience and determination, she worked to overcome the language barrier. This early perseverance laid the foundation for her future success, culminating in her graduation from college and a career in the international transportation industry.

For nearly 15 years, Hunt thrived in her role, managing staff, leading technology projects, and implementing software systems. But at the peak of her career, she felt a desire for something more profound. It was a sense that her skills and experiences could be used to create a more meaningful impact. This ambition sparked a significant pivot in her professional life.

In the early 2000s, Hunt transitioned to the healthcare sector, where she found her true calling. She took on roles that allowed her to serve her community more directly, from leading lifestyle management courses to developing cutting-edge healthcare solutions. Her work became a blend of innovation and compassion, focusing on patients, stakeholders, and entire communities. She also began volunteering and working with refugees and immigrants, connecting deeply with their struggles, having lived through similar circumstances.

Though she had started her work towards an advanced degree nearly 30 years earlier, she was forced to pause for personal reasons. Driven by her growing desire to create lasting change, Hunt recognized that a graduate degree could amplify her ability to make a positive impact. An online program would be the best fit due to her schedule. She chose the Vols Online program for its reputation, flexibility, and the practical focus of the Community Health Education concentration in the Master of Public Health program. The decision marked the next chapter in her remarkable story.

Balancing her renewed education with her ongoing healthcare work, Hunt continues to thrive. She has gained invaluable skills, such as conducting data analysis, performing literature reviews, collaborating in online environments, and leading program evaluations. She uses these skills in her schoolwork, in her work with refugee organizations, and as the Community and Patient engagement lead with the Tennessee Heart Health Network.

“The professors have been amazing and are experts in their field, bringing real-world experience. They are incredibly responsive, always willing to help, answer questions, and offer support. In my opinion, their dedication makes the professors the biggest asset to the program,” said Hunt.

Hunt’s return to school is not just a tale of reinvention—it’s a story of resilience. She embodies the strength that can emerge despite adversity and has inspired those around her to believe in the same possibilities. Her life is a testament to what is achievable for adult learners and online students and a reminder that education and the courage to take risks open doors to incredible opportunities. With every step of her evolving career, she proves there is always time to rewrite your story and create an impact that resonates far beyond yourself.

Campus Food Recovery Program Gets a Boost

November 11, 2024 by Douglas Edlund

This article is republished from Foodservice Equipment and Supplies magazine

Story by Renee Pas / Photos by Grant Kessler

The nonprofit Food4VOLS at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, benefits from a refresh of its main prep room, truck and more as the winner of the FE&S Kitchen Storage Makeover contest. 

One relatable college experience that seems to carry on through generations is survival by way of instant noodles. A not-to-be-missed life experience? Perhaps, but Tyler White, director of the University of Tennessee’s Culinary Institute and assistant professor in UT’s Retail, Hospitality and Tourism Management program, contends that does not have to be the norm. “Often our alumni groups make light of the fact that they survived on ramen in college and deem it a rite of passage,” he says. “Yes, that is one way to think of it, but also, you were food insecure: You didn’t have money or access to food. Sometimes it’s about not knowing what food insecurity is. Students don’t have to struggle on campus. Food insecurity on our campus is a solvable problem with resources that already exist here. We have everything here for students to thrive.”

Tyler White knows full well the amount of overproduction of food that occurs on the UT campus, which he points out is a natural part of operations in the collegiate dining segment. He started providing the UT community with prepackaged, ready-to-heat-and-eat meals during COVID-19 and realized he could continue to create those meals from the overproduction that results from prepping for high-volume service each day.

The Food4VOLS program evolved from that experience. A conversation between Tyler White and Jay Price, who serves as the sustainability manager for the University of Tennessee, moved the idea from conception to reality. The food recovery program now addresses food insecurity issues on both the UT campus and in the surrounding community. Operating as a nonprofit outside of the university’s oversight, the program intertwines with campus dining. Donors and ongoing fundraising efforts support the bulk of its operating budget. The university donates the space to run the program and funds one full-time employee, Andrew White (Tyler’s father), who serves as the coordinator of Food4VOLS.

While Tyler White had the necessary physical space inside the UT Culinary Institute building on the outskirts of campus, he did not have the exact setup he wanted. “I did not need a brand-new kitchen, but I did need a new arrangement that would maximize efficiency and accommodate the many volunteers that make the program viable,” he says. “The overall lack of storage and shelving made execution challenging.”

These problems were solved when Food4VOLS won the FE&S Kitchen Storage Makeover. The makeover team swooped in to assess the space, determine the best solutions to improve organization of the space, and handle all install needs for the shelving and storage solutions provided. Ultimately, Food4VOLS received a transformation of its primary production area, truck used for food collection, walk-in cooler and freezer, and dish wash area storage.

Pain Points

First, the team needed to identify what areas needed improvement. “The first phase of the makeover started with a discussion about our pain points,” says Tyler White. “It was less about specific pieces we wanted and more about our problems.”

The main problem was not having the right quantity and type of prep tables in the main production room. Another fundamental problem was not having adequate shelving in the primary truck used to pick up donations across campus to deliver packaged meals. The truck setup was cobbled together with odds and ends Tyler and Andrew White had accumulated. For example, the extremely practical duo initially purchased racks to hold the food from a chain retailer going out of business. “The items we had were never meant for what we were doing: transporting food,” says Tyler White.

Fast-forward to the transformation: The install team reconfigured the truck and built it out with food-grade materials designed for transporting food. “What we have now is easy to clean, doesn’t tip over in the truck, and makes every part of the collection and distribution of food much easier,” says Andrew White, who starts every day in that truck collecting food from various locations on campus.

The collection process involves recovering food from five primary facilities daily (some twice a day): Rocky Top Dining Hall (the largest student dining hall), Stokely Dining Hall (another student dining hall), Anderson Training Center (caters to student-athletes), plus a catering kitchen and bakery facility on campus. “In a perfect world, there would be no extra food,” says Andrew White, “but you always have to ensure there is something for the students. There will always be some overproduction; it’s built into operations.” Aramark handles foodservices for Vol Dining, and the food management company in turn supports the partnership between Vol Dining and Food4VOLS.

Time management is Andrew White’s biggest issue. His daily work routine starts at 7:30 a.m.; his first stop is often the student-athlete dining hall, Anderson Training Center, or ATC, to pick up donations from dinner the night before. He returns there later in the afternoon to pick up more food after lunch. ATC, along with Rocky Top, are large contributors to the food recovery program and require two daily pickups as a result. Rocky Top alone feeds 8,000 students daily, he says. ATC functions separately in terms of per-person plating guidelines for students, which lends to overproduction at times.

Many factors contribute to the overproduction of food, Andrew White explains: “There are very specific rules on reusing foods, and some facilities lack enough storage to keep the items. Each location must decide what they can keep. Most seek to keep proteins, such as steak that could be cut up and used in a stir-fry the next day.” He adds that dining halls also follow a set meal schedule, which can contribute to not holding ingredients for the next day, since those items may not match the need for the next day’s menu.

Andrew White continually reminds dining team members of the program as he winds his way through the different dining halls picking up food. Each location has a designated spot for Food4VOLS items, which are stored in plastic pans in walk-in coolers. Empty containers are restocked as new items are collected. One of the challenges is the continual education necessary for staff. “Some dining halls are busier than others, which means staff have other issues they are dealing with,” he says. “It takes constant communication to reinforce the importance of saving and storing overproduction of food.”

The Food4VOLS team reinforces that message every semester, says Andrew White, when there tends to be turnover in staff.

Once back at the UT Culinary Institute building, which houses the Food4VOLS program, staff weigh and categorize all food donations by protein, starch, vegetable/produce and dessert. An average day brings in roughly 650 pounds of food. The program diverted a total of 160,000 pounds of food from going into compost in 2023; those items created more than 60,000 meals for students. This year, Food4VOLS estimates the program will collect 200,000 pounds of food, which will result in 65,000 student meals.

Also, in 2023, Food4VOLS donated 100,000 pounds of food to neighboring counties. In addition to assembling meals for students, the program also donates bulk food, primarily through a partnership with with Second Harvest Food Bank of East Tennessee, whose partners also collect and distribute bulk food items. “We collect so much food, and we make only the number of meals we can give away,” says Tyler White. “Branching out with larger donations works to keep the food out of the compost bin while helping the community.”

Meal Assembly and Distribution

Roughly 350 meals a day from collected and repurposed food are distributed to Food4VOLS cupboards around campus the same day. The meals are stored in refrigerators in locations easily accessible to students. Locations include a microwave and utensils.

The process of going from recovered food to prepackaged meals starts with assessing intake for the morning and creating a menu. Since the items collected change each day are not known until that morning, Andrew White creates each menu on the fly.

Student volunteers arrive midmorning for meal assembly. Because certain majors at the university require volunteer hours, Andrew White says he has never had an issue with labor. The volunteers portion the items into individual meals in plastic containers. “Compostable containers are cost-prohibitive,” he notes, “but we continue to look into that.”

The newly improved production room enables more volunteers to work at the same time, says Tyler White. “It’s spaced out now so we can make meals for campus and pack for the community all at once,” he says. “In the past, we had one production line making meals, then after that did community packing. The functionality now allows us to produce even more.”

The program continues to gain traction among students despite little marketing to build awareness. “We have been very careful about turning the faucet all the way on while we fine-tune things,” says Tyler White. “We now have the infrastructure in place and can start ramping things up.” He intends to nearly double the number of meals available daily by next fall, going from 350 per day to 600.

Program Expansion

From its inception, Tyler White envisioned the Food4VOLS program as a transferable model for other college campuses. That goal is about to become reality through emerging partnerships with Montana State University and South Carolina State University, both of which are currently creating programs that emulate the Food4VOLS model (an alternative name is being considered to avoid the UT nickname “the Vols” on another campus).

Further boosting the profile of the program, in August, Food4VOLS received the Tennessee Governor’s Environmental Stewardship Award in recognition of the program’s success. Additionally, the program was awarded two grants in 2023 that totaled $790,000 for fighting food insecurity on campus.

“Every year we are evolving one step more from the previous year,” says Tyler White. The next goal is adding a summer program in 2025 at least once a week to address K-12 family needs. “It’s a building block,” he says. “The program is blossoming and we know now we can get to the next level.” 

Three Makeover Highlights

With a $75,000 budget to transform the Food4VOLS space, the makeover team was able to enhance many different areas of the space, including adding shelving to eliminate wet nesting in the dish room and doubled the amount of storage available in the dry storage room. Here are three of the areas where the makeover had the biggest impact:

Production room. Every item in this room was replaced. The makeover team removed old tables and storage bins and installed new, all stainless-steel food-grade workstations and accessories. The upgraded work area and additional workstations now enable the Food4VOLS team the space necessary to reach its goal of nearly doubling its output of meals this academic year. “We can now have four volunteers working at one station and passing items through to each other instead of two in a line,” says Andrew White.

Food pickup and distribution truck. A new, more functional cart system replaced the non-food grade carts formerly used to collect food and distribute meals around campus. 
“The racks maneuver easily in the tight corners in the truck,” Andrew White says. “And they are very light, so that makes the job much easier.” A worktable, basket storage and security cage with sliding door add to the efficiency of the truck space.

Walk-in cooler. Removed the floor track system and replaced it with a track system that holds double the number of pans in the same space. “Staff can now easily maneuver in and out,” Tyler White says.

Quick Take: Tyler White’s Road to Food Recovery at UT

Tyler WhiteQ: You have been instrumental in steering the culinary ship at UT. How did your journey begin?

A: I started at the University of Tennessee in 2010. I was brought on to teach culinary arts at UT for Pellissippi State Community College, specifically the lab component for an associate degree. They outsourced the lab component to UT; the lecture portion happened at the community college. Eventually, Pellissippi State brought the lab piece in-house. The question then was what direction should UT go in? That was the genesis that created UT’s culinary arts minor.

At that point, we started to explore what else we could do with the space that was available and our time. I met with the office of sustainability and realized quickly how much food was being composted. The people collecting food often wondered why it was being composted — it was not difficult to see when you opened the bins there was nothing wrong with the food. I knew I could create something to help with that problem.

Q: How do you balance Food4VOLS with teaching?

A: My primary job continues to be teaching. I teach two classes in the fall and three in the spring; unlike other faculty at UT, I don’t do research. Instead, outside of classroom time, I support catering on campus and Food4VOLS. This spring, I will teach a zero-waste class dedicated to utilizing the food Andrew collects and teaching students how to prepare it differently. For example, if a lot of green beans are collected, we will talk about the components of a casserole, and green beans will be a mandatory ingredient. 

Q: What role did AmeriCorps play in the early stages of creating Food4VOLS?

A: AmeriCorps has a strong presence on the UT campus. Right now, they are doing a river project and many other things. I became aware that was a resource for us. We spent a year devising the plan with the help of a volunteer from AmeriCorps in the VISTA program [volunteers commit to one year of service]. The volunteer was instrumental in researching on the back end and fundraising. 

Q: Food insecurity on campuses has certainly become more front and center in recent years. How did programs at other universities influence Food4VOLS?

A: We actually could not find another program quite to the extent of what we were planning. We asked a lot of colleges what they were doing and how they handled it. There are other programs that exist, particularly with food management companies, we just never found anything that impacted students in the way we wanted, so we set out to create our own.

Q: You have a vision to share the Food4VOLS model. How is that effort moving forward?

A: We are expanding to two new schools, Montana State University and University of South Carolina. South Carolina already has the infrastructure in place because they offer a culinary program, and they will execute it with a food management and recovery course as part of their curriculum. Meals will be created in a lab piece. They are going to integrate it into an academic setting for proof of concept, then grow it from there for their campus.

CEHHS Professor’s Experience Coaching at Paris Olympics

October 31, 2024 by Douglas Edlund

By Cara Smith, CEHHS Student Reporter, Class of 2024

Assistant professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies (ELPS) in the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences (CEHHS), James Martinez discovered his love for rowing after watching the 1988 Seoul Olympics where he watched Anne Marden compete in rowing.

“It was really an inspiring race,” said Martinez. “She was way down and came back to win a silver.”

He was so impressed, he wrote Marden a letter, and she convinced him to start rowing. Since he began rowing, he has rowed competitively for the U.S. and represented them nationally and internationally from 1993 to 1998.

With his background in rowing, Kathleen Noble, an athlete from Uganda, approached him about coaching for the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Noble was looking for a level-three, international coach when she discovered Martinez. Noble impressed Martinez instantly with her determination and technique, and the two began training together in June 2023 for 15 to 20 hours a week.

“Dr. Martinez is an extremely knowledgeable and dedicated coach,” said Noble. “My speed and technique improved significantly under his instruction as well as my understanding of what it takes to be an elite athlete.” 

Noble is the first person ever to represent Uganda in rowing and qualified for the Paris Olympics in October 2023. Together, Martinez and Noble trained extensively until the games began.

Throughout training, UT supported Martinez and Noble extensively by supplying Noble with sports nutritionists and psychologists. Noble was also given a job by UT in the ELPS department and worked with Martinez over the summer.

“UT went all out to assist me with coaching and with her,” said Martinez.

Two weeks before leaving for Paris, while Noble was training, she broke her record by ten seconds. However, because of how hard she pushed herself, she got sick and had to take a week off.

Once she made it to Paris, Noble built her strength back and placed 26th—high enough to make the semi-finals but, unfortunately, not high enough to make the quarter-finals.

“Regardless of place, she is a two-time Olympic rower and first-time rower ever from Uganda,” said Martinez. “She’s a wonderful representative of her country.”

From sickness to uncomfortable beds and being under-sized from other athletes, Noble faced multiple difficulties during her time at the Olympics. Despite the hardships, the memories and excitement of Paris are something Martinez and Noble will never forget.

“He persistently challenged me to believe I was capable of more than I thought I was, and in the year and a half I worked with him, I did achieve results I would never have imagined possible for me,” said Noble. “Dr. Martinez has a passion for coaching combined with a wealth of experience as an elite sculling athlete that is rare.”

In the future, Martinez’s decision to coach at the Olympics again will depend on the athlete and their skill.

“It would have to be the right person, and they would have to show me they have both the internal and external resources to be able to manage the Olympics,” said Martinez. 

Martinez’s advice to future Olympic athletes is to understand it takes a lot of practice and dedication.

“Most don’t recognize that to get to the Olympics, it takes a lifetime,” said Martinez.

Special thanks to UT’s senior associate athletics director and associate provost, Marshall Steward, associate professor in the Department of Kinesiology, Recreation, and Sport Studies, Jim Bemiller and Martinez’s students and departmental colleagues for making his time coaching at the 2024 Paris Olympics possible.