Tennessee and Knoxville

Founded in 1794 as Blount College, The University of Tennessee, the state's land-grant university is home to over 26,000 students.  Tennessee is dedicated to providing students with a quality education as well as quality experiences to prepare students for the future.  Tennessee boasts 391programs at the Bachelor's, Master's, and Doctoral levels, including several nationally accredited programs such as the College of Business, College of Engineering, College of Education, and College of Architecture.  The University of Tennessee System also includes the Health and Sciences Center in Memphis, the UT Institute of Agriculture, the Public Services Institute, and the Space Institute in Tullahoma. UT is also known for football Saturdays, when over 105,000 fans pack Neyland Stadium.  The campus also boasts the Thompson-Boling Assembly Center and Arena, the largest on-campus basketball-only facility in the nation.  Thompson Boling is the home of the the Tennessee men's basketball team and eight-time National Champion Lady Vols.  All of Tennessee's athletic programs have flourished being one of only two Southeastern Conference schools to claim a conference title in each sport in which it competes.

UT is located in Knoxville, Tennessee, in the foothills of the Great Smokey Mountains.  Knoxville was recently names as "Best Place to Live" by Places Rated for cities with less than one million people. It was also ranked as having the 3rd lowest cost of living among all U.S. metropolitan areas.  Knoxville is located less than an hour from the 520,000 acre Great Smokey Mountains National Park, which includes 800 miles of trails for hiking and horseback riding, 735 miles of streams for fishing, scenery from countless lookouts and 13 peaks of over 6,000 feet as well as the mountain resorts of Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge.  Knoxville is Tennessee's third largest city with a metro population of 650,000 people. Aside from being a center for agriculture and recreation, Knoxville is well known for the arts.  The downtown Civic Coliseum hosts the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra,  numerous Broadway plays, concerts, and professional sports.  The city also hosts the Sundown in the City Concert Festival, Hot Summer Nights Concert Series, Dogwood Arts Festival, and Boomsday - the largest fireworks show in the southern U.S. - held each Labor Day. Knoxville was the host city for the 1982 World's Fair, and the old World's Fair site was recently converted into a beautiful new city park adjacent to the new ultra-modern Knoxville Convention Center.  Knoxville is also home to the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame, author Alex Haley's home, the East Tennessee Museum of Art, and the Museum of Appalachia.