Nine of its alumni have been selected as Rhodes Scholars and one alumnus, James M. Buchanan, received the 1986 Nobel Prize in Economics.

[15] The new, non-sectarian, all-male, white-only institution struggled for 13 years with a small student body and faculty, and in 1807, the school was rechartered as East Tennessee College as a condition of receiving the proceeds from the settlement devised in the Compact of 1806.

Thomas Jefferson had previously recommended that the college leave its confining single building in the city and relocate to a place it could spread out.

[17] Tennessee was a member of the Confederacy in 1862 when the Morrill Act was passed, providing for endowment funds from the sale of federal land to state agricultural colleges.

[18] The following year, in 1870, the Tennessee Constitution was ratified with a provision, Article XI § 12, that prohibited public schools from enrolling both Black and White students, a policy that remained in place until the 1950s.

[18] In accepting the land grant funds, the university would focus upon instructing students in military, agricultural, and mechanical subjects.

[20] Although the university was required to enroll students of any race or ethnicity as a public, land-grant institution, the Tennessee state constitution prohibited integrated education.

[18] African-American attorney Rita Sanders Geier filed suit against the state of Tennessee in 1968, alleging that its higher education system remained segregated despite a federal mandate ordering desegregation.

The suit was not settled until 2001, when the Geier Consent Decree resulted in the appropriation of $77 million in state funding to increase diversity among student and faculty populations among all Tennessee institutions of higher learning.

[28] On December 15, 2016, the UT Board of Trustees confirmed Beverly J. Davenport as the next Chancellor of the Knoxville campus, succeeding Jimmy Cheek.

[29] On May 2, 2018, UT President Joe DiPietro fired Davenport, citing poor communication and interpersonal skills, among other reasons.

The decision received criticism from the student body and faculty, as these reasons were also listed as Davenport's strengths, and why DiPietro chose to hire her a little over one year earlier.

Many doctors and nurses at UTMC have integrated careers as teachers and healthcare professionals, and the center promotes itself as the area's only academic, or "teaching hospital".

[32] The university holds collections of the papers of all three U.S. presidents from Tennessee—Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk, and Andrew Johnson.

[51] The university also hosts Barry T. Rouse, an international award-winning Distinguished Professor of Microbiology who has conducted multiple NIH-funded studies on the herpes simplex virus (HSV) and who is a leading researcher in his field.

[52] UT's agricultural research programs are considered to be among the most accomplished in the nation, and the Institute for a Secure and Sustainable Environment is home to the East Tennessee Clean Fuels Initiative, recognized by the United States Department of Energy (DOE) as the "best local clean fuels program in America".

[64] The plan is designed to make the campus more pedestrian-friendly by establishing large areas of open green space and relegating parking facilities to the periphery.

[64] The University of Tennessee Space Institute, located in Tullahoma, TN, is an extension of the Knoxville campus supporting research and graduate studies in aerospace engineering and related fields.

The Space Institute is home to various supersonic wind tunnels used by the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Biomedical Engineering.

The Phoenix, a literary art magazine, is published in the fall and spring semesters and showcases student artistic creativity.

[74] Tennessee competes in the Southeastern Conference's (SEC) Eastern Division, along with Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, South Carolina, and Vanderbilt.

The name "Rocky Top Rowdies" was selected over "General's Quarters", "Smokey's Howl", "Vol Army", and "Big Orange Crew".

[76] Sports include tennis, pickleball, lacrosse, rugby, soccer, wrestling, hockey, running, crew, golf, ballroom dance, and paintball.

Charles Moore, president of the university's athletic association, chose orange and white for the school colors on April 12, 1889.

The band is known for its pregame show at the beginning of every home game, which ends with the football team running onto the field through the "Opening of the T".

A UT athletic team was dubbed the Volunteers for the first time in 1902 by the Atlanta Constitution following a football game against the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, although the Knoxville Journal and Tribune did not use the name until 1905.