After leading the University of Tennessee at Knoxville through years of record growth, Chancellor Donde Plowman is showing no signs of slowing down as she launches her most ambitious goal yet: a $3.5 billion fundraising campaign aimed at taking the state's flagship campus to the next level.
The new It Takes a Volunteer campaign, co-chaired by alumni Dee and Jimmy Haslam alongside other prominent partners, follows years of UT quietly securing more than $2.1 billion in donations and gifts since 2020.
Plowman launched the effort during her eighthflagship address to the community Sept. 18.
"We've been working really hard for the entire time that I've been here trying to raise our aspirations and move forward, and we've been really doing well at fundraising
each year and breaking records from the year before," Plowman said. "It feels like we're at a pivotal point where … we're trying to move forward – I guess you'd say escalate the speed at which we attain the goals we've been after."
Plowman's address – which zeroed in on what she calls the Volunteer experience and multiple projects in the pipeline for the flagship campus – emphasized how the campaign will keep UT moving forward in a changing educational landscape. The chancellor, in an exclusive interview with Knox News prior to her address, stressed how she wakes up "every day having to make that case" for Tennesseans to support UT.
The 74-year-old, who was named chancellor in 2019, committed in 2024's Flagship Address to lead UT for at least five more years. She does not have a contract or a retirement date in mind.
"When it stops being fun, I’ll be out of here," she told Knox News. "But I'm having a ball here."
Chancellor Donde Plowman on 'essential' facilities and enrolling more Tennesseans
UT welcomed a record 41,287 students to campus for the fall 2026 semester, including more than 800 online undergraduate students. That figure was boosted by a record 93.1% retention rate.
As UT continues targeting in-state students, this growth is a step toward Plowman's 2030 goal to enroll 55,000 students, including 14,000 attending online. While the university is keeping track of an "enrollment cliff,” in which the number of American high school graduates will decline, Tennessee is projected to buck the trend with 15% more high school graduates by 2041.
"We know that we lose about 1,400 Tennesseans with ACT scores of around 30 every year to out-of-state schools. We've put a stake in the ground at going after a whole bunch of those," Plowman said. "But the campaign is really necessary, and scholarships are usually an easier ask than some other things. People understand that."
Along with scholarships, the fundraising will help UT to build up infrastructure at the three planned Innovation Districts, including the National Security Prototype Center opening in 2027 in Oak Ridge with help from the Y-12 National Security Complex. More projects at the Maplehurst district adjacent to campus and the Peninsula district near the University of Tennessee Medical Center are set for the following years.
"Those are essential. We don’t have the facilities right now that we need for the growth that we want," she told Knox News. "And I don’t mean growth in terms of any more enrollment. I mean the growth in achievement."
How being a Volunteer 'differentiates' the University of Tennessee
Plowman’s plans to alter the campus structure, inside and out, have prompted conversations with campus leadership on how UT can level up.
"We've done a great job here of individual units, colleges, departments prospering, meeting their goals, doing everything at that highly focused (level)," Plowman said. "Now, we need people to be really more mindful of the enterprises of the whole, and that's a conversation that's ongoing."
It's all about "radical collaboration" and finding ways to bridge gaps between various UT sectors, she said, including through the preeminent scholar initiative that’s brought in eight new professors and researchers so far. The initiative focuses on cross-pollination, seeking universitywide opportunities for research and development in the sciences, the humanities and more, like a rising tide lifting all UT colleges.
What does this collaboration and enterprise mindset mean for Plowman?
"It means sometimes, I might have to take one for the team, as opposed to just constantly plowing forward to try to meet my goals and beat everybody else," she told Knox News.
The focus comes back to the students, making sure the university is a place for them to obtain a quality education and feel like they belong.
"People want to, and this generation wants to, be a part of things that have impact," she said. "We're promoting the full meaning of what it means to be a Volunteer."
"Volunteer" isn't just the nickname of a football team or a label for students who graduate from UT. It's an idea that surfaces in small moments, like parents moving a child into a dorm and feeling reassured everything will be all right, and in major traditions such as Torch Night, when more than 10,000 students pledge to "light the way for others."
Being the Volunteers is "what differentiates us as a campus," Plowman said, and she's leveraging that to build UT's future.
"It doesn't mean anything to be a Gator," she said.
Keenan Thomas is the higher education reporter for Knox News. Email: keenan.thomas@knoxnews.com.
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This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Donde Plowman launches her $3.5B vision for University of Tennessee growth | Exclusive
