Interim University of Tennessee System President Randy Boyd got the opportunity to see the building improvements and construction taking place on the UTHSC campus when he visited here Friday on the final leg of a weeklong tour of campuses in the UT System. It was his second visit to UTHSC.
The day began with a breakfast with UTHSC Chancellor Steve Schwab, MD, and Ken Brown, JD, MPA, PhD, FACHE, UTHSC’s executive vice chancellor and chief operations officer. It concluded with a dinner reception with leadership from UTHSC and partner hospitals, including Meri Armour, chief executive officer of Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital, and Michael Ugwueke, president and chief executive officer of Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare.
Boyd’s time on campus included a visit inside the Mooney Building at the center of the $70 million Historic Quadrangle renovation project. Boyd also visited the College of Pharmacy Building and the Center for Healthcare Improvement and Patient Simulation, which opened earlier this year and features state-of-the-art technology to train students from across disciplines. Boyd met with deans, vice chancellors, the faculty senate, and the Student Government Association Executive Council, which is made up of student leaders from each college.
“Boyd led the Drive to 55 and was essential to the Haslam administration and is exactly what we believe we need in an interim president – to look at us critically, make those hard decisions over this interim time period – in order to drive us forward. We are excited to have Randy here,” Chancellor Schwab said, in welcoming Boyd at an afternoon campus meet and greet at the Student-Alumni Center.
“It’s always great to come back to Memphis,” Boyd said. “Today has been an incredibly exhilarating and exciting day. Every place that I went and every group of people that I met with, everybody had such bold ideas to share.”