Message from the Chancellor

June 6, 2021

Faculty, Staff, and Students,

I shared with UT System President Randy Boyd some time ago my intent to retire as UTHSC Chancellor by the end of the 2021-22 academic year. I will by then have had the distinct pleasure of serving as UTHSC Chancellor for over 12 years. During this upcoming academic year, President Boyd will launch a national search for the next UTHSC Chancellor. I will continue to serve as Chancellor until a new Chancellor arrives on campus, sometime during the 2021-22 academic year. This allows adequate time for both a national search and a smooth administration transition.

It has been a true pleasure to serve as UTHSC Chancellor. We have witnessed major milestones in the development of the UTHSC campus since 2009-10:

1. We have created an integrated statewide UTHSC organization with four UTHSC campuses (Memphis, Nashville, Chattanooga, and Knoxville), each with unique campus-specific programs and character, but united with shared educational, clinical, and research activities.
2. We have transformed the Memphis campus. Executive Vice Chancellor Ken Brown deserves tremendous credit for the over $300 million in campus transformation driven by the campus master plan to create a state-of-the-art health science environment.
3. We have substantially grown the educational enterprise to now over 3,300 professional students in our six doctoral colleges and 1,400 residents and fellows. While doing this, we maintained graduation rates and first-attempt board pass rates above 95%. Pharmacy and Nursing have achieved U.S. News and World Reportnational stature.
4. We dramatically increased the research enterprise with projected research awards to reach $120 million this academic year. We have more than doubled our all-source non-clinical grants and contracts (sponsored program revenue) to more than $300 million annually (the largest in the UT System.)
5. We have tripled the clinical enterprise with the development of faculty practice plans throughout the state with more than $300 million in clinical revenue. We watched with pride as the partnership of our faculty in UT Le Bonheur Pediatric Specialists and MLH was a major factor in Le Bonheur becoming one of the nation's best children’s hospitals.

My wife Carol (professor in the UTHSC College of Graduate Health Sciences) and I arrived in Memphis in 2006 when I assumed the role of Dean of the UTHSC College of Medicine. I became interim Chancellor in 2009, being named permanent Chancellor in 2010. We have come to love both UTHSC and Memphis. I look forward to returning to the faculty to continue teaching and research after a brief sabbatical.

Steve J. Schwab, MD, FACP, FASN
Chancellor