By Leigh Powell

When you ask students about their plans after they graduate, you’ll get a variety of answers: teacher, doctor, or lawyer, perhaps. When you ask a College Scholars major, however, the answer might be a bit more unusual.

“Orchestra conductor,” for example. Junior Rachel Grubb is already an assistant conductor for both the Kingsport Symphony and the Missouri Symphony. Additionally, she plays the violin in the UT Orchestra (a native of Knoxville, she’s been a member since she was in high school), and she frequently leads rehearsals and repertoire readings for it. By next semester, she will conduct a few public concerts as well.

“There’s no undergraduate program in conducting in the country,” Grubb says. “Creating my program through College Scholars at UT is the only opportunity I have to get a legitimate degree in this field.”

College Scholars allows just that. Closely guided by a faculty mentor in their field, students with a driven interest in a particular subject can create their own specialized academic program. The undergraduate program is structured not unlike a master’s-level program, culminating in a senior thesis or project involving faculty review and a public defense. College Scholars is housed in UT Knoxville’s College of Arts and Sciences, the largest college at the university, under the direction of Dean Bruce Bursten. The program currently enrolls only 40 students.

“College Scholars is one of the oldest, most prestigious honors programs on campus,” says Christopher Craig, a professor of classics and director of the College Scholars program. “It exists solely for highly motivated, highly achieving students who know what they want and cannot get there using any of the existing programs in the College of Arts and Sciences.”

Craig notes that part of being a College Scholar is having such a passion for a subject that the student can convince a faculty member to be his or her mentor. “The faculty receive no financial reward and very little recognition for agreeing to act as a mentor,” he notes. “But College Scholars are students who inspire faculty. A program this small depends on the goodwill of the best faculty to serve a unique, very talented group of students. It is just one niche in a large university—but it is a niche that needs to be filled at a top-notch university.”

At its heart, College Scholars allows students to pursue research and creative activity in a way that otherwise would not be available as undergraduates. That was a draw for Mauricio Valenzuela, a senior from Paraguay, whose academic program emphasizes biochemistry and computational science.

“The program gives me the flexibility to take some specialized courses that fulfill my scientific interest,” he says, “and it allows me to add more research hours into my schedule.

Post-graduate study is on the agenda of many College Scholars, who know their intensive, research-based undergraduate programs will set them apart from other graduate and professional school applicants.

“Most undergrads begin research in their third or fourth year, whereas I began in my second week,” says Jamie Troupe, a senior from Tullahoma, Tennessee, whose program focuses on animal behavior. Troupe leveraged her educational experience to receive a 2008 Goldwater Scholarship—one of three received by UT Knoxville students, all of whom were College Scholars. “When I apply to a Ph.D. program, I will have the same number of years of research experience as many students applying with M.S. degrees. It’s an incredible edge.”

Truly, College Scholars students are on the path to defining the leading edge of their respective fields, which range from art to zoology.

Whether they are focused on molecular biology breakthroughs in a university laboratory or are conducting field research with survivors of violence in Uganda, College Scholars are redefining the parameters of an undergraduate education, and in the process they are defining excellence.

Learn more about the College Scholars program