News Release
For Immediate Release — March 10, 2008
UT Dairy in Knoxville Closing for Relocation
Employees reassigned, salaries unchanged
(KNOXVILLE, Tenn.) – The University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture today informed employees about the official plans to close the present dairy research facility located on Alcoa Highway. The dairy is being vacated in advance of providing the property, known as Cherokee Farm, to the UT System administration for the proposed state-of-the-art, technology-oriented research site of the same name.
The schedule for the dairy’s closure begins with the reassignment of eight employees to other positions at UT Agricultural Experiment Station facilities in Knoxville.
“The good news here,” said Dr. Joseph DiPietro, vice president of the UT Institute of Agriculture, “is no one is going to be out of work. We’ve worked very hard to ensure that our workforce will still have jobs.”
Dr. John Hodges met with the staff to inform them personally of the plans and to answer any questions they might have. He was concerned that some would be confused by the term “reduction in force.”
“Technically, we have eliminated the jobs associated with the dairy,” Hodges, explained. “However, each of the affected employees has been given a different position, so no one is out of a job.” Hodges also emphasized that none of the employees will receive a reduction in their hourly rate.
No new jobs were created. All of the “new positions” are jobs that were presently available in the Knoxville area with the Experiment Station system. Employees will begin their new positions as their previous jobs are phased out, but before August.
The dairy facility is to transfer to UT System management on or about August 1, 2008.
Because construction of the new dairy research facility in Blount County will be not be completed for approximately two years, the existing livestock and equipment will be sold, surplused, or transferred to other Experiment Station facilities. This includes some 100 head of prime milking Holstein cows—one of the top-producing herds in the state. Most of the milking herd is scheduled to be relocated to the Experiment Station’s Middle Tennessee Research and Education Center in Spring Hill.
Hodges is particularly pleased with plans to re-establish the genetic base of his top-producing herd at the new research facility in Blount County. “We plan to use offspring from the present herd at the new facility,” he said. Some of our finest scientists specializing in reproductive physiology will work with us to ensure we have the best genetic base available at the new facility.”
DiPietro said the timing of the closure will work with student workers’ schedules as well. “At the end of the semester our student interns and workers would normally leave their positions or transition into a new position for the summer. So the timing should not affect that normal cycle,” he said.
Records show the present dairy operation was moved from the agricultural campus to the Cherokee Farm in 1935. Recently the herd has maintained a rolling herd average of 24,513 pounds of milk per cow, which is about 2,850 gallons of milk per cow, assuming all of the production goes into milk rather than other dairy products such as cheese, butter, or cream.
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Contacts:
Dr. Joseph DiPietro, UT Vice President for Agriculture, (865) 974-7342
Dr. John Hodges, III, Director of the Tennessee Agricultural Experiment Station’s East Tennessee Research and Education Center, (865) 974-7201