Located near downtown Chattanooga, The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga is one of a growing number of institutions characterizing themselves as "metropolitan universities." The metropolitan university mission includes a dedication to meeting the general and professional educational needs of area residents, strong community involvement and leadership, and emphases on applied research and public service.  UTC had been a private institution for 83 years when it joined the University of Tennessee's system of statewide campuses.  UTC retains the best aspects of that private tradition, yet offers all the resources of a modern public university.  The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga serves as a national model of an engaged metropolitan university whose faculty, staff, and students, in collaboration with external partners, employ the intellectual resources of the liberal arts and professional programs to enrich the lives of those we serve.  To learn more about the University, go to http://www.utc.edu/

The Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences is housed in Holt Hall on the Chattanooga, Tennessee campus of the University of Tennessee. In addition to classroom and office space, the department has research and teaching laboratories, a scanning electron microscope, a GIS computer laboratory, animal quarters, greenhouses, an aquatic field station on the Tennessee River, two field stations in the Tennessee River Gorge, a 200 acre forested research property that includes a wetland and classroom, three aquatic research vessels including the Serpentina (a new 26 foot custom river sampling boat), a new covered utility trailer, and three vehicles.  The department is formally affiliated with the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, which provides facilities and equipment for studies in marine biology and oceanography and Highlands Biological Station in North Carolina which is a regional field station for biological research and education in the southern Appalachian Mountains.  The department has longstanding relationships with a variety of other institutions including the Tennessee Aquarium, Erlanger Hospital, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, several agencies of the city of Chattanooga and Hamilton County, the Tennessee River Gorge Trust, the Chattanooga Nature Center, and the North Chickamauga Creek Conservancy.  To learn more about the department, go to http://www.utc.edu/Academic/BiologicalAndEnvironmentalSciences/