Beverly J. Davenport has been chosen to serve as the eighth chancellor of the flagship campus of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. She is scheduled to take office on March 1. The Knoxville campus enrolls nearly 22,000 undergraduate students and almost 6,000 graduate students, according to the latest U.S. Department of Education data. Women make up 49 percent of the undergraduate student body at the university.
Since July, Dr. Davenport has been serving as the interim president of the University of Cincinnati. In July 2013, she was appointed senior vice president for academic affairs and provost at the University of Cincinnati. Earlier in her career, Dr. Davenport was vice provost for faculty affairs at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, dean of social sciences at the University of Kansas and chair of the department of communication at the University of Kentucky.
In accepting the position, Dr. Davenport said: “The excellence and energy on this campus are truly contagious — from record-breaking enrollments to stellar research and innovation programs, to one of the most recognized and respected athletic brands in the nation. UT’s story of success is ready to be told in even bigger and bolder ways. I am inspired by their confidence in my abilities to help them reach their goal of becoming a top-tier public research university.”
A native of Bowling Green, Kentucky, Dr. Davenport holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Western Kentucky University. She earned a Ph.D. in communication from the University of Michigan.