Bonnie Ownley


Bonnie Ownley

University of Tennessee, Knoxville

bownley@utk.edu

Bonnie H. Ownley, Ph.D., is a professor of plant pathology at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Bonnie was introduced to COIA when she served as president of the UTK Faculty Senate in 2016-2017. She attended the COIA meeting at Wake Forest University in 2017 as the UTK representative, and was actively engaged in developing the mission and core values statements that are included in the latest revisions of the COIA bylaws. She believes that COIA plays a unique and important role in representing the elected representatives of university faculty senates and connecting faculty governance bodies with their institutions’ athletics programs. Bonnie values the role of the Faculty Athletic Representatives (FARs) as representatives of the institution to the NCAA, and believes that COIA and the FARs share a commitment to the wellbeing of student athletes, and would encourage dialogue and collaboration between these groups, as well as private organizations such as The Drake Group, who share COIA values, especially academic integrity.

At the University of Tennessee, Bonnie has been a member of the Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology (EPP) for the past 25 years. She is currently the Director of Graduate Studies for EPP and is the president-elect of Tennessee University Faculty Senates (TUFS), an independent consortium of Faculty Senate presidents and campus representatives from the 10 public universities in the State of Tennessee. TUFS represents the missions, accomplishments and needs of public universities to state agencies and to the general public of the State of Tennessee.