KNOXVILLE — Bruce McCarty, architect and civic leader, has been named the University of Tennessee’s 2001 Volunteer of the Year.
The award will be presented Tuesday evening at the Hyatt Regency. As UT’s highest honor given to an alumnus or friend, the award recognizes untiring service and dedication to the university, Eli Fly, acting president, said.
“Bruce McCarty’s impact on the University of Tennessee can literally be seen in any direction one looks on this campus,” Fly said. “He and his firm have designed or helped design many of the buildings we’ve built in the last 40 or 50 years.
“While he is not a graduate of UT, Bruce’s support of this university is a model that other volunteer leaders could well copy.”
McCarty, who was raised in Wisconsin, was a junior at Princeton when he enlisted in the Army Air Corps during World War II. Pre-flight training brought him to UT where he met his wife-to-be, Elizabeth Hayes. After the war and completion of architecture school at the University of Michigan, the McCartys returned to Knoxville.
In 1975, McCarty, working in partnership with his son, Doug, submitted a design for UT’s Art and Architecture Building that was selected over 43 other proposals. Two years later the firm was chosen executive architects of Knoxville’s 1982 World’s Fair.
Clarence Brown Theatre, Andy Holt Tower, the humanities and social sciences complex, the communications building and the Cumberland Avenue pedestrian bridge are other UT landmarks designed by his firm.
McCarty was instrumental in helping found UT’s College of Architecture, which is still the only one in Tennessee. He has served on the college’s board of advisors, was on the college’s steering committee for the 21st Century Campaign, and has taught a fifth-year thesis class.
A combined gift in 1998 to the university from the McCarty family and his firm, McCarty Holsaple McCarty, was used to renovate the auditorium in the Art and Architecture Building.