{"id":824,"date":"2020-04-15T19:11:48","date_gmt":"2020-04-15T19:11:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/utia-dev.tennessee.edu\/news\/?p=824"},"modified":"2020-04-15T19:57:06","modified_gmt":"2020-04-15T19:57:06","slug":"support-for-uts-agresearch-staff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/utia-dev.tennessee.edu\/news\/support-for-uts-agresearch-staff\/","title":{"rendered":"Support for UT\u2019s AgResearch Staff"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

UT AgResearch Receives Masks to Protect Employee Safety<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. \u2014 We all know that medical\nprofessionals and first responders must protect their health and safety while\nthey battle the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19. But there are many\nother essential workers who must continue their labors during the unprecedented\npandemic. Among them are the staff and faculty at the University of Tennessee\u2019s\nten AgResearch and Education Centers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the care and maintenance of beef and dairy\ncattle, to overseeing the day-to-day operations that keep each outdoor\nlaboratory also functioning as a state-of-the-art research farm, some 150 UT\nAgResearch employees have continued to support the UT Institute of\nAgriculture\u2019s research mission. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thanks to a generous donation from the East Tennessee\nChinese\/Chinese American Care (ETCCAC) group, these workers can continue their\nefforts safely during the pandemic. ETCCAC has donated more than 1000\nmedical\/surgical face masks to UT AgResearch. Prior to the donation to UT\nAgResearch, ETCCAC donated personal protective equipment (PPEs) to hospitals,\nfirst responder teams, Knoxville city and Knox County\u2019s PPE drive and more. The\ngroup also plans to donate to homeless shelters and low-income households.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese\ntimely masks\u20141010 of them\u2014were shipped out by UPS to the ten\nResearch and Education Centers on April 10th to support our staff in carrying\nout critical\/essential research missions while protecting their health and\nwell-being during the COVID-19 challenging time,\u201d said Hongwei Xin, dean of UT\nAgResearch. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOn\nbehalf of our center directors and staff, I wish to express our most sincere\nappreciation to ETCCA, especially Drs. Rui and Wang, for their generosity and\ncaring support. As the saying goes, a friend in need is a friend indeed!\nSupport like this is another testimony that we are all in this together!\u201d Xin continued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Founded and led by Rachel Rui, communications director and director of Asia Engagement at the UT Center for Global Engagement, ETCCAC includes several members who are also UT faculty. Among them is Siqun Wang, a professor in the Department of Forestry, Wildlife and Fisheries.

Several weeks ago Wang, who maintains an appointment at the Institute\u2019s Center for Renewable Carbon (CRC), organized a drive that resulted in CRC personnel donating more than $1,000 for the purchase and shipment of N95 masks from China that will be donated to local hospital staff. Also, Tim Rials, director of the CRC and associate dean of UT AgResearch, reports that recently hired assistant professor Shaoqing Cui has shipped numerous masks and related PPE at her own expense for use by the center\u2019s faculty, staff and students. Cui is stuck in Hefei, China, and not yet able to assume her position with UTIA due to travel restrictions.

\u201cAll said, this greatly expands our perception of the value of our partnerships with many institutions in China. The Institute\u2019s friends and colleagues have been incredibly kind,\u201d said Rials.

Through its land-grant mission of research, teaching and extension, the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture touches lives and provides Real. Life. Solutions. utia-dev.tennessee.edu\u200b<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UT AgResearch Receives Masks to Protect Employee Safety<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":825,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_searchwp_excluded":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1,5],"tags":[193],"articletype":[15],"institute":[],"topics":[],"entities":[10,61,32,14,58,60,59,57,18,37],"class_list":["post-824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","category-human-animal-health","tag-covid-19","articletype-highlight","entities-agresearch","entities-agresearch-and-education-center-at-milan","entities-east-tennessee-agresearch-and-education-center","entities-forest-resources-agresearch-and-education-center","entities-highland-rim-agresearch-and-education-center","entities-middle-tennessee-agresearch-and-education-center-at-lewisburg","entities-middle-tennessee-agresearch-and-education-center-at-spring-hill","entities-northeast-tennessee-agresearch-and-education-center","entities-plateau-agresearch-and-education-center","entities-west-tennessee-agresearch-and-education-center"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-29 02:40:22","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/utia-dev.tennessee.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/utia-dev.tennessee.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/utia-dev.tennessee.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utia-dev.tennessee.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utia-dev.tennessee.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=824"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/utia-dev.tennessee.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":830,"href":"https:\/\/utia-dev.tennessee.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824\/revisions\/830"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utia-dev.tennessee.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/utia-dev.tennessee.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utia-dev.tennessee.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utia-dev.tennessee.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=824"},{"taxonomy":"articletype","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utia-dev.tennessee.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/articletype?post=824"},{"taxonomy":"institute","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utia-dev.tennessee.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/institute?post=824"},{"taxonomy":"topics","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utia-dev.tennessee.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topics?post=824"},{"taxonomy":"entities","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utia-dev.tennessee.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/entities?post=824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}