March 29, 2024

Students, colleagues remember former dean, professor through Twitter

Over the weekend, the Twitter page @UTJEM collected tweets written by former students and colleagues of Dwight Teeter posting their condolences as a way to bring the community closer together and pay tribute to his legacy at UT. Teeter died Feb. 27 at the age of 80.

@UTJEM wrote a Tweet announcing the news of Teeter's death Feb. 27.

@UTJEM, a Twitter page created for the University of Tennessee’s journalism students, paid tribute to former dean of the College of Communications and Information and communications law professor Dwight Teeter by creating a “Storify” story following his death on Feb. 27.

@UTJEM wrote a Tweet announcing the news of Teeter's death Feb. 27.
@UTJEM wrote a Tweet announcing the news of Teeter’s death on Feb. 27.

The Twitter story called “Reactions to the passing of Prof. Dwight Teeter” was posted on March 1 and is made up of reaction tweets to the news of Teeter’s death collected over the weekend.

Shelley Kimel, a journalist for the Knoxville News Sentinel, had Teeter as a law professor in 2004 and said that she found out about his death through the tweets.

“As a journalist, it was nice to have someone I could relate to,” she said.

Kimel continued to say that she had visited Teeter less than a year before he retired and that he remembered who she was and what class she was in.

Jessica Yonker, a former UT student took Teeter’s class in Fall 2011, said that she was not too excited to take a media law class, but his class ended up being one of her favorite classes of her college career.

“I’ve just never seen a teacher so interested in what he’s doing,” she said. “I feel sorry for those who won’t be able to take his class.”

Former student Jennifer Brake said that Teeter was an integral part of journalism and that the School of Journalism won’t be the same without him.

“His hilarious stories made media law more interesting and fun,” she said. “He was always willing to stay after class to answer questions or go more in-depth on a topic.”

According to an article written by “Tennessee Today,” Teeter was the dean of the College of Communications and Information from 1991 to 2002, returned to full-time teaching in 2003, and that he completed 50 years of teaching before retiring at the end of 2014. He was 80 years old.

Edited by Maggie Jones

Matthew Osborne tweet, paying respect to Teeter as a professor.
Matthew Osborne writes a tweet paying respect to Teeter as a professor.
Wesley Mills writes Tweet about how great of a professor and man he believed Teeter was.
Wesley Mills writes a Tweet about how great of a professor and man he believed Teeter was.
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