Defend Systems’ active shooter training arrived at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga following a fake active-shooter 9-1-1 call on August 21, 2025. All UTC faculty and staff were required to attend a three-hour Defend Systems training designed to improve preparedness and response to armed violence threats. (Video by Kayelyn McCaslin).
Written by Malcolm Key
Malcolm Key speaks with Sean O’Brien and Brink Fidler about the false-flag shooting alert at UTC in August 2025. The pair discuss their hope to arm people with education in order to confront questions of public safety within higher education.
Run. Hide. Fight. A message of few words, but of massive impact for students at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga on August 21, 2025. Just one full week into the first semester, students had to act on instinct: barricading into closets and running to the closest outgoing car. Within minutes, city law enforcement redirected to UTC to join campus police in sweeping every inch of campus, prepared to find the threat and establish safety. After the dust settled, and no signs of injury or gunfire were found, UTC Police debriefed, with an emphasis on the question, “How can we do better?”
EDGE sets up this event on the stairs of Chamberlain Field. Students really enjoyed the event. Friday, November 2025. (Photo by Angelina Fraga).
College students today will soon make up the front lines against Earth’s worsening environmental crisis. EDGE (Ecological Decisions for a Global Environment), a club at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC), promotes sustainability and environmentally friendly practices on campus and in the broader Chattanooga area. According to Dr. Jodi Caskey, the main faculty advisor for EDGE, the average college student’s environmental awareness remains moldable. The mission is to shape that awareness for a better tomorrow.
EDGE was established as a crisis response. There was a time when smog filled the air of Chattanooga and the lungs of its population. The Tennessee River ran rancid, contaminated with untreated sewage and industrial waste. In 1969, a report released by the federal government’s Department of Health, Education, and Welfare officially named Chattanooga the “worst city in the nation for particulate air pollution.”
Those trying times led to an environmental revolution in Chattanooga and, subsequently, across the country. The founders of EDGE played a pivotal role in that revolution. In the late 70s, EDGE was established as UTC’s very first environmental club. The founders went on to help create UTC’s environmental science department, further strengthening the existing sustainability community.
Joel Westbrook talks about his journey as a wheelchair athlete in martial arts and how his spina bifida doesn’t limit him. He is the first wheelchair athlete to join the U.S. Para-Karate National Team and became an inspiration for those with physical limitations to challenge themselves, so they can take the first steps towards greatness.
Greatness wears many faces. For 18-year-old martial artist Joel Westbrook, greatness is carved into every determined push of his wheels. As the first ever male wheelchair athlete selected for the U.S. Para-Karate National Team, he has become a living symbol that limitations don’t define a person. His journey is proof that true strength is not bound by the body, but by the fire that drives it forward.
Joel Westbrook releases a sharp kiai, a forceful, exclamatory shout in karate. This practice supposedly connected the mind and body, as he executed the final move in his kata. Tuesday, November 11, 2025. (Photo by Angelina Fraga.)
Westbrook was born with spina bifida, a condition that affects how the spine and nerves develop. He can walk short distances using braces and crutches, but his wheelchair is where he feels strongest and most comfortable. Despite the challenges he faces, he has never felt limited.
When Westbrook was around eight years old, he saw a television show with a character performing martial arts in a wheelchair. For most viewers, it was simply a character, but for Westbrook, he saw himself represented in a sport that had always seemed inaccessible. Under the guidance of his physical therapist, Westbrook and his family discovered Green’s Karate in Chattanooga, Tennessee, a dojo known for adapting karate for all students.
Katy Neusner steps in to help pack Sack Packs for children who may not have food at home to help sustain them through the weekend. Tuesday, April 29, 2025. Photo by Alexis Carpenter.
The warehouse lights flicker on as volunteers walk through the door and make their way to rows of stacked pallets and assembly lines. The scent of produce and cardboard boxes mingle in the humid atmosphere, and the sound of pop music fills the large warehouse. Volunteers begin to sort canned goods, bag fresh vegetables, and prepare boxes for distribution.
Yet, beneath this effort lies a growing crisis. The Chattanooga Area Food Bank, a lifeline for residents across 20 counties in Tennessee and Georgia, is dealing with significant funding cuts. A nationwide halt of $500 million in federal food aid, including the suspension of USDA’s Commodity Credit Corporation funding, has resulted in the cancellation of multiple truckloads of food. These shipments are now absent from the food bank’s inventory, leaving bare shelves within the warehouse.
In the midst of the working warehouse is Katy Neusner, the Advocacy and Communications Coordinator of the Chattanooga Area Food Bank. As the organization works to bridge the gap left by the funding cuts, Neusner and her colleagues face a task of sustaining their mission amid dwindling resources.
Rachel Sakar talks about her experience in caving and how she is involved in the caving community as a mentor and a teacher.
Beneath the rugged mountains of Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia, a region known as TAG, is a network that is somewhat unknown to most, boasting intricate passages, waterfalls, and hidden chambers that Blake Webber has devoted himself to exploring and preserving.
Webber, a civil engineering major at UTC and active member of the UTC Wind Ensemble and Men’s Ultimate Frisbee, first discovered caving in 2021 at a local festival.
“I was thrown off the deep end, completing a relatively challenging vertical trip my first time in a ‘real’ cave,” Webber said. “I was immersed in the challenge and felt like I had stepped into another world.”
Sarah Thomas is the Co-Founder of 42E3, a K-pop dance cover group dedicated to bringing K-pop choreography’s energy, precision, and artistry to life in Chattanooga.
K-pop has been a growing global phenomenon in the past ten years; even in Chattanooga, Tennessee. 42E3 is a K-pop dance cover group that semi-frequently releases dance covers on their YouTube and Instagram pages.
Many of these dancers have experienced the rise of K-pop firsthand, having been fans themselves for over ten years. They have watched the landscape of fan interactions and song promotions shift over the years due to the rise of social media and COVID-19.
“I became a fan of K-pop in 2013, but I didn’t start dancing to K-pop until 2015, because I was kind of embarrassed to be a K-pop fan at first.” said Sarah Thomas, one of the founders of 42E3.
Olympia Garcia Lopez talks about her experience as a Guatemalan immigrant in Chattanooga and how she came to find La Paz.
For those building new lives in Chattanooga, the journey often begins with an organization like La Paz. Even at a time of rapidly shifting policy and funding changes, this organization isn’t going anywhere, and remains firmly committed to the people they serve.
La Paz is a Latino services non-profit organization with a stated goal of “empowering and engaging Chattanooga’s Latino population through advocacy, education, and inclusion.”
“From the very beginning we’ve encountered many Hispanic men coming to Chattanooga for work opportunities, and they started coming in with their families. The needs start changing from job opportunities or like documentation to other processes, more programs, more resources that they need for the whole family instead of just an individual” said Daniela Durán, the communication coordinator for La Paz.
Elizabeth Olley, a VSCG Practice Manager, and Becky Howell, a VSCG Senior Nurse and Trainer, speak about their experience working for the Veterinary Care and Specialty Group in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
As a worried owner walks through the doors holding her trembling and sick dog, the receptionist is already calling the emergency team. ICU veterinarians begin their specialized care, blood work is rushed to the lab, and a surgeon is looking at scans planning the next steps for the pet; all services being done under the same roof in seamless coordination.
This process is something very familiar to the Veterinary Care and Specialty Group (VCSG) in Chattanooga. With services such as emergency care, internal medicine, radiation oncology, surgery, rehabilitation and more, the mission of VCSG is to be a one stop shop for all pet needs no matter the time or lengths required. The treatments and equipment VCSG offer have allowed it to become one of the most advanced offices in America and a leading hub in the South Eastern area seeing around 10,000 – 12,000 pets every year, almost double compared to other vet offices.
“What we’ve always tried to do with VCSG is give the convenience to owners so that people don’t have to take all that time off of work or so owners aren’t making thousands of appointments at 10 different hospitals trying to get the best care for their patient,” Liz Olley says.
76-year-old Ernest Harris speaks about playing pick-up basketball at his local YMCA and what being active and on his feet with friends means to him.
Elbow pads are strapped on, knee pads are adjusted and you can hear neck braces being velcroed. This is just a typical day at the Hamilton Family YMCA basketball court. Most young hoopers don’t even bother playing against the seasoned vets.. For these senior hoopers, this is their lifestyle.
John Hendrickson recently moved to Chattanooga from Illinois and the 78-year-old man is one of the many seniors actively playing basketball every Monday at the YMCA.
“Many of us have a good background in basketball, just a group of guys wanting to do something together,” Hendrickson said.
