Our campus has changed significantly in the past 50 years, but one thing that’s been constant is the career of Charlene Mullins, an associate professor in Human Ecology.

Mullins, only the second member currently on the faculty to achieve that distinction, was awarded a diamond service pin at this year’s fall faculty meeting. In 1999, Christine Jones of the University Library celebrated her 50th year.

“Mrs. Mullins is such an asset to the School of Human Ecology,” says Director Sue Bailey. “Her former students speak with fondness about her and recognize the worthiness of the education they received from her.”

When she was hired in 1953, Mullins said her goal was to work at TTU for about 10 years, but she found the faculty and administration so supportive and her association with students so satisfying that her career continued under the leadership of five presidents.

She was a student here before she joined the faculty; after earning a bachelor’s degree, she enrolled at the University of Tennessee and earned a master’s in child development and family relationships. The following fall, she returned to TTU — but this time as an instructor.

“When I began teaching, TTU had only one course in child development and family relations, so I pioneered the expansion of that field here."

In 1954, she planned and set up the first campus preschool center for studying early childhood development. Now under the umbrella of the College of Education, the Child Development Lab is still a significant campus program — but even it has changed over the years, she says.

“The center was only for toddlers and preschool children, ages two to five, and it was open only a half-day,” Mullins says. “It was housed in some of the improvised lodging that had been brought in for students after World War II. Six of the modular units had been placed together in an L-shape to accommodate the facility.”

Over the years, Mullins became a charter member of our chapter of Phi Kappa Phi, helped organize the Tennessee Association on Young Children and served as its first vice president, was appointed by the governor as chair of the state committee to write standards for Tennessee day care centers, helped establish locations for centers to train teachers who would be employed in the Upper Cumberland Head Start Program, and assisted in the formation of the Tennessee Council on Family Relations.

Mullins has taught thousands of students throughout her career, and she says she believes they have all enriched her life while also making her aware of the changing social trends of the time.

“Their appearance and mannerisms have become more relaxed and casual over the years, and at the same time, the students themselves come from more diverse backgrounds and have more of a global attitude."

Enrollment growth from about 400 students during World War II to more than 9,000 this year is the most pronounced change about the university itself, she says.

“There are so many more students now that it sometimes doesn’t feel like the same university it was when I began teaching, but President Bell noted in his inaugural speech that the ‘C’ in 'T-E-C-H' stands for ‘caring,’ and he was certainly right about that,” Mullins says. “I believe TTU will always be a caring community of students, faculty and administrators.”