The University of Tennessee at Martin was among six southeastern U.S. colleges and universities and 49 in the nation recognized in a campus-beauty category in Kaplan Publishing's The Unofficial, Unbiased Guide to the 328 Most Interesting Colleges, 2004 Edition, by Trent Anderson and Seppy Basili.

UT Martin was recognized in the category, "schools with the most beautiful campus in a suburban or rural setting." Other southeastern universities recognized in the category were Duke University, Auburn University, the University of Mississippi, Appalachian State University and Northwestern State University of Louisiana.

"This is well-deserved recognition for our campus," said Dr. Nick Dunagan, UT Martin chancellor. "The campus environment is critical for student success, and we will continue to emphasize UT Martin's beautiful grounds as part of what makes the university special."

The recognition is not the first for the university's landscaping. In 1993, the Professional Grounds Management Society presented a Grand Award to the campus in the society's "school and university grounds" category.

According to information provided by Kaplan, the results in this year's guide were obtained through Kaplan's 2004 National Survey of High School Guidance Counselors. The survey used Market Measurement, a national market research firm, that used a pure random sample of U.S. public, private and Catholic high schools obtained from Dun & Bradstreet.

The foundation of the survey was telephone interviews conducted within the sample provided for high school guidance counselors. To further enhance the accuracy and "projectability" of the study findings, Market Measurement also incorporated data weighting to ensure that the final study findings accurately reflect the total number of high school-aged students in each state.

Besides the statistical information, guidance counselors were invited to share insights about the colleges with which they were most familiar.