March 19, 2025 Treacy Recognized with Spirit of a Volunteer Award

Since the establishment of the Spirit of a Volunteer award, the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, College of Architecture and Design’s Senior Advancement Director Pamela Cannella Treacy saw it as the perfect way to recognize non-alumni who both financially support and consistently advocate for the college.

She nominated and successfully surprised three recipients—Rick Boyd, COO of Clayton Homes; Lindsey Waldrep, Vice President of Marketing for Caesarstone US; and Marla Gerber, philanthropist—of the five total awardees to date.

“It is the only award the university alumni association has to recognize thousands of people who contribute to UT who are not alumni,” said Treacy, a non-alumna herself. “I knew that each time we presented the award to an individual, we honored the recipient with the same level of importance as the awards available to alumni.”

As faculty, staff, and friends gathered to celebrate Treacy’s eight-year career with the college and her retirement in December, Dean Jason Young found it only fitting to recognize Treacy with the award herself.

“It felt like all the stars were aligned.  Being on the receiving end felt like the perfect recognition and personal experience to conclude my career with the University of Tennessee Foundation and College of Architecture and Design,” she said.

Treacy joined the college in 2016 as director of development while the university was in its sixth year of the Join the Journey campaign. With four years left in the campaign, she raised nearly 60% of the college’s campaign goal plus exceeded its goal by 20%.

“In a short period of time, Pamela was able to make a big impact in our community,” said Young, who was director of the School of Architecture when Treacy was hired. “Until very recently, Pamela served as the sole development staff in the college, acting in all roles—including alumni engagement, annual giving, and major gifts. She established a momentum in the areas of philanthropy and alumni engagement that engaged our alumni and donors.”

Her dedication reconnected thousands of alumni and non-alumni Volunteers with the college resulting in a doubling of the number of donors over a decade.

With a background in entertainment and commercial real estate, Treacy met people across multiple industries, but her experience with architects and designers ignited her desire to advocate for their important role in society.

“I was always aware of the economic impact of the university on the Knoxville community,” she said. “But the field of design has a distinct impact. The College of Architecture and Design is educating and developing future industry professionals, while continuing to engage with alumni designers.  What really motivated me was to support designers to be heard. Their abilities to collaborate and to focus on making the built environment and communities better has been inspiring.”

In the last year and a half of her career, Treacy raised more than $14.5 million for the university’s current campaign, It Takes a Volunteer.

A sizable portion of that amount came in August 2022, when Young and Treacy finalized a historic $5.2 million gift from Jeff (’82) and Marla Gerber to cover last-dollar tuition and fees for School of Architecture students in the fall 2022 first-year class. The gift supports those students for five years towards their Bachelor of Architecture degrees.

When that gift was announced, Treacy realized how generosity sparks more generosity. The families of those students recently created a scholarship endowment in the Gerber’s honor for future students. Early in her tenure, she even jokingly renamed her title to “Chief Generosity Officer” to reflect the ripple effect of philanthropy. But it wasn’t until one of her retirement celebrations that she realized the impact her own gift had on students.

In 2021, she established the Treacy Family Scholarship Endowment, which supports architecture and design students who have lost a parent in high school or college. Treacy’s children, Lucas and Katherine, were in college and high school, respectively, when they lost their father, Gene. As a self-employed business owner, her family did not meet FAFSA standards to be eligible for tuition support.  As a result, she and her family knew firsthand that everyone’s situation is different after such a loss, but they are stressful and challenging. She knew that for many students, such a loss could jeopardize their college education.

As a first-generation college graduate, “I wanted to make sure that somebody wasn’t stopped from attending college,” she said. Since the endowment was established, two students have benefited from the scholarship.

“It was emotional for me when a parent shared that I was important to her and her family,” she said. “I can relate more to the parent’s experience than the student’s. Since I knew what it was like, I was happy that the scholarship helped reduce stress and continue to let a student reach their goal of a college degree.”

Pamela has also established scholarship endowments in her estate plan in her children’s names for the Haslam College of Business and the College of Education, Health and Human services.  Though retired, Treacy plans to continue supporting future architects and designers through her documented planned gifts and advocacy for the disciplines through professional organizations.

“Pamela’s impact on our college has been profound—not only in the extraordinary generosity she inspired but in the deep care she showed for the fields of architecture and design,” said Young. “She understood that supporting this college wasn’t just about raising funds; it was about championing our community—students, faculty, alumni, and friends—who shape the built environment and influence the world around us. Her ability to connect individuals to our vision, to make them feel the significance of our work, is a legacy that will continue to shape our college for years to come.”