Graber Remembered for Scholarship and Service
Professor Emeritus Glenn Graber was a leader in the field of medical ethics, mentored countless students, and served the wider community.
A member of the UT philosophy faculty for 45 years, Professor Emeritus Glenn Graber passed away on June 18, 2026, after a brief illness.
He was one of the founders of the graduate Medical Ethics program—one of the first in the country, and one of the very first to include a clinical component, sending students to practica at the UT School of Medicine in Memphis and the UT Health Sciences Center in Knoxville.
A beloved teacher and mentor, over the course of his career Glenn directed 29 doctoral dissertations and 18 master’s theses.
He also contributed to the College of Arts and Sciences and the university through service roles great and small, including time as Faculty Senate president and director of university studies.
Among Glenn’s numerous awards, he was named a Lindsay Young Professor and received the London Award from the Department of Medicine at University of Tennessee Medical Center for his dedication to excellence. He also received Chancellor’s Citations for both Extraordinary Service and Extraordinary Community Service.
He contributed to the broader community by serving on ethics committees at St. Mary’s Hospital and UT Medical Center, where he was clinical associate in medical ethics and professor of medicine.
Glenn was the author, co-author, or co-editor of six books and more than 50 articles, including some of the earliest and field-defining texts in bioethics, clinical ethics, and the ethics of euthanasia. His contributions spanned topics in ethical theory, religious ethics, medical ethics, research ethics, engineering ethics, and professional ethics.
In addition to this scholarship, he contributed to the evolution of pedagogy in applied ethics, publishing papers on innovative methods in bioethics education and engineering ethics education.
Glenn continued contributing to the philosophy department right up to the end of his life. The Prados-Graber fund supports PhD students by buying out their summer teaching, enabling them to focus on their dissertation work. In addition to having steered this major gift to the department in the first place, Glenn continued to serve on the prize committee up until this year.
And in his role on the Phi Beta Kappa committee, Glenn catalyzed the department’s successful request for the fall 2026 Phi Beta Kappa visiting scholar, Rutgers Professor Derrick Darby, who will be at UT in September.