Gerontology began with the undergraduate and graduate minors in 1983, under the University Studies program at the Knoxville campus of the University of Tennessee. From its inception, the programs have been run by an interdisciplinary group of faculty identified as a colloquy group under the interdisciplinary University Studies programs. In the early years, the colloquy group included campus faculty and members from the various community agencies and organizations focusing their efforts on older adults in and around Knoxville. These programs have been evolving over the past few years and the evolution has resulted in the Post-Bac/Graduate Certificate in Gerontology, beginning in Fall 2006.

The faculty in the Gerontology programs has increased the availability of online courses, providing access to students across the state. Courses currently offered online facilitate the psychology, sociology, and biology of aging requirements regardless of where a student is based in the UT system. With the development of the post-bac/graduate certificate in gerontology, the colloquy was focused on providing the needed education for professionals in the field to acquire the necessary credentials without requiring a graduate degree program for admission. Given the impending “age wave”, initially peaking in 2011, it has become a national imperative to accommodate the growing need for gerontology professionals in response to the increasing numbers in the “aging” population.