An Obligation to the Future
Wharton’s drive to give back helps build a new home for chemistry at UT.
The Charles and Julie Wharton Chemistry Building is on the rise at the corner of 16th Street and Cumberland Avenue, adding to the UT campus landscape between Strong Hall and the Winston College of Law. Construction broke ground in September 2025, supported by a $165.5 million state investment, the largest funding ever for a single higher education project in Tennessee.
The naming of this transformational eight-story, 162,000-square-foot educational and research space honors the remarkable legacy of the late Julie Wharton and her husband Charles Wharton, who answered the call for additional support with a legacy gift and a vision for this much-needed new home for the Department of Chemistry.
Julie Wharton served on the UT College of Veterinary Medicine (UTCVM) advisory board from its inception until her death in 2008 and was a founding member of the UT Alliance of Women in Philanthropy. She was active in volunteer work even beyond UT, serving as president of the Los Angeles Blind Children’s Center. She was also instrumental in starting a shelter for abused women and children and worked with individually challenged children for most of her adult life.
Charles Wharton is a current member of the UT President’s Council and associate member of the UTCVM Board of Advisors. He is a former member of the UT Board of Trustees, the UT Foundation Board, and has served on numerous other UT boards and councils. His volunteer leadership provides influential assistance on educational issues, with a focus on access and opportunity for Tennesseans to higher education.
Previous support from the Whartons also led to the naming of the Charles and Julie Wharton Large Animal Hospital. This new support for the chemistry building ensures a lasting impact for students from a wide variety of majors, as nearly 6,000 students take first-year chemistry courses each year. The building’s large auditorium, student collaboration space, research and teaching labs, and dedicated workstations will allow students and faculty to continue to push boundaries for learning, research, and collaboration well into the future.
Building Opportunity for Student Success
A large part of Charles Wharton’s inspiration to invest in UT is his firm belief in supporting technology that will improve life and lives for fellow Tennesseans and beyond.
“My world is driven by appreciation for technology,” said Wharton. “We’ve got to have chemists. We’ve got to have mathematicians, physicists, and engineers and chemistry is a foundational program. Our current chemistry building is inadequate now and a deterrent for the future of the program.”
Wharton has seen science and technology evolve firsthand since graduating from what is now UT’s Tickle College of Engineering in 1965. His early jobs included building nuclear submarines and working as the Apollo reliability engineer for the environmental control system on the NASA moon missions. After those roles, he earned his MBA from the University of Chicago, worked for an international consulting firm, undertook a number of business turnarounds, and was then chief operating officer for international law firm O’Melveny & Myers. After retiring, Wharton returned to the rolling hills of Winchester, Tennessee, where he and his late wife Julie bred and showed Tennessee Walking Horses.
Along the way in his storied career, Wharton has remained connected to the values of his Tennessee upbringing, another element that inspires his drive to serve the university that was a springboard for his education.
“My mother died when I was very young,” he said. “We were a family of modest means, and I started working as soon as I could in a grocery store earning 33 cents an hour.”
With these childhood memories still vivid throughout the lifelong success he has built, Wharton recognizes the opportunity to make a difference for fellow “children of the lesser god” today by investing in their future.
“A lot of kids out there, by circumstances of birth, do not succeed because they can’t get past those circumstances and never get a pat on the back or a hand up,” said Wharton. “They don’t ever have someone that can show them another side. When you are blessed, you are truly obligated to give back and to understand a sacrifice on your part can change a life. So, I want to help.”
With this latest generous gift, Wharton continues to put the ideas from his life experience into concrete actions of service and leadership that truly embody the Volunteer spirit.
by Randall Brown