News

The Tennessee Board of Regents has established the Foundation for the College System of Tennessee to support its 13 community colleges and 27 colleges of applied technology through advocacy, marketing and fundraising.

The foundation’s board will guide the foundation in its mission, vision and growth. The board’s inaugural members are leaders in business, education and nonprofits who have a keen interest in the public colleges and their students as key to Tennessee’s future. The board convened for the first time last week and will meet again in February and June of 2020.

Gov. Bill Lee and other state and local officials broke ground today for construction of the McMinn Higher Education Center in Athens, a collaborative facility that will house programs offered by Cleveland State Community College, the Tennessee College of Applied Technology Athens, and UT Extension.

The $18 million, 52,000-square-foot center is expected to open for classes and training in 2021. It will also provide space for local industry training to upgrade the skills of the area’s workforce.

Students at Tennessee’s community colleges earned 14,963 Associate degrees and technical certificates during the 2018-19 academic year – a 79 percent increase over the past 10 years despite a slight decrease in student enrollment over the same period.

The Tennessee Board of Regents today approved the appointment of Dr. Allana R. Hamilton as the board’s new vice chancellor for academic affairs. She has been president of Jackson State Community College for nearly three years and has a total of 28 years of experience as a faculty member and academic officer.

The Tennessee Math Alignment Group, composed of 25 math educators and advocates from across the state, has launched an effort to identify learning gaps for students between high school and college mathematics and make policy recommendations to bridge them.

U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development has awarded the Tennessee Board of Regents a $250,000 Rural Community Development Initiative grant to improve educational and workforce readiness in four rural counties.

The Tennessee Board of Regents will hold its fall quarterly meeting Sept. 19-20 at Walters State Community College’s new Niswonger Campus in Greeneville. The agenda includes fall enrollment, preliminary state budget requests for fiscal year 2020-21 and a proposed new entrepreneurship program at Motlow State Community College.

The State Collaborative on Reforming Education (SCORE) has selected 28 leaders from education, government, business, industry and nonprofits for the next Complete Tennessee Leadership Institute class, including six leaders from the College System of Tennessee.

More than 83,000 students are starting a new academic year today at Tennessee’s 13 community colleges, where they’ll find new facilities, programs and services to enhance their learning experience. Registration for late applicants continues this week.

Welcoming events will be held at most campuses throughout the week as students arrive for classes.

Roane State has been awarded a three-year grant to make sure the community college's mechatronics students have a well-rounded technical education to benefit themselves and their future employers.

The National Science Foundation's Advanced Technological Education grant is for $299,793. It runs through June 30, 2022.

"A great team got this project off the ground and will keep it moving forward to benefit students," said Shelley Esquivel, the community college's grants specialist who submitted the proposal to NSF.

The Tennessee Board of Regents Audit Committee and the chairs of the board’s standing committees will meet Tuesday, Aug. 27, primarily to review a number of items in advance of the board’s next quarterly meeting in September.

The Audit Committee will meet at 10:30 a.m. and the committee chairs will convene at 12:45 p.m. Both meetings will be held in the board room at the TBR system office, 1 Bridgestone Park, Nashville, TN, 37214.

Ximena Leon and Johana Fernandez-Solano recently completed summer undergraduate research opportunities through Columbia State Community College’s partnership with the Community College Undergraduate Research Initiative. 

Columbia State has been a part of the CCURI since 2017. The CCURI exposes students to real-world science through a case study followed by a hands-on research opportunity.

For the second consecutive year, Northeast State topped all Tennessee Board of Regents’ (TBR) community colleges for the percentage of TNAchieves Summer Bridge Program student participants who tested out of some or all learning support classes for the upcoming fall semester.

Southwest Tennessee Community College will host a ribbon cutting & open house for its newest location at the University of Tennessee at Martin's Somerville Center from 4- 6 p.m., Aug. 13, at 214 Lakeview Road in Somerville. 

When eight Fairview students crossed the stage at their high school graduation, they were also recognized for earning a technical certificate or associate degree in engineering systems technology from Columbia State Community College.

“This is an achievement not easily attained,” said Dr. Janet F. Smith, Columbia State president. “I am proud of all of the students who put in hard work to graduate from the program.”

The first cohort of SETWorks (Southeast Tennessee Works) recently completed their in-class training, celebrating with a completion ceremony at Chattanooga State Community College. A total of 13 individuals celebrated their completion of the first half of this innovative work-based learning program that was funded by the Benwood Foundation.

A total of 42 students from 12 Tennessee technical and community colleges won medals at the 2019 SkillsUSA National Leadership & Skills Conference by demonstrating their knowledge and expertise across an array of career and technical fields.

Tennessee college students won three Gold medals, 10 Silver and 29 Bronze medals in the NLSC national championships June 22-26 in Louisville, Ky. -- one more medal than the 41 they won last year. In addition, 38 students from 13 campuses were Top Ten certificate winners, scoring at the 90th percentile and above on their exams.

The board of directors of the American Association of Community Colleges has appointed Southwest Tennessee Community College President Tracy D. Hall to the association's Commission on Economic and Workforce Development.  Her three-year term runs from July 1 of this year to June 30, 2022.

The Tennessee Board of Regents today set tuition and fees for the 2019-20 academic year and approved a list of new campus building projects that will move to the next step in the state’s funding process for the 2020-21 fiscal year.

Tuition and mandatory fees combined average a 2.45 increase from last year – the lowest percentage increase since 1991 at Tennessee’s community colleges and since 2013 at the Tennessee Colleges of Applied Technology (TCATs). It is the third consecutive year in which combined tuition and fee increases are less than 3 percent.

The Tennessee Board of Regents will hold its regular quarterly meeting June 20-21 at Volunteer State Community College in Gallatin. The agenda includes board action on student tuition and fees for the 2019-20 academic year and construction project recommendations for the state’s 2020-21 fiscal year.