Tennessee Board of Regents

The Tennessee Board of Regents today appointed Dr. Gwendolyn Sutton as the new president of the Tennessee College of Applied Technology Memphis, effective May 1. She joined the staff at TCAT Memphis in 2003 and has served as its vice president since 2017.

Dr. Sutton succeeds Dr. Roland Rayner, who retired in February after serving as the college’s president since 2010 and more than 32 years of service in the College System of Tennessee.

The Tennessee Board of Regents will hold a special called meeting Thursday, April 27, to consider appointment of the next president of the Tennessee College of Applied Technology Memphis, and other business below.

The number of high school students dual-enrolled in Tennessee’s community and technical colleges has increased 68 percent from Fall 2015 to Fall 2022 – the fastest growing group of students on the college campuses.

The College System of Tennessee honored its outstanding students, faculty, staff, supporters and partners of the year at the Fifth Annual Statewide Outstanding Achievement Recognition (SOAR) celebration Wednesday night, March 29, in Nashville.

The search advisory committee assisting with the search for the next president of the Tennessee College of Applied Technology (TCAT) Memphis has selected two finalists for the position, both of whom will participate in public interviews on the campus Tuesday, April 4, the next step in the selection process.

The finalists are: 

The Tennessee Board of Regents will hold its next quarterly meeting Thursday, March 30 at 9 a.m. CT at the TBR system office, 1 Bridgestone Park, Nashville. The meeting will also be live-streamed and archived on the TBR website at https://www.tbr.edu/board/march-2023-quarterly-board-meeting.

The Tennessee Board of Regents Committee Chairs will meet March 7, 2023, to receive informational reports and review the draft agenda for the full board’s next quarterly meeting on March 30. The board’s Audit Committee will meet immediately following adjournment of the committee chairs.

Dr. Jeff Sisk, who for nearly three decades has focused on helping students learn the skills necessary to be successful in the workplace, is the newly appointed executive director of the College System of Tennessee’s Center for Workforce Development.

Thanks to the generosity of our campus communities, food insecurity is less of a barrier to attendance for students in need and hunger is less prevalent in our broader communities.

Students, faculty and staff at Tennessee’s public community and technical colleges collected and donated the equivalent of 148,578 food items in the College System of Tennessee’s Annual Food Drive Challenge for 2022. The food and cash donations go to campus food pantries and local organizations, programs and food banks in their communities.

During its quarterly meeting today, the Tennessee Board of Regents appointed Susan L. Hatto as the next president of the Tennessee College of Applied Technology (TCAT) Athens and Patrick Wade as the next president of TCAT Murfreesboro.

Chancellor Flora W. Tydings recommended both candidates to the board after reviewing input from the two college communities following campus forums last month, and then further interviewing the finalists. Both were among separate sets of finalists selected by search committees at their respective colleges.