College System of Tennessee

Students, faculty and staff at Tennessee’s community and technical colleges donated or collected the equivalent of 110,851 food items during the College System of Tennessee’s 26th Annual Food Drive Challenge. The food and cash donations go to campus food pantries for students in need and to local food programs serving their communities.

More than 250 leaders from business and industry and Tennessee’s public community and technical colleges gathered at Volunteer State Community College to strengthen communication and collaboration and enhance the development of career and technical education programs.

Students, faculty and staff at Tennessee’s public community and technical colleges collected and donated the equivalent of 128,039 food items during the College System of Tennessee’s 25th Annual Food Drive Challenge, which wrapped up last week. The food and cash donations collected during the six-week challenge go to campus food pantries for students and to local organizations, programs and food banks serving their communities.

The National Association for Community College Entrepreneurship (NACCE), the nation’s leading organization focused on promoting entrepreneurship through community colleges, has awarded Chancellor Flora Tydings of the College System of Tennessee its 2023 Lifetime Achievement Award.

SkillsUSA has selected the Tennessee Colleges of Applied Technology at Harriman and Pulaski as two of its 24 national Models of Excellence for 2023, the highest honor bestowed on SkillsUSA chapters.

SkillsUSA is one of the nation’s largest student organizations for career and technical education. Its Models of Excellence program annually recognizes the exceptional integration of personal, workplace and technical skills into SkillsUSA chapter activities.

Career and technical education students from Tennessee colleges and other postsecondary programs won 68 medals as they demonstrated excellence in dozens of competitions at the 2023 SkillsUSA National Leadership and Skills Conference, bringing home more medals than any other state delegation. Students from the College System of Tennessee's community and technical colleges captured 65 of the medals.

During its quarterly meeting Friday, the Tennessee Board of Regents approved operating budgets and tuition rates for the upcoming academic year, capital budget requests for 2024-25, and appointed Heath McMillian as president of the Tennessee College of Applied Technology Jackson.

McMillian came to TCAT Jackson in May 2022 as executive vice president to lead development of the BlueOval City Campus, and has been serving as interim president since October when former president Jeff Sisk was appointed executive director of the systemwide TBR Center for Workforce Development.

The Tennessee Board of Regents will hold its regular quarterly meeting next week at Chattanooga State Community College, with committee meetings on Thursday, June 15, 2023, and the full board on Friday, June 16.

The Board of Regents governs the state’s public community colleges and colleges of applied technology.

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.