News

Tennessee’s community colleges are welcoming students back for Fall semester, in a variety of class modalities and with a focus on keeping them healthy and safe as they continue their studies.

Eleven of the 13 community colleges start fall classes Monday, Aug. 24.  Northeast State Community College began classes Aug. 17 and Roane State Community College launched Aug. 19.

The 27 Tennessee Colleges of Applied Technology start their Fall terms Sept. 1.

Seven of the 30 members of the Complete Tennessee Leadership Institute class of 2020-21 announced today by the State Collaborative on Reforming Education represent Tennessee community and technical colleges and the College System of Tennessee.

SCORE invited the 30 leaders from across higher education, K-12 education, business and industry, and nonprofit organizations to participate in the 5th Complete Tennessee Leadership Institute.

The Tennessee Board of Regents will hold a special called meeting Aug. 12 to consider policy revisions required by new federal Title IX regulations and a new Infectious Disease Policy for the state's community and technical colleges.

Students attending Tennessee’s public community colleges and colleges of applied technology will see no tuition or fee increase during the upcoming academic year as a result of action today by the Tennessee Board of Regents.

The Tennessee Board of Regents today appointed Dr. Carol Puryear as president of the Tennessee College of Applied Technology Murfreesboro, where she has served as interim president since May 2019.

She previously led the college as its director from 2007 to 2012, when she left to join the Tennessee Board of Regents system staff, first as associate vice chancellor of instruction and special projects for all 27 Tennessee Colleges of Applied Technology and, since 2017, as vice chancellor of economic and community development.

The Tennessee Board of Regents will convene its regular quarterly meeting June 18-19, with an agenda that includes consideration of tuition, fees and budgets for the 2020-21 academic year.

The Board of Regents governs Tennessee’s 13 community colleges and 27 colleges of applied technology.

Volunteer State Community College's Springfield campus has received approval from the Tennessee Board of Regents and Tennessee Higher Education Commission to offer complete college degree programs in Robertson County starting this fall semester 2020. The college has offered classes at the Springfield campus since 2011 but until now, students have had to combine the courses offered in Springfield with other courses held online or on the Vol State Gallatin campus to obtain a degree.

The Tennessee Board of Regents today appointed Dr. George J. Pimentel as the next president of Jackson State Community College, effective July 1.  A U.S. Army infantry veteran, he has been vice president of academic affairs at Volunteer State Community College since 2014 and has 26 years of teaching and academic administrative experience.

The College System of Tennessee fully supports the Tennessee Pledge for Higher Education, an array of guidelines and best practices for the health and safety of campus communities while continuing high-quality instruction during the Covid-19 era, Chancellor Flora W. Tydings said today.

The Tennessee Board of Regents will convene a special called meeting Tuesday, June 2, to receive and act on recommendations by Chancellor Flora W. Tydings for the next president of Jackson State Community College and the board’s next general counsel.

The virtual meeting will be streamed live and archived on the TBR website at https://www.tbr.edu/board/june-2-2020-special-called-board-meeting starting at 8:30 a.m. CT, with consideration of the two appointments the only items on the agenda.

Tennessee’s Cleveland State  and Motlow State community colleges captured two of the three annual awards issued by Community Colleges of Appalachia, an association of nearly 100 colleges in 13 Appalachian states from New York to Mississippi.

The three finalists for the next president of Jackson State Community College will participate in virtual open forums May 11-13.

The schedule for the virtual forums, the finalists' resumes, and links to a live stream of the forums are posted on the Presidential/Executive Searches section of the Tennessee Board of Regents website at https://www.tbr.edu/hr/executivesearches/president-jackson-state-community-college.

The finalists and the dates of their virtual forums are:

Nearly 1,500 students from 311 community colleges applied for the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation’s prestigious Undergraduate Transfer Scholarships for 2020 – which provide up to $40,000 a year to complete their bachelor’s degrees.

Only 50 students from 17 states were selected as recipients. Two of them are College System of Tennessee students:

The Finance and Business Operations Committee of the Tennessee Board of Regents will meet by telephone conference call at 1 p.m. CT Wednesday, April 29, to begin discussion of student tuition and mandatory fees for the 2020-21 academic year at Tennessee’s community colleges and colleges of applied technology. This will be an informational meeting and no action will be taken.

Tennessee SkillsUSA today announced its college Chapters of Excellence for 2020 at nine Tennessee Colleges of Applied Technology and the Advisor of the Year.

The five Gold Award Chapters of Excellence winners are the Tennessee Colleges of Applied Technology at Pulaski, Paris, Chattanooga, Memphis and Knoxville (ranked by order of their scores in the competition).

The four Silver Award Chapters of Excellence are TCATs Hohenwald, Dickson, Harriman and Hartsville.

The College System of Tennessee honored six outstanding students, faculty and staff members and two colleges of the year in its second annual Statewide Outstanding Achievement Recognition (SOAR) Awards during the Tennessee Board of Regents quarterly meeting Tuesday, April 7.

The Tennessee Board of Regents will conduct its spring quarterly meeting by telephone conference call Tuesday, April 7. The agenda includes announcement of the outstanding students, faculty, staff and colleges of the year in the second annual Statewide Outstanding Achievement Recognition (SOAR) Awards.

The Board of Regents governs the 13 community colleges and 27 colleges of applied technology comprising the College System of Tennessee.

Other agenda items include:

Tennessee’s community and technical colleges are playing a major role in a crash project by the state’s public higher education system to manufacture face shields to help protect Tennessee health professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Tennessee Board of Regents and our 40 colleges continue to coordinate with state and national officials in monitoring the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19). 

The state’s community colleges and colleges of applied technology comprising the College System of Tennessee were given broad flexibility today to alter their classes and other operations as needed locally to protect students, faculty and staff from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), including extending spring breaks before transitioning to online classes where possible.