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Nearly 2,000 high school students across Tennessee took their seats Thursday at tables festooned with school colors to sign their college letters of intent. Parents, siblings and other relatives, school officials, and business and civic leaders watched and applauded. It was a scene replayed at most of the 27 Tennessee Colleges of Applied Technology for National Career and Technical Education Letter of Intent Signing Day on Feb. 16.  Modeled after the NCAA’s National Signing Day for high school athletes signing letters of intent to play college sports, CTE Letter of Intent Signing Day honors students choosing to enroll in technical colleges to further their educations.

The Tennessee Board of Regents Committee on Finance and Business Operations will meet Thursday, Feb. 23, to continue its discussion of student fee requests by TBR colleges and universities and a draft policy on how TBR will consider university budgets under the FOCUS Act.

The Tennessee College of Applied Technology at Dickson has broken ground on its new Health Careers Building, which officials hope will be open for classes this fall.

The search for a new president of Chattanooga State Community College launches Friday, Feb. 10, with a public forum on the campus and the orientation meeting of a 19-member Search Advisory Committee that will review candidates and recommend finalists for the office. The forum will allow members of the campus and Greater Chattanooga communities to present their views about the qualities the committee should look for when reviewing candidates.

The Tennessee Board of Regents’ Committee on Finance and Business Operations will meet Tuesday, Feb. 7, to discuss various aspects of fees levied by TBR colleges and universities and a draft policy on how TBR will consider university budgets under the FOCUS Act. No votes are scheduled but the discussion launches consideration of mandatory and incidental fee requests by TBR campuses for the 2017-18 academic year.

The Tennessee Board of Regents today approved criteria for the next president of Chattanooga State Community College and identified a 19-member Search Advisory Committee to review candidates and recommend finalists for the office.

The agenda for Friday’s special called meeting of the Tennessee Board of Regents has been amended to include two additional items, including a proposal that would retain outgoing Chancellor David Gregory as a TBR employee for one month as a transition advisor for his successor, Dr. Flora Tydings.

Gov. Bill Haslam, chairman of the Board of Regents, has called a special telephone meeting of the board for 3 p.m. CST, Jan. 27, to consider search criteria for the next president of Chattanooga State Community College. Approval of the criteria is the first step in the search for a successor to Dr. Flora Tydings, who becomes chancellor of the Board of Regents system Feb. 1.

From food and baby-supply drives to wildfire damage cleanup and repair, students across Tennessee are working on scores of community service projects as part of a statewide Martin Luther King Day of Service initiative planned by student leaders at Tennessee Board of Regents colleges and universities. In addition to helping people and communities in need, the project provides more focused opportunities for Tennessee Promise students to perform the eight hours of community service required per semester for the scholarship program.

Debbie Adams, a 30-year career staffer and administrator at Chattanooga State Community College, will serve as interim president of the college when President Flora Tydings leaves Feb. 1 to assume her new role as chancellor of the Tennessee Board of Regents. Adams, currently the college’s vice president of student affairs and workforce development, is being appointed today by TBR Chancellor David Gregory to lead Chattanooga State until the next president is appointed by the Board of Regents and arrives on campus later this year.

Dr. Tristan Denley, vice chancellor for academic affairs at the Tennessee Board of Regents, has been named one of five U.S. “higher education leaders to watch in 2017 (and beyond)” by the online publication Education Dive.

Denley is the only university system administrator on the list. 

The Tennessee Board of Regents voted unanimously today to appoint Dr. Flora Tydings as the next chancellor of the Board of Regents system – its ninth chief executive officer since the system’s creation in 1972. She has been president of Chattanooga State Community College since July 2015 and prior to that was a leader for 19 years in the public Technical College System of Georgia.

After the wildfires struck the Gatlinburg area and tornadoes struck elsewhere last month, staff and students at several Tennessee Colleges of Applied Technology and Tennessee's community colleges from across the state swung into action to help with relief efforts. That work culminated Dec. 6 when a tractor-trailer rig from TCAT-Knoxville’s truck driving program pulled into a Red Cross donation center in Sevier County and unloaded 28,541 personal and household items for residents displaced by the fires.

The Tennessee Board of Regents will meet in a special called session Tuesday, Dec. 27, to consider a recommendation for the appointment of Dr. Flora Tydings as the next chancellor of the Board of Regents system. She has has been president of Chattanooga State Community College since July 2015, and was president of Athens Technical College in Athens, Ga., a campus of the public Technical College System of Georgia, from 2003 to 2015.

Susanne Cox, who has worked at the Tennessee College of Applied Technology – Morristown since 1990, will serve as interim director of the college from Jan. 1 until a successor to retiring Director Jerry M. Patton is named.

The Tennessee Board of Regents appointed Dr. Allana R. Hamilton as the fifth president of Jackson State Community College on Thursday.

Hamilton is currently vice president for academic affairs at Northeast State Community College in Blountville, Tenn., a position she has held since 2010. She will assume the presidency in Jackson on Jan. 10, 2017.

Tennessee Board of Regents Chancellor David Gregory will recommend Dr. Allana R. Hamilton as the next president of Jackson State Community College in a special called meeting of the Board on Dec. 15. She is currently vice president for academic affairs at Northeast State Community College in Blountville, Tenn., a position she has held since 2010.

The search committee for the next chancellor of the Tennessee Board of Regents system has recommended McKay, Sullivan and Tydings to the full Board to consider for the position

A contingent of 15 students descended upon the state capitol to participate in the 47th Annual Tennessee Intercollegiate State Legislature (TISL) forum.