With opportunities for Tennesseans to attend college at an all-time high thanks fo Tennessee Promise and Tennessee Reconnect, the Tennessee Board of Regents is proud to honor six outstanding students, faculty and staff members and two colleges of the year in its second annual Statewide Outstanding Achievement Recognition (SOAR) Awards.

The six individual SOAR Award winners represent Motlow State and Nashville State community colleges, and Tennessee Colleges of Applied Technology (TCATs) at Elizabethton, Knoxville and Paris.

And the first Partnership of the Year SOAR Award goes to TCATs Jacksboro and Oneida/Huntsville for a partnership they established, along with Somerset Community College in neighboring Kentucky, to address workforce needs in four economically distressed Tennessee counties and four in Kentucky.