Tennessee's community and technical colleges

Several presidents of TBR community and technical colleges attended Gov. Bill Lee’s 2023 Rural Opportunity Summit this week, an annual conference he hosts to address the needs of at-risk and distressed counties across the state. The summit brings together local and state leaders to brainstorm innovative solutions to these communities' unique challenges.

Tennessee’s community and technical colleges have kicked off their 24th Annual Food Drive Challenge, with campuses competing to collect the most food items and cash donations to help stock student food pantries on their campuses and food banks in their communities.

The colleges, comprising the College System of Tennessee, collected 132,701 items, including cash, in last year’s Challenge. Over the years, more than 1,490,700 food items and funds converted to items have been collected.

Tennessee’s community and technical colleges are honoring veterans on their campuses – students, faculty, staff and alumni – in Veterans Day activities this week. One veteran at each college will be awarded the Chancellor’s Commendation for Military Veterans, a special recognition launched three years ago by Tennessee Board of Regents Chancellor Flora W. Tydings.

Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), the Tennessee Board of Regents (TBR), and the Tennessee Higher Education Commission (THEC) announced a collaborative effort to train, upskill, and certify 5,000 Tennesseans in cloud computing by 2025. Through this statewide initiative, technical training and education mapped to in-demand skills will be available from participating public community and technical colleges across Tennessee.