TBR - Chancellor's Five Year Report

FIVE YEAR REPORT

FROM THE CHANCELLOR

Our colleges are true Tennessee treasures. Students can launch or advance their careers by earning associate degrees, technical certificates or diplomas in two years or less in more than 640 academic and career programs. Our mission is student success and workforce development, and our colleges are nationally renowned for their high-quality, innovative teaching and training. Tennessee community colleges and colleges of applied technology are easily accessible – with more than 175 teaching locations spanning towns from Memphis to Mountain City – and affordable, with many students attending tuition-free thanks to Tennessee Promise and Tennessee Reconnect. I encourage you to take a look at our System, our colleges and our students.

Dr. Flora W. Tydings TBR – The College System of Tennessee

CATALYSTS FOR CHANGE

TENNESSEE LEADS THE NATION IN HIGHER EDUCATION POLICY REFORMS

The past five years, 2017 through 2022, were a time of transformation for the Tennessee Board of Regents and our system of public community and technical colleges – the most significant in our 50-year history.

Five major catalysts sparked this era of reform and reorganization:

THE COMPLETE COLLEGE TENNESSEE ACT IN 2010.

THE DRIVE TO 55 IN 2013.

THE CAMPUS SAFETY & SECURITY TASK FORCE IN 2016.

THE FOCUS ACT (FOCUS ON COLLEGE & UNIVERSITY SUCCESS) IN 2016.

CAREER & TECHNICAL EDUCATION INVESTMENT, STARTING IN 2019.

C A T A LY S T S fo r CH A NG E

As a result, TBR dedicated itself to a new, tightly focused mission statement: STUDENT SUCCESS AND WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT. FOCUS ACT CTE INVESTMENT CCTA 2010 DRIVE TO 55 CAMPUS SAFETY TASK FORCE

COMPLETE COLLEGE TENNESSEE ACT REVOLUTION IN POLICY

The Complete College Tennessee Act of 2010 significantly changed higher education policy in ways that broadly affected students and institutions.

It revolutionized how the state funds public higher education through appropriations, replacing the old enrollment-based formula with a new Outcomes-Based Funding Formula. Now a national model, it shifted the focus to student success. Metrics include student progression toward graduation, dual enrollment of high school students, associate degrees and certificates awarded, job placement, student transfers, workforce training and more.

For students, the CCTA established Transfer Pathways that guarantee credits earned at twoyear colleges transfer to universities as students continue their education. Nearly 80 academic and career pathways are now in place across a broad range of majors and programs, and we are now extending that work to articulation between our technical and community colleges.

Operationally, the CCTA required our colleges to become a more unified system. We successfully implemented the Shared Services Initiative, centralizing many of the business operations into the system office, resulting in efficiencies that contributed to our ability to keep the rate of tuition increases at near record lows each year. Shared Services incorporated the Banner enterprise resource planning system across our technical colleges, which enabled real-time data collection and analysis for the first time – leading to major improvements in our systemwide and institutional analysis and planning.

DRIVE TO 55 TENNESSEE PROMISE, RECONNECT & TUITION-FREE COLLEGE

In 2013, Governor Haslam announced Drive to 55 as official state policy, making it a priority to equip 55 percent of working-age Tennesseans with a college degree or certificate by 2025 (compared to 32 percent at the time).

In pursuit of this goal, he and the General Assembly established Tennessee Promise in 2015 and Tennessee Reconnect in 2017 – last-dollar scholarship programs providing tuition-free community and technical college for new high school graduates (Promise) and adults without college credentials (Reconnect). Drive to 55 assigned credential targets to the system. After TBR exceeded its targets in the early years, even more ambitious targets were set.

CAMPUS SAFETY & SECURITY TASK FORCE PRIORITIZING SAFETY ON OUR CAMPUSES

In 2016, the TBR Campus Safety and Security Task Force examined and made recommendations to improve the safety of students, faculty, staff and the public at our colleges. The 18-member committee included presidents, campus police chiefs and system office leaders who spent a year examining best practices around the country, reviewing current campus resources, and identifying areas of needed improvements.

Its final report led to an ongoing effort for more funding and resources from the state to bolster safety and security of our campuses. Since 2017, Governor Haslam, followed by Governor Lee, and the General Assembly have approved new funding for physical improvements and a new Tennessee Colleges of Applied Technology Police Department, and improved systemwide coordination of the community college police departments.

C A T A LY S T S fo r CH A NG E

CAMPUS SAFETY TASK FORCE

FOCUS ACT LASER FOCUSED ON STUDENT SUCCESS

The biggest change came in 2016 with enactment of the Focus on College and University Success (FOCUS) Act, which established independent governing boards for each of the six universities that were then a part of the Tennessee Board of Regents system. TBR worked closely with the universities on their transitions to local governance, and the new boards assumed responsibility for their institutions in early 2017. This enabled TBR to turn its focus entirely on the success of the state’s community colleges and colleges of applied technology and their students.

CAREER & TECHNICAL

EDUCATION INVESTMENT

HISTORIC FUNDING TRANSFORMING CTE

New investment in Career and Technical Education by Governor Lee and the General Assembly is historic and is transforming our Colleges of Applied Technology forever – modernizing campuses and expanding capacity to serve more students with more in-demand training.

These investments, at both our community and technical colleges, are delivered through the GIVE (Governor’s Investment in Vocational Education) and SPARC (Supporting Access in Rural Communities) grant programs; Capital Outlay and Maintenance appropriations, and other appropriations. In Fiscal Year 2022-23 alone, the state funded nearly $400 million in new TBR campus construction and major maintenance projects, including $200 million for equipment and facilities upgrades at our TCATs.

ORGANIZING AROUND THE MISSION

OFFICE OF STUDENT SUCCESS | TO FOCUS ON INNOVATIONS TO IMPROVE TEACHING AND STUDENT SUCCESS.

OFFICE

OFFICE OF EXTERNAL AFFAIRS | TO BUILD RELATIONSHIPS WITH OUR GOVERNMENTAL, BUSINESS, AND PHILANTHROPIC PARTNERS, AS WELL AS EXPAND SYSTEM-WIDE MARKETING SERVICES AND PUBLIC RELATIONS.

CENTER FOR WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT | TO WORK WITH STATE AND LOCAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AGENCIES, AS WELL AS BUSINESS AND INDUSTRY, TO PROVIDE OUR STUDENTS WITH THE BEST TRAINING, APPRENTICESHIP AND CAREER OPPORTUNITIES.

In addition, we strengthened the Office of Academic Affairs to ensure our programs are relevant and successful; the Office of Business and Finance to implement and administer Shared Services, and other units to support the mission.

A NEW STRATEGIC PLAN

The sweeping changes in TBR’s organization and mission prompted a mid-term overhaul of the TBR Strategic Plan for 2015-2025, originally drafted in 2015. The revised strategic plan, approved by the board in 2021, established three key policy pillars – open access, completion, and community & workforce development – fulfilled by sustained emphasis on four cross-cutting themes: strengthening collaboration, harnessing innovation, enhancing institutional and operational capacity, and fulfilling equity.

Together, these seven elements provide a framework for how TBR pursues its mission, and a roadmap for its colleges to build their institution-specific strategic plans. Nearly four dozen operational programs focused on student success and workforce development are tied directly to one or more of the plan elements.

FOCUS ACT CTE INVESTMENT

CCTA 2010 DRIVE TO 55 CAMPUS SAFETY TASK FORCE

STUDENT SUCCESS WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT MARKETING SOAR FOUNDATION & ADVANCEMENT CAMPUS SAFETY COVID

FOCUS ON GROWTH OF PRE-COLLEGE PROGRAMS

Students who participate in Early Postsecondary Opportunity (EPSO) courses are more likely to enroll in and graduate from college.

Tennessee has the most comprehensive EPSO offerings in the nation, including local, state, national and international programs — for a total of eight opportunities:

DUAL ENROLLMENT

INDUSTRY CERTIFICATION

While state leadership has increased state funding for higher education overall, the recent investment in career and technical education is historic and is transforming our Colleges of Applied Technology by modernizing campuses and expanding their capacity to serve more students with in-demand training.

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COMMUNITY COLLEGES TECHNICAL COLLEGES

EARNED VETS CAMPUS CERTIFICATIONS

During the 2019-2020 academic year, 3,436 students in the College System of Tennessee self-reported as veterans and active-duty military personnel on their admission materials. Since such reporting is not required, there are likely more student veterans – and they are in addition to the many veterans in the faculty, staff and alumni ranks. 13 community colleges and 2 technical colleges have earned the VETS Campus Designation, as established in 2014 by the Tennessee Veterans Education Transition Support (VETS) Act. To earn VETS Campus certification, an institution must prioritize outreach to veterans and successfully deliver services necessary to create a supportive environment where student veterans can prosper while pursuing their education. The Tennessee Higher Education Commission has currently certified 24 public and private colleges and universities as VETS Campuses. Certification is reviewed annually.

100%

All TBR colleges are now official members of the Achieving the Dream (ATD) network, a national reform organization for student success created to help community colleges close equity gaps for students of color and low-income students and to assist all students achieve their goals for academic success and economic opportunity.

Colleges work intensively in Achieving the Dream for three years, establishing ATD teams on their campuses who work closely with a leadership coach and a data coach from ATD. The coaches help them set and achieve goals related to student success. In addition to the coaches, the ATD network provides colleges with a platform for scaling up evidence-based effective practices and policies, a set of peers to share knowledge, and other expert sources of innovation.

Like many areas of the country, Tennessee has seen an increase in the need for highly skilled workers in fields such as healthcare, advanced manufacturing, cybersecurity, professional truck driving and more. Over the last five years, with support from the governor and General Assembly, our colleges received the necessary funding to purchase critical equipment and build facilities to expand existing programs and add new ones to meet the economic demands of our state.

CREATION OF A CENTRALIZED MARKETING AGENCY

One directive in the Complete College Act of Tennessee of 2010 called for TBR colleges to be marketed as a system and to raise the awareness of opportunities available at our colleges. Early system marketing efforts evolved in 2017 to operate as a centralized marketing agency, developing systemwide marketing campaigns to promote they System, as well as assisting local colleges with their own local marketing needs. Offering graphic design, public relations, advertising, web services and more, the team ensures promotional materials adhere to established brand guidelines and maintain a consistent image across the state.

STATEWIDE OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT RECOGNITION

In 2019, the System hosted its inaugural Statewide Outstanding Achievement Recognition (SOAR) Awards dinner. The annual event celebrates excellence throughout the system by awarding exceptional students, faculty, staff, philanthropists and business partners. The evening culminates with one community college and one technical college campus being named Colleges of the Year.

STUDENT SUCCESS WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT MARKETING SOAR FOUNDATION & ADVANCEMENT CAMPUS SAFETY COVID

FOUNDATION FOR THE COLLEGE SYSTEM OF TENNESSEE ESTABLISHED IN 2018

The Foundation was established to support the System through advocacy and fundraising to benefit our colleges, their students and the programs and faculty serving them. With 40-member institutions across a state full of Fortune 500 Companies and other thriving businesses and industries, it is imperative the Foundation inform and bring to the forefront the advantages the College System brings to Tennessee.

CCTA 2010 DRIVE TO 55 CAMPUS SAFETY TASK FORCE

SUPPORTING SUCCESS THROUGH THE PANDEMIC

The arrival of a global pandemic in March 2020 brought a seismic shift in operations for all the colleges in the System. For the health and safety of students, faculty and staff, every campus quickly pivoted to online instruction for all classes. Within two weeks, all students were able to continue their studies remotely, lessening the chances of exposure while keeping them on track to earn their credentials. For technical programs unable to completely shift to remote classes, staggered labs were scheduled to allow for adequate social distancing.

The impact of COVID demonstrated how important community and technical colleges are to our state’s economy, as many of our students and graduates were healthcare professionals on the front line of battling the disease, the manufacturers making critical equipment, and truck drivers delivering needed supplies were trained at our colleges. Fortunately, by the Fall 2021 semester, our colleges were fully back on campus, providing outstanding educational opportunities for Tennesseans throughout the state.

CLASSES MOVED COMPLETELY ONLINE IN

2 WEEKS

The Tennessee Board of Regents does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, creed, ethnic or national origin, sex, disability, age, status as a covered veteran and any other category as proscribed by Federal or State laws and regulations and Tennessee Board of Regents policies with respect to employment, programs and activities sponsored by the Board. Some numbers are estimates based on available data. Publication 2022/10/2100.

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