Tenn. State upgrades football facilities

Tennessee State football coach Rod Reed set out to improve the school's facilities when he took over the Big Blue Tigers last year.  He's already starting to see the fruits of his labor in the Tigers new locker room  which opened late in the summer, and the $3.7 million indoor practice facility and weight room renovations which were completed last fall. TSU is one of just six Football Championship Subdivision schools that has an indoor practice facility.


The Tigers used the 60,750-square foot indoor facility several times this past season on extremely hot days or when rain kept them from practicing outside.  But its the locker room that Reed is most proud of.   The locker room houses 65 wooden, NFL-style lockers and four flat-screen televisions and were paid for with $125,000 in alumni donations which were matched by $25,000 from the TSU administration.


“Each kid has an individual lock box with a combination lock for their valuables,” Reed said. “We just got in the stools so that they can sit inside or in front of their lockers when they dress. With the flat-screen TVs, we’re finding a lot of the guys are using the locker room now as a hangout. They can come in and watch ESPN. We’ve got DirecTV, so they can pretty much watch whatever they want.”


The locker room previously was used as a football meeting room for the offense.

Former Albany State President named interim President at Tn State

Tennessee State University has named Dr. Portia Shields, former president of Albany State University, as interim president, she starts work on Jan. 2, 2011.

TSU’s current president, Melvin Johnson, announced in July his plans to retire on Jan. 1.

Shields who was chosen from a pool of candidates listed with the Registry for College and University Presidents, a national search service that assists universities and colleges around the country as they seek exceptional leadership during transition periods has been signed to an 18 month contract with an option for it to be extended or shortened. She also can not become a candidate for permanent president.

Most recently Shields served as chief executive officer and chief academic officer of Concordia College in Selma, Ala., from November 2007 to December 2009. While there she improved academic programs and institutional effectiveness, raised campus academic standards, and enhanced the college’s financial operations.

She helped Concordia address accreditation concerns. The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges initially placed Concordia on probation for issues concerning 17 different requirements and standards. In its most recent report, SACSCOC cited only two issues remaining for the college to address.

Sheilds becomes the first female leader in TSU's 98-year history.

Tennessee State faces accreditation hurdle

Tennessee State University's accreditation could be at risk this year unless it proves professors adequately test students, administrators make results-driven decisions and instructors have the right credentials to teach their subjects.

The university is in the early stages of its Southern Association of Colleges and Schools accreditation reaccreditation process. Outside groups have issued scathing reviews of TSU and suggested the school lacked an evidence-based culture and does not providing basic services.

TSUl officials maintain that they will have no problem earning reaccreditation, and added the issues raised in the school's initial review are typical of most universities going through the process.

A team of educators from peer institutions will visit TSU later this month to conduct interviews, review documents and verify the information. A final decision will be made in December.

"Just because they have something written in the compliance certification does not mean they are in trouble," said Belle S. Wheelan, president of the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.
"They have a chance to clean up those things. That's the first blush."

The initial report raised questions about the university's financial resources because the school's most recent audit wasn't ready at the time the documents were due. Providing a copy of the audit will clear the school in those categories, TSU officials said.

Other concerns were more complex.

The university came up short in a key area because it didn't show that students are consistently tested on what they have learned. In addition, there wasn't evidence that student assessments were used to make budget decisions or to make programs better.

School officials said almost all degree programs had assessments in place and they were making decisions based on the information collected from those assessments, but the university did not have a uniform system for requiring and collecting that information.

"We have planning and assessments throughout the university, in some areas better than others," said Timothy Quain, TSU's accreditation liaison.

In response to the concerns, the school this year will standardize the assessment process, collect the data and show how they are tied to budgeting and planning. That will happen for the first time in June.

Faculty Qualifications

Another issue involved the qualifications of the school faculty.

In four programs, too few courses were taught by professors with doctorates. In other cases, the university didn't produce proof that instructors had the proper credentials.

TSU officials say they will respond to this concern by recruiting more qualified faculty and by collecting resumes and documents that prove existing faculty have the proper credentials.

Charles Manning, chancellor of the Tennessee Board of Regents, said the state does not get involved in the reaccreditation process until the on-site team issues its report. He said he believes TSU will correct any issues raised.

Black male enrollment on the rise at Tenn State

Tennessee State University is bucking a national trend of fewer black males on college campuses. Since 1999 black male enrollment at TSU has increased by 53 students from 2381 to 2434 in 2004.

Last year a little more than 100 black males were freshman at TSU, and this year there were more than 500.

"One of the largest freshman classes that we've had in over 5 years," said interim director of financial aid office Amy Wood.

Wood believed several factors contributed to the enrollment bump. Included among them, increased marketing and no doubt the economic downtown.

"They're realizing that the planning has to start a little sooner," said Wood.

TSU has also seen an overall enrollment bump. The university has a combination of nearly 9,000 undergraduate and graduate students.

Tn State set to recast itself as a research U.

Over the next six years, Tennessee State University plans to spend more than $36 million on a strategy it hopes will transform the university into a top research school.

TSU's plan is ambitious: to transform itself into a premier research institution, one that attracts thousands of new students and millions of dollars in endowments, donations and grants. At a time when universities across the state are cutting budgets, http://www.tnstate.edu/">Tennessee State University is dreaming big — and ready to throw millions into its plans.

Over the next six years, TSU plans to spend more than $36 million on a strategy it hopes will transform the university.
TSU's plan is ambitious: to transform itself into a premier research institution, one that attracts thousands of new students and millions of dollars in endowments, donations and grants.

The question now is whether a university that's been plagued with lackluster student service, declining enrollment and bad publicity can turn things around in the middle of the worst budget crisis to hit higher education in decades.


TSU's new 2010-14 strategic plan developed by Peter Nwosu, a strategic planning expert and a visiting fellow from the American Council on Education, establishes lofty goals.

"If we choose to do nothing, then we will be nowhere" five years from now, he said.

The plan calls for TSU to increase enrollment from 8,200 to more than 12,000 by 2015, increase fundraising revenue by 10 percent every year, and to earn a designation as a level two research institution from the Carnegie Foundation.

New academic master plan
But before TSU can begin building itself into a research hub, it needs the results of yet another planning committee that is drawing up a new academic master plan for the university — one that will begin eliminating under-performing majors and elevating a handful of programs that will be considered TSU's "flagship" programs.

What those flagship research programs will be, Nwosu couldn't say for sure. But TSU is the only land grant college in Middle Tennessee, so its college of agriculture is a likely candidate, as is its nursing program.

Becoming a major research institution "doesn't happen by prayer — it happens by work," Nwosu said.


$36M plan follows cuts

Recent state budget cuts forced TSU to trim $9 million from its budget. Paying for the $36 million plan will mean shifting millions from other programs, including the federal Title III money it receives as a designated historically black university. Nwosu said TSU will divert money away from under-performing programs and also will hope increased fundraising will provide some of the planning money.

"These are bad times, but bad times don't mean we'll just fold up the tent," Nwosu said. While painful, he said, this year's budget cuts gave the university a chance to take a hard look at its entrenched practices and programs: "We're rethinking, reorganizing and reinventing."

The most ambitious parts of the plan may take years to happen, if they happen at all. Nwosu pointed out that many goals are interlinked: You can't expect enrollment to rise until you've improved student services. You can't improve student services without launching the staff development plans. You can't work on staff development without a budget, and for that you need to get your fundraising operation off the ground.

But students may see some changes right away. Nwosu said TSU's Web site will change to suit the Web-surfing habits of its computer-savvy students. The school is pushing to go paperless, putting publications online in a move that saves not only trees but also money.

Every six months, the planning committee will come together to report on how its efforts are progressing. The final version of the strategic plan should be complete within the next month.

The Tennessee Board of Regents will review TSU's plan, along with the rest of the five-year plans its schools will submit, this summer.

TSU must cut $9M from budget

Tennessee State University could face furloughs and layoffs in the next year as the school faces a proposed 15 percent cut in state money as well as declining student revenues.

TSU President Melvin Johnson delivered the news last week in his "State of the University" address.

In TSU's report to the Tennessee Higher Education Commission this week, the school planned to use layoffs, voluntary furloughs and possibly larger classes to reach the $9 million in cuts to the school's budget. State higher education funds overall probably will decrease at least 15 percent, or $181.6 million, in the next fiscal year.

Johnson did not give specifics when asked about layoffs or furloughs, only saying all plans were on the table. The school laid off 10 employees last year.

After Johnson's address, faculty and staff members proposed possible cuts and savings, including an online warehouse for departments to keep running inventories of office supplies and renting out university spaces for conferences.

Revenue from students will be increasingly important, Johnson said, as state appropriations decrease. Johnson displayed a chart that showed $57.1 million, or 56 percent, of the school's budget came from student tuition and fees.

The tuition revenues were down $6.8 million from last year as enrollment dropped nearly 700 students to 8,400 this fall. Johnson fired the financial aid director and reassigned several top officials after students complained about student services.

As of late Thursday, about 750 students had not paid or had not confirmed their registration on the school's intranet, meaning their schedules for the spring semester would be dropped. The school switched to the Banner student registration system in the fall, resulting in confusion over changes in requirements.

All students who had not paid or confirmed their registration by mid-December were notified by e-mail to their TSU accounts and by phone, said Cynthia Brooks, TSU vice president of business and finance.

Candace Carr, a senior nursing student, received an e-mail from the school when she hadn't confirmed her schedule. She took care of it that day.

"It went smoothly," Carr said. "My sister had the same system at her school (University of Tennessee-Chattanooga), so she told me I needed to confirm my classes."

SSN's of thousands of Tenn. State students breached

A flash drive containing the social security numbers of more than 9,000 Tennessee State University students was recovered on Monday, September 15 after being missing for more than five days.

TSU President Melvin N. Johnson confirmed that a student, who had used the flash drive for saving a homework assignment, returned the drive at approximately 9 p.m. on Sept. 12.

Johnson did not indicate whether the student tampered with the information on the device, but informed the university that the flash drive is back in the university's possession and that state auditor would investigate further.

A financial aid counselor reported the flash drive missing Tuesday morning, Sept. 9, after discovering that it was no longer in her possession, administrators said.

The flash, which contained financial records of TSU students dating back to 2002. "The loss of this data is unfortunate," said Tennessee State Provost Robert Hampton. University personnel began notifying students the same week about the security breach, although no attempts to use the data had been discovered, administrators said.

Students’ reactions ranged from disappointment to anger.

"I think it's irresponsible. I really think that someone misplaced it, but that kind of stuff should be closely guarded," said Charity King, a senior nursing major from Nashville, Tenn.

"I feel that it is ridiculous and irresponsible for them to be unorganized, unorthodox and unprofessional," said Damarrion Fleming, a mechanical engineering major from Louisville, Ky.