Last August at our Eagles RISE welcome back event, I shared that the College was undertaking a new project to assess the need for a change to our name. With three new bachelor’s degrees and the majority of our students now coming to us now from outside of our service district, we wanted to ensure that our brand adequately reflected our institutional status and broadening impact in the state. 

Eight short months later, at their April meeting our District Board of Trustees commemorated the signing of SB 522 officially renaming Tallahassee Community College to Tallahassee State College effective July 1.

This is a historic moment for our College. As you all know, we were established as Tallahassee Junior College in 1966, but have been TCC since 1970. For some of our community, we have always and will always be TCC. I myself am incredibly proud of the fact that I have worked at Tallahassee Community College for nearly 25 years now and been president going on 14 years. Just know this is not about changing who we are or our involvement and support of our community. This is about momentum and relevance.

Between our surveys, focus groups and service district town halls, we heard from more than 2,000 students, alumni, faculty, staff, and members of the public. The responses were overwhelmingly positive. I am incredibly grateful to all of those who took the time to give us feedback. I am also grateful to our esteemed delegates, Senator Corey Simon and Representatives Jason Shoaf, Allison Tant, and Gallup Franklin, for their support of our College and for ensuring the Legislature approved our new name this session.

All that remains now is the changeover on July 1. Many of our administrators, faculty and staff are already engaged in the implementation being led by Vice President Grause. As we get closer, Communications will be sending out additional information including branding toolkits and our new style guide.

In the meantime, I want to thank all of those who have been working hard behind the scenes to make this as seamless a changeover as possible. I am looking forward to celebrating our first academic year as Tallahassee State with our larger campus community come this fall at our welcome back events.