President Tucker outlines 'students-first' strategy, homecoming changes, research priorities and IDC issues

President Edison Tucker told the Tennessee State University Board of Trustees Friday that his administration is pursuing a "students-first" culture reset, renewed customer-service standards, revenue-generation initiatives and faster transformational change to reduce budget deficits. Tucker outlined several priorities and operational changes: improving customer service response times (examples: 24- to 48-hour internal response targets), repurposing student spaces with student-led design work at Avon Williams, seed grants and faculty development to broaden research participation, and a fundraising push that would channel proceeds directly to the university and foundation rather than through a membership model. Tucker said consultants (SIG) and state partners have provided capacity-building assistance and that the Tennessee Higher Education Commission (THEC) committed to cover half of a $3 million project to address foundational institutional work. The Tennessee Board of Regents (TBR) also provided in-kind support, he said. On homecoming, the administration has reimagined events to drive revenue and move more activities back to campus and Hale Stadium. Events will require paid commitments to be included on the university’s homecoming webpage; the university has partnered with SiriusXM as a major sponsor and with Metro Nashville Police Department for parade and event security. The administration will consolidate merchandise sales inside Hill Stadium to capture revenue for the university and the foundation and will limit ticket-approval authority for special requests to two senior offices (the president and the chief operating officer) to reduce ad-hoc ticket requests to staff. On research, Dr. Quick (research office) reported that roughly 17% of faculty submit about 84% of proposals; the office is expanding research-development efforts, has launched a seed-grant competition with a high number of applicants (104), and is investing resources into underperforming departments. The research office said TSU’s provisional indirect-cost (IDC) rate is currently 42% and remains under provisional status; that provisional status has led at least one federal agency (USDA) to withhold indirect-cost reimbursement on a grant award pending resolution of the rate. The research office expects to submit an updated rate proposal to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) shortly and is working to resolve provisional-rate impacts. Tucker said he aims to accelerate the university’s five-year turnaround plan and hopes to move the university to positive financial results in two to three years through revenue growth and cost reductions. He described planned performance dashboards, a slate of revenue initiatives and cultural changes to support retention and enrollment. The transcript contains expanded operational details but does not include specific dollar amounts for most initiatives beyond the $3 million SIG-related project referenced by Tucker and THEC’s contribution.