Amy Cox, a student in Roane State’s dental hygiene program, is pictured with Randy Boyd, interim University of Tennessee president, at the national College Promise Campaign symposium.
Nov. 15, 2019
By Bob Fowler
Roane State staff writer
A student in Roane State’s dental hygiene curriculum spoke on behalf of the state’s groundbreaking Tennessee Reconnect program – where adults returning to college can receive grants to cover tuition - at the recent national College Promise Campaign.
“I would not have been able to take dental hygiene without Tennessee Reconnect,” Oak Ridge resident Amy Cox said she told attendees.
The College Promise Campaign is a national initiative to build public support for funding the first two or more years of higher education. It’s focusing at first on community colleges.
Cox was one of three students nationwide invited to the College Promise Campaign event to describe how tuition-free grants affected them.
The Tennessee Reconnect program started in the fall of 2018. It follows the state’s pioneering launch in 2015 of Tennessee Promise, which awards grants to cover tuitions for students enrolling after high school.
Cox received the invitation to attend the all-expenses-paid trip to Washington D.C. in late October after responding to a request in April to share students’ experiences with the state grant on the Tennessee Reconnect Facebook page.
Her posted advice: With Tennessee’s Reconnect grant, “You can be a spouse, parent, child, sibling, employee and the student at the same time.”
She said she was surprised to receive a call from a Tennessee Reconnect official in late September, asking if she’d attend the College Promise Campaign event.
During the symposium, Cox described her experiences with Tennessee Reconnect and answered questions posed by attendees. “I was nervous,” she admitted, “but they said I did a really good job.” Randy Boyd, interim president of the University of Tennessee, was among those in the audience.
Cox, 43, is nearing the end of her first semester in the highly selective dental hygiene program, which this year received 130 applications for 12 openings.
After 20 years as a certified surgical technologist, “I was in a career change mode, and I was looking at the next 20 years,” she said of her decision to become a dental hygienist.
Roane State Community College does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, creed, ethnicity or national origin, sex, disability, age, status as protected veteran or any other class protected by Federal or State laws and regulation and by Tennessee board of Regents policies with respect to employment, programs, and activities. View full non-discrimination policy.
