Tech Renames College of Education For Better Clarity

Tennessee Tech has renamed the College of Education to the College of Education and Human Sciences.

Dean Lisa Zagumny said she realized last spring during a presentation how tough it was to explain what the College of Education offered. Zagumny said the university changed the name to promote other programs that fall under the college’s offerings.

“That Human Sciences piece better captures those two departments exercise science and counseling and psychology,” Zagumny said. “Whereas education it just sounds like well we just do educator preparation and that’s a big part of what we do but it’s not the only part that we do.”

Zagumny said the university compared itself to other universities and institutions with similar programs and felt the name was the best fit. Zagumny said she hopes the name change will open the eyes of students that there is more to education than teaching in a classroom.

“That’s part of what we were missing before,” Zagumny said. “We have these really large recruitment events on campus where we have hundreds of families from across and beyond Tennessee. We would always get a lot of questions about why is exercise science in the College of Education. Then we would have to explain the evolution of that department and in the college and that sort of thing. It would take a lot more explanation whereas if our name is more encompassing it just makes sense.”

Zagumny said exercise science and psychology are very popular programs within the university. Zagumny said the university hopes the new name will also make the programs easier to find for future students.

“I think we could attract more students because it is going to make more sense to them and their families,” Zagumny said. “they are not gonna have to hunt and peck for it like they might have had to before.”

Zagumny said the university’s leadership was the frontrunner behind the name change.