Proud Heritage, Strong Future

“
TWC is not only a
structural highlight of our city,
but more importantly, it employs
our citizens and prepares minds
to lead local business, educate our
youth, pastor our churches, nurse
our ill and protect our streets.
“
Jeff Cunningham, President and CEO of
Athens Federal Community Bank
A CAMPAIGN TO ADVANCE TENNESSEE WESLEYAN COLLEGE

a letter
from the Co-chairs
As school starts each year, we are reminded of new beginnings. New beginnings are exciting because
they offer hope for the best that’s yet to come. That is why we’re inviting our community to
get to know Tennessee Wesleyan a little better this year. We’ve launched a plan that will not only
transform the college, but also our community. We’re calling it the Proud Heritage, Strong Future
campaign. The following pages will tell more in detail, but we want to share with you directly
why we’re confident in the future of our community because of the work of Tennessee Wesleyan.
Because TWC is here, $50 to $60 million is brought into this community each year. Could you
imagine what it would mean if enrollment was doubled? I’ll tell you. $100-$130 million changes
the landscape of our local economy. It means businesses grow, new businesses want to come here,
our schools are better, and our community is transformed into a place where people want to stay
and families can afford a quality of life they never imagined.
Doubling enrollment isn’t something we’re just hoping for; it’s something we’re planning for.
Through the leadership of Dr. Knowles, our faculty, staff, and coaches, we’re moving this ship
in the right direction not just for the college but for the benefit of everyone who lives here. The
people who helped us determine what we could raise for this campaign never believed we could be
this far in our goals before we even announced our plans to the public, but our progress is proof
of our potential for greatness.
The potential for the Athens community is directly related to the success of Tennessee Wesleyan.
The potential of our businesses is tied to Tennessee Wesleyan—we employ several graduates of the
college, and we can tell you they are some of the brightest people we know. They’re prepared and
talented people who want to make a difference. They embody the spirit of a servant leader, and
those are the kind of people we want on our team, to be our neighbors, and to stay here in this
community.
Tennessee Wesleyan’s potential is tied to the people in this community who want to do their part
for a better future. How many times does a person get the opportunity in their lifetime to transform
a life, to transform a community, to give to a cause that will have lasting impact for generations?
Greatness is waiting. Will you join us?
Your Neighbors,
Allen Carter
Co-Chair, Proud Heritage, Strong Future Campaign
Owner, Athens Insurance
Shirley Woodcock
Co-Chair, Proud Heritage, Strong Future Campaign
Executive Vice President, Sweetwater Valley Oil co.

CAMPAIGN LEADERSHIP
Dr. Burkett Witt '14H
Honorary Chair
Athens, TN
Allen Carter
Co-Chair
Athens, TN
Shirley Woodcock '78
Co-Chair
Athens, TN
Angie Green '92
Charlotte, NC
Dr. Danny Hays '54
Cleveland, TN
Becky Jaquish '66
Athens, TN
C. "Buddy" Liner '58
Athens, TN
Dr. Regenia Mayfield ‘59, ‘06H
Athens, TN
Hugh Queener '77
Brentwood, TN
Claire Tucker '75
Brentwood, TN
Larry Wallace
Athens, TN
Mintie Willson
Niota, TN
STAFF MEMBERS
Dr. Harley Knowles
President
Randy L. Nelson '93
V.P. for Advancement

Tennessee Wesleyan’s Economic Impact
Athens City Mayor Ann Davis, on the
importance of TWC in Athens
Since the early day s of Tennessee Wesleyan College it has served as
an anchor for higher education in our area. Through the years it has
become much more than that to our community through a variety
of programs and initiatives. TWC produces quality, well rounded
students, many of whom have made Athens their permanent home,
raised their families here, and contributed in various ways to the
community.
Executive Director of McMinn County
Economic Development Authority and
TWC alumna Kathy Price
There’s several reasons [TWC is important to Athens]. One, it
brings so much diversity to our community and it helps in our
recruiting to know that diversity is here. It brings an educated
workforce for the professional jobs that are here. In addition to the
student body, it also brings faculty here that otherwise wouldn’t be
here. [Tennessee Wesleyan] provides a lot of the professional staff to
our industry and our industrial base, and we have a strong partnership
with Tennessee Wesleyan. I think the economic stimulus that
the college brings to this community in itself is tremendous.
I think Tennessee Wesleyan is very much at the forefront of our
economic development progress. A lot of people who have graduated
from here are employed here locally. I think if you look at
our community we are on a growth pattern. That demand and that
need is going to be further needed here in the community, as far as
having a place to go and to gather. I hope to see [the college] grow
and prosper. I hope more people find out about Tennessee Wesleyan
and have the great experience that I had here.
TWC enhances the quality of life in Athens and Colloms Campus
Center will add significantly to those efforts. The need for meeting
space for receptions, conferences, special events, and more will
be met not only for students but for our citizens, businesses, and
industries.
TWC produces quality, well rounded students,
many of whom have made Athens their
permanent home, raised their families here, and
contributed in various ways to the community.
Charles Darwin said, “He is not the strongest of the species that
survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most open to
change.” I applaud the leadership of TWC for their vision and the
effort being made.
McMinn County Mayor John Gentry, on
the importance of TWC in McMinn County
McMinn County is truly fortunate to be home to a quality provider
of higher learning like Tennessee Wesleyan College. In addition
to the obvious positive impact the college has on the local economy,
TWC has provided quality higher education to thousands of
McMinn County citizens since its founding in 1857. These citizens
have utilized the education provided by TWC to not only build a
better future for their families, but also for the larger community.
Many of our most successful local professionals in the fields of education,
business, law and medicine are TWC graduates.

“TWC is important to the community in many different ways, but for me the greatest impact is
economic. Being a local business owner I see it firsthand. I hope this is a message the community
understands and realizes how important it is for everyone living here to support TWC in any way they
can. I deeply believe TWC is vital to Athens and the surrounding communities.”
Shirley Woodcock,
Executive Vice President of Sweetwater Valley Oil

A CAMPAIGN TO ADVANCE TENNESSEE WESLEYAN COLLEGE
The $16 million goal of the Proud Heritage, Strong Future campaign is broken into
four main funding goals: facility enhancements, faculty and instructional support,
scholarships, and the TWC annual fund. Each priority encompasses specific projects
designed to enhance TWC’s campus and community and to help solidify TWC’s
future as a college of choice.

1 Facility
enhancements
and Colloms
Campus Center
The flagship project of the facility
enhancements priority is a new 30,000
square ft campus center for the main
Tennessee Wesleyan College campus in
Athens, TN. Located on the corner of
Green and College Streets, the campus
center will house a café and grill, a gaming
lounge, study spaces, a ballroom,
the academic success center, the career
center, and the student life offices.
The building will become the hub for
campus life, providing necessary student
services in one convenient location.
In addition to providing services for
students, faculty and staff, the Colloms
Campus Center will provide benefits,
such as new meeting spaces, to the
Athens community. Additional funds
will be used for the modernization and
further enhancement of classrooms and
facilities on the TWC campus. These
funds will provide new furniture, new
COLLOMS CAMPUS CENTER: FIRST FLOOR PLAN
COLLOMS CAMPUS CENTER: SECOND FLOOR PLAN

Dr. Scott Mashburn
Vice President of Student Life
My vision for the campus center
is really to find a place where
students can hang out. Our current
facilities are nice, but they
don’t accommodate the various
students we have on campus.
They don’t necessarily address
the commuters or the veteran
students or that non-traditional
student who wants that place to
be in the community but not
necessarily right in the hub of
the activity.
Students are looking for that
place to hang out. The new
Colloms Center will allow us to
have that hub of activity for the
students that brings them into
a central place: a place to just
kick back and throw up their
feet or shoot a game of pool. It
allows them to have small study
groups. It allows organizations
to have a place to meet without
being bumped or having to reschedule,
so I think the students
are going to see this as a great
place.
I’m excited about the campus
center. With Judge Colloms
coming forward, it really is
going to be a transformation
of this campus. It will be a
cornerstone of the campus. I’m
excited to see how it’s going to
transform our students and give
them that place to hang out,
how it will allow the community
to come in and have conferences
and workshops, and to
see the camps that it will allow
us to have over the summer. It
really creates a situation where
Tennessee Wesleyan becomes
the college of the community.
This building is really going
to serve Tennessee Wesleyan’s
faculty, staff, students, and all of
our other constituents and our
friends. It’s not just a student
center; it will be that central
hub for our campus to come
together as well the community
to be able to utilize our services
and resources.
The campus center gives them
that place to be: a place away
from the residence hall, a place
away from their home, a place
away from the athletic field or
the classroom, just a place to
hang out with one another. A
place to cut up and joke, a place
to study, to grab that quick cup
of coffee, to talk with administrators,
to talk with faculty, and
just to develop and foster those
relationships with their peers
and classmates.

Kerrie Lynn
Associate Dean of Students
When I first heard about the
campus center, I was really excited.
About 2/3 of our student
population is commuter students,
and they have regularly
indicated they are not as connected
to campus life as some of
our residential students are. By
building a new campus center,
we are finally going to be able to
give them a place that they can
call home where they can connect
with one another as well as
residential students and campus
faculty and staff, and really have
a place for them.
We are going to be given an
opportunity to really increase
some of our success on campus
programs, invite the community
in for events, and truly show
how TWC stands out in this
community.
The one thing that I am looking
most forward to with the new
campus center is to see what
type of connection commuter
students now will have for the
TWC experience. I want them
to be as involved as residential
students, and it’s difficult to do
that without having a space.
With this new campus center,
all students will be able to have
a space that they can come into
and enjoy.
I think it’s important to build
the campus center now to help
show students that we understand
there is need for growth
and change and improvement
and we hear them. I can’t tell
you how excited students are for
a new campus center.
One of the things that I am
looking most forward to is that
students really will have a one
stop shop when they are able
to come into the new campus
center. They will have resources
they can use if they are in
student organizations. They can
come into the student life department;
all of us are going to
be together, so there’s no more
searching for all of us throughout
different buildings. We will
have a student success center
that will be available, along with
a career service center. There’s
more room and more space for
students to really spread out…
and really be able to go in and
out of that building with all of
their questions answered.
“We are finally going to be able to
give them a place that they can call
home where they can connect with
one another.”
Dr. Chris Dover
TWC Chaplain
One of the things that I think
we often forget is that small
groups matter, whether it be a
Bible study or a study group
or an athletic study hall. Small
groups really matter. Our
campus is designed so that you
will have classrooms with no
more than 40 people. One of
the things that we don’t have
a lot of is small group meeting
spaces. The campus center
will provide lots of those small
group meeting spaces, so that
you can carry on those conversations
and not worry about
being interrupted or someone
else needing the space. I really
think that opportunity to have
that small group meeting space
is really important.
I’m really hoping that the new
center will provide community
for both commuters and residents.
It’s not intentional that
there’s a separation. We’re all in
classes together, but oftentimes,
the community of residents is
seen in the cafeteria and the
community of commuters is
seen in the SAC, and I think
what this will offer is an opportunity
to be in community
together so you don’t have that
separation between residents
and commuters.

2
Faculty and
instructional support
Faculty and instructional support
allows TWC to continue
to provide excellent education
to each and every student.
With early gifts, TWC has
been able to introduce new
programs, expand the campus,
establish new projects, and
more. In December, TWC
purchased the old post office
building in downtown Athens.
The college now offers
two graduate programs: an
online MBA and the Master
of Science in Curriculum
Leadership. Starting in the fall
of 2015, TWC will offer an
undergraduate major in Communication
Studies. Continued
support will allow TWC
to establish endowed chairs
and professorships, enhance
science labs, expand library
resources and more.
Dr. Grant Willhite
TWC professor of biology
The way in which students and
faculty interact at TWC is all
about community. The students
and faculty are interacting in
an atmosphere where it’s very
conducive for students to learn.
In anything we do at TWC,
I feel like that should be our
goal, our aim because that sets
us apart. When you have that
sort of community, it allows you
to learn in a way that you can’t
if you don’t have that sort of
support.
I hope the students gain in their
time at TWC, through their
interactions with me and with
other faculty, a deeper appreciation
for learning. The fact that
not everything that you learn
would come from a textbook or
from the internet, but that there
is tremendous value to a collaborative
process of learning, which
you get in classroom size that’s
small and you can interact with
your peers, which you get in a
research lab where you know the
people you’re working with and
you can bounce ideas off each
other. I think that’s a type of
learning that a lot of our students
haven’t experienced prior
to coming here.
It is my hope that the campus
center will allow us to further
build this community of learners
to give the students a place to
engage with each other, to give
us a place where there are spaces
that we can do things that we
can’t currently do. We can use
the campus center as a place to
continue to build community
with our students.
I’m looking forward to the
campus center mostly because
I think it is long overdue. Our
students deserve a place to
interact with each other, a place
where they can come as groups
and study, a place where we can
provide facilities for faculty to
I hope the students gain in their time
at TWC, through their interactions
with me and with other faculty, a
deeper appreciation for learning.
meet with students, and where
we can provide the services that
students have come to expect at
a small liberal arts college like
Tennessee Wesleyan College.

97% of all Tennessee Wesleyan College
students receive some form of financial aid

3 Scholarships
Supporting student scholarships allows you to
support a student’s dreams of attending college.
Approximately 97% of all Tennessee Wesleyan
College students receive some form of financial
aid. For the 2014-2015 academic year, Tennessee
Wesleyan provided over $9.4 million in scholarships
to students. Currently, endowed scholarship
earnings and annual scholarship gifts fund less
than 5% of those scholarships. Continued support
for student scholarships will allow TWC to continue
to offer a quality education at an affordable
price to all students.
Joseph Horton, class of 2016
I understand where I currently am now is
where I need to be. It’s where I belong. This
is my stepping stone, and this is exactly
where I need to be at the exact moment,
and this is the first time I can honestly say
that I’ve had that feeling: that I’m exactly
where I need to be, exactly when I need to
be there. Now I finally have my own wings
and my own legs to take me where I need
to be to prosper.
The reason I am where I am and the reason
I feel so confident is because of the people
that have helped me get here. I want to
help other young people find themselves
and understand that they have the potential
to be whatever they want to be.

4
TWC
Annual Fund
The Tennessee Wesleyan Annual Fund provides ongoing
operational support for the college. The Annual Fund is
made up of both restricted and unrestricted gifts that can
be used to benefit TWC students through the funding of
scholarships, new computer and laboratory equipment,
course development, student research projects, summer
internship stipends, classroom enhancements, athletic
support, and more.
Gifts to the TWC Annual Fund can be designated for a
specific use, and a gift can be split between multiple areas.
Gifts can also be designated as general support, meaning
the college will apply the donation to the areas of greatest
need.

A CAMPAIGN TO ADVANCE TENNESSEE WESLEYAN COLLEGE
HOW CAN I DONATE
TO TENNESSEE WESLEYAN?
Tennessee Wesleyan College is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that relies on monetary gifts to continue to provide
its students with a high quality educational experience. We hope you will explore the many opportunities for giving
that are available to supporters of the college. We welcome matching gifts, gifts of securities (stocks), endowments,
memorials and planned gifts.
All gifts made to Tennessee Wesleyan College during the Proud Heritage, Strong Future campaign count towards the
overall $16 million campaign goal. Gifts can be made in one payment or over several years.
For additional information,
contact the Office of Advancement at (423) 746-5330 or email advancement@twcnet.edu.

“
“
The Campus Center will allow us to further
build this community of learners.
Grant Willhite, TWC associate professor of biology