Pellissippi State Community College received the 2025 Excellence in Mental Health and Well-Being Award from Insight Into Academia magazine.

The award measures how an institution advances belonging through its mental health and well-being programs and initiatives.

“It is great to be recognized, because it further solidifies the work that we’re doing,” said Elizabeth Ross, executive director of Human Resources at Pellissippi State. “We get positive feedback from students and employees, but this is just another way to know we are doing the right thing.”

The wellness committee hosts wellness challenges for students, faculty, and staff – like last year’s “50 Miles for 50 Years” challenge in honor of Pellissippi’s 50th anniversary – lunch and learn events covering topics related to substance misuse and the awareness and prevention of domestic violence and suicidality.

“The wellness team was initially brought about during the pandemic, to give the community a healthy mindset to strive for as we all continued our work,” said Kinsey Shifflett, benefits manager at Pellissippi State. “We were trying to bring some positivity and togetherness into the workplace and for our students.”

Although the wellness team – now an official college committee that includes representatives from Student Engagement and Leadership, Human Resources, and other areas of the college – became a priority because of the pandemic, it has evolved from a student-focused weekly outreach endeavor to stand on its own as a resource for the entire campus community.

Pellissippi State will be featured among 70 other recipients of the award, many of them four-year institutions, in the September 2025 issue of “Insight Into Academia” magazine.

Wellness initiatives at Pellissippi are college-wide and span beyond the wellness committee itself. “Insight Into Academia” magazine also selected Pellissippi State for its abundance of resources for students, faculty, and staff support, such as mental health counseling.

Please take a look at the full coverage of this award here.

Pellissippi State Community College is a public community college based in Knox and Blount counties in Tennessee and operated by the Tennessee Board of Regents. The college operates four campuses: Hardin Valley, Blount County, Strawberry Plains and Magnolia Avenue.