The Coalition for Healthy & Safe Campus Communities has awarded Pellissippi State Community College Director of Counseling Services Nancy Truett with the 2024 Baxter Excellence in Higher Education Prevention Award, which recognizes members of the coalition who have excelled in their provision of prevention programming.
Truett, who has been in her current role at Pellissippi State since the 2019 spring semester, said she was completely surprised when she found out about the award. It not only made her day, Truett said, but was also extremely rewarding.
“We’re finding that there are more and more students who need mental-health services,” Truett said. “Students who come into a college counseling center are bringing an array of stressors. I think we provide really great mental-health services, so the recognition was very gratifying.”
Truett serves on the behavioral intervention and wellness teams at Pellissippi State. Earlier this year, she was also honored with the Regional Suicide Prevention Award from the Tennessee Suicide Prevention Network.
Truett said she’s grateful to her colleagues in Pellissippi State Counseling Services who provide excellent care and outreach to students across four campuses.
“We have good counselors and interns who are dedicated and compassionate and who care,” she said. “They show up and do great work every day.”
The Coalition for Healthy & Safe Campus Communities’ mission is to connect and support Tennessee higher-education institutions in addressing campus health and safety, said Kayce Matthews, director of the organization – which works with nearly 50 campuses across the state of Tennessee.
In fiscal 2024, Pellissippi State received a combined total of about $9,500 from the organization for prevention plan funding, cannabis prevention funding and educational materials.
Nominations for the Baxter Award are based on how someone is contributing to their own campus, Matthews said, as well as other campuses statewide.
Truett “shows up and she’s always thinking about how she can get more resources and use them creatively to serve her community,” Matthews said. “She also is engaged with her colleagues across the state, in helping them to think creatively about how to serve the students that she works with, particularly around the issues that we primarily address – substance-use prevention and mental-health promotion.”
Truett is a licensed professional counselor and mental health service provider and approved supervisor in Tennessee. She has formerly served as a parish counselor, director of the student assistance program at Knoxville Catholic High School and director of Catholic Charities of East Tennessee. She was also a contract mental-health counselor at Lenoir City Schools and a family therapist before beginning her work at Pellissippi State.
Truett is co-chair of the All4Knox Executive Board Prevention and Education Team, a founding member of the Tennessee Licensed Professional Counselors Association and part of many other local, state and national organizations promoting mental health and counseling.
“I’m very proud of who we are as a community college,” Truett said. “I think we’re very strong.”
