NASHVILLE, Tenn. (TSU News Service) -Tennessee State University graduates look to have an advantage entering the workforce due to a $2 million career development grant from the United Negro College Fund.

Staff with the university’s career development center believe the funding will give them the tools to prepare and ultimately help TSU graduates secure employment immediately.

“We want to make sure that when they graduate, they’ll have jobs,” said Tina Reed, associate director of TSU’s Career Development Center.

A number of students who graduated from TSU in May had jobs waiting for them. Most of them credited faculty at TSU and programs like the university’s Career Center with motivating them and providing the tools they needed to not only get jobs, but be successful.

One of those students was 24-year-old Cametria Weatherspoon, an electrical engineering major from Memphis, Tennessee, who is now working in programming at Lockheed Martin’s Space Systems Company in Littleton, Colorado.

“Having a job after I graduate is a blessing,” she said.

Besides TSU, UNCF also awarded a $2 million grant to Morgan State University and Norfolk State University.

Each year, UNCF awards more than 10,000 students scholarships worth more than $100 million. It provides financial support to 37 historically black colleges and universities.

 

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With more than 9,000 students, Tennessee State University is Nashville’s only public university, and is a comprehensive, urban, co-educational, land-grant university offering 38 undergraduate, 25 graduate and seven doctoral programs. TSU has earned a top 20 ranking for Historically Black Colleges and Universities according to U.S. News and World Report, and rated as one of the top universities in the country by Washington Monthly for social mobility, research and community service. Founded in 1912, Tennessee State University celebrated 100 years in Nashville during 2012. Visit the University online at tnstate.edu.