The newest building on campus has officially broken ground.
On Feb. 28th, 2025, the Tennessee Entrepreneurial Science and Technology (TEST) Hub officially broke ground. This was the capstone event for the past two days of the UT Board of Trustees being on campus for their winter meeting.
The $18.5 million facility was built in collaboration with the Tennessee College of Applied Technology and Dyersburg State Community College. It will also become the new home of the UT Martin Regional Entrepreneurship and Economic Development (REED) Center.
This facility will offer hands-on engineering education and an innovation hub to support workforce and economic development.
Newly named Dean, Dr. Nancy Buschhaus, expressed excitement about the building in her remarks, stating, “This is marked as the beginning of a transformative journey for education and workforce development in Tennessee.” The building will have accessible ramps at every level and is expected to increase the number of engineering degrees significantly, along with encouraging alternate education routes for local students.
Buschhaus explained what the hope for the building could be, “Imagine a student starting at the TCAT level in high school, advancing to Dyersburg State Community College program and from there, ultimately completing an engineering degree from UT Martin. All within the same blueprint.”
Funding for the building came in April of 2022 from the Tennessee General Assembly.
Many important faces attended the groundbreaking, including the UT Board of Trustees, former Chancellor Keith Carver, former Chancellor Robert Smith, UT President Randy Boyd, Weakley County Mayor Dale Hutcherson and many UT Martin faculty and staff and media members.
The TEST Hub is just one of the several new projects happening on the UT Martin campus. The campus is also expected to start work on a new dorm building and a new academic building for the College of Business and Global Affairs.
