A group of Glencliff High School Class of 2025 graduates spent part of their senior year visiting construction sites (including Nashville’s most high-profile project) and learning about the business of building.
Ten Glencliff seniors participated in a program with Turner Construction Company, an international firm with offices just a few miles from the high school in South Nashville. The Turner Future Leaders program was open to students in the technology, environmental biotechnology and entrepreneurship pathways in Glencliff’s Academies of Nashville, which are small learning communities that focus on career exploration.
The students spent time at the New Nissan Stadium project, which Turner Construction Company is helping to build for the Tennessee Titans as part of the Tennessee Builders Alliance, the joint venture that includes Turner, AECOM Hunt, Polk & Associates and ICF Builders. They also visited the company’s construction site at Tennessee College of Applied Technology-Nashville and toured the facilities there.
Victor Sustaita, Jr., Glencliff’s salutatorian and an aspiring architect, said he heard about the opportunity when he was a junior, saying: “I want to be part of this.”
“We definitely got a lot of hands-on experience with different professionals in the construction area,” said Victor, who will be a freshman at Vanderbilt University this fall as a Nashville Vanderbilt Scholar after earning a full-ride scholarship. “We talked to a lot of people behind the scenes, which is for some of us a lot of what we want to do in the future. We were able to ask them questions, interact with them, and they would give us a response to any of our questions.”
Zoe Dorantes, the Glencliff Student Government Association president, said she got to see various pathways to a successful career.
“They talked a lot about their experiences with how they got to where they are, and I thought that was really interesting,” said Zoe, who also is heading to Vanderbilt this fall, with plans to study political science.
“For me it’s always been: you go to college and then you get a job. But for a lot of them, it’s ‘went to college, wasn’t for me, and now I’m making a lot of money.’ So I was like, wait, that’s really cool, because that’s not what people tell me.”
Thommye’ Kelley, Glencliff’s academy coach, said the students learned not only about construction itself but also about marketing, accounting and other parts of the business. They also worked on leadership and entrepreneurship skills, built LinkedIn profiles and got headshots made.
And they built meaningful relationships with business leaders, including many who are women and people of color. Kelley likened the guest speakers to “cool uncles and aunts” whose wisdom sometimes sinks in a little quicker than a teacher’s might.
“I think they learned more about a field they know about,” she said of the seniors. “They were able to learn some of those intricate details. They were really able to see the ‘ins and outs’ and talk to professionals.”
Victor said it was helpful to meet executives he might cross paths with again down the road.
“They all told us if we ever needed anything from them after high school or later on in our careers, we could always talk to them.”
Kelley (who thanked Turner Construction Company’s Herbert Brown and La’Kishia Harris for working closely with the students) said Glencliff hopes to build on the program, which was developed through a partnership between Turner and Junior Achievement, and start a construction pathway over the next few years.
Meanwhile, an architecture and engineering design pathway will launch at Glencliff in the 2025-26 school year. The high school also will be opening a residential and commercial construction program as a dual enrollment program with TCAT-Nashville.
Both initiatives will be housed in Glencliff’s Academy of Agriculture, Construction, Maintenance and Engineering, formerly known as the Academy of Agriculture, Automotive and Technology.
