Christiane Buggs

Board Member

Christiane Buggs serves as President & CEO of the PENCIL Foundation, Nashville’s business connector to its public schools and citywide educator resource center. She is a Nashville native and former Metro Nashville Public Schools student who went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in physics and work for NASA. 

Christiane returned home to earn two master’s degrees in education—from Tennessee State University and Vanderbilt University respectively—before becoming a MNPS teacher. She taught middle school math in both charter and zoned schools, where a state takeover of the latter ignited her journey into education policy and advocacy. 

In 2016, she won a seat on the Metro Nashville Board of Education and was re-elected to a second term in 2020. Christiane served two years as board chair during the COVID-19 pandemic, guiding the district Superintendent and elevating policy changes. As chair she managed a $1.2B budget that served the social, emotional, and academic needs of 83,000 students across 159 schools. During this time, she oversaw an increase of $170M in the city’s education budget, which constituted a median $7,000 per year pay increase for Nashville’s public-school educators. 

Christiane has also served as the campaign manager for State Senator Charlane Oliver and is a founding board member of The Equity Alliance, a Nashville based 501c3 that seeks to educate, engage, and empower minorities around the civic process. Christiane shares her life with her husband, local firefighter Michael and their 7-year-old son, Christopher. 

OUR TEAM
MORE ABOUT SYCAMORE
Why Our Work Matters

We all want thriving communities where people enjoy good health, social and financial well-being, and the chance to make meaningful contributions to society. Most of our disagreements are about how to get there.

Sycamore plays a unique role in Tennessee’s civic life—bridging those divides by equipping decision-makers, journalists, citizens, and public and private sector leaders across the state with impartial, data-driven resources to identify, understand, and solve big challenges. We empower people to more effectively weigh—and weigh in on—the policy and institutional questions that shape our daily lives.

Tennesseans with wide-ranging perspectives rely on Sycamore’s clear and actionable insights and analyses.  Over the years, our work has informed public and private sector decisions on state and local education funding, TennCare, medical debt, philanthropy, transportation, criminal justice, the state budget, and more.

Many nonprofit organizations also rely on Sycamore for trusted, objective information about issues that affect their work—including both policy analyses and technical assistance on strategic and program planning.

No matter how you use Sycamore’s work, we are proud to help Tennesseans make informed decisions and navigate complex challenges.

What Is Public Policy?

Public policy is what governments choose to do (or not do) about public problems. It includes laws, regulations, funding priorities, and any actions of our governing institutions and the people who run them. Public policy affects almost every aspect of our lives—where we live, where we learn, where we work, and where we wander.

How We Engage

By fostering open dialogue and providing unbiased, data-driven insights, we empower Tennesseans to participate in the policy-making process and advocate for their communities. We do this by:

1. Producing and communicating relevant, accessible, impartial, and data-driven research and analysis.

2. Engaging and building strong relationships with decision-makers and stakeholders from across Tennessee.

3. Convening and equipping Tennesseans to thoughtfully assess and address public challenges.

To get involved with Sycamore’s work, subscribe to our emails, follow us on social media, attend our events, and join the ranks of our donors!

Our Origin

The Sycamore Institute grew out of the bold vision of a diverse group of community leaders from across Tennessee who saw the need for an independent, nonpartisan public policy research center focused on our state.

With the leadership and support of The Healing Trust, approximately 80 of these leaders representing a broad range of professions, political views, and personal experiences engaged in a 3-day collaborative design process. Their goal: design an organization to inform and support the creation of sound, sustainable public policy for Tennessee through reliable, accessible, and data-driven research and analysis.

The name they chose reflects the strengths of Tennessee’s native sycamore: a unique, long-lived tree with strong roots that stands tall and spreads seed far and wide.

The Sycamore Institute launched in 2015 and quickly built a reputation as a reliable source of unbiased information about issues that affect and connect Tennesseans’ health, prosperity, and public policy.