Deana Sheppard, TJC provost, and Amir Mirmiran, UT Tyler executive vice president for academic affairs and provost, sign paperwork during a signing ceremony for the Promise program Friday.

Through a partnership with a goal to bring more education opportunities to East Texas, Tyler Junior College and UT Tyler are partnering together on their promise programs.

The TJC Promise and the UT Tyler Patriot Promise programs working together will ensure broad participation from East Texas communities. The goal is to help more students achieve their educational goals, resulting in more graduates ready to enter the workforce.

During a signing ceremony at the TJC campus on Friday, Juan Mejia, TJC president, said the partnership is a “major win at scale,” especially by uniting forces with UT Tyler instead of competing.

“What is our competition? It’s not between each other, our competition is against poverty and against families that need opportunities and trying to figure out, ‘how do I break the cycle of poverty that I’ve been living under?’ and we are the people for that so we don’t take for granted the work that we do,” he said.

Mejia said the collaboration will broaden educational success for East Texas students.

Kirk Calhoun, UT Tyler president, said the Promies program is part of a five-year strategic plan for UT Tyler.

“We wanted to build upon our relationships with our community colleges that exist throughout our region,” he said, noting they are reaching out to other community colleges in the region as well.

The “Patriot-Apache” students who are recipients from the Promise program must meet academic requirements, come from a lower income household of 85,000 or less, and pursue a degree for any at UT Tyler, and within the new medical school.

“I have colleagues who are practicing physicians right now, including on my administrative team, who started their academic careers at community colleges. It is doable. We expect to see TJC students and other students eventually matriculate at the UT Tyler medical school in the very near future,” he said.

Calhoun said he is excited for the partnership, especially because TJC along other community colleges are important to the educational system.

“When I was growing up on the south side of Chicago, not a lot of people had an opportunity to pursue experiences at a four-year university, and go directly from a freshman to a baccalaureate degree. Most of my colleagues and friends took advantage of opportunities to go to community college first.

“Community colleges are vital. UT Tyler wants to have great relationships with our community colleges, we want those students who desire a bachelor’s degree to choose UT Tyler and come there. … We’re not competitors, we are partners in educating the young and sometimes older folks in this community,” he said.

Although the Promise program is to financially support students, it also helps the incoming transfer student “flow directly” into the four-year institution.

“To know that we have a path from what TJC started with the name Promise Program into a UT Promise Program, we now have this facilitated pathway for those students who desire to move on and get a bachelor’s degree or beyond, that those students can flow in with no major costs. It’s affordable because tuition fees are free and they will be able to just move right into that program and participate,” Calhoun said.

Marie Salazar, upcoming junior at UT Tyler and Promise recipient, was in attendance and showed gratitude toward the program.

“It takes a weight off our shoulders, and it provides students and myself the opportunity to focus and live our life without going to school and obtaining debt,” she said.

During the ceremony, Amir Mirmiran, UT Tyler executive vice president for academic affairs and provost, said the campuses hope to get additional support from the community to benefit more students throughout the years.

“We are hoping that this program will grow so fast that we will be able to get additional support from the community so that every eligible student whether is income level or whether is a Meredith scholarship, they will be able to get that because they know that this will be a game-changing impact in this community,” Mirmiran said.

During the ceremony as everyone emphasized the importance of the collaboration and the “special relationship” between both campuses, Calhoun said the community can expect more collaboration between the two.

“This is not the last agreement we’re going to be signing, we have many more things in the works as how we could work better together and better serve the community and better serve our public education partners and make sure that those who desire to have a higher education have a good opportunity to take advantage of it all the way to a bachelor degree,” he said.