Pirate Promise program continues to grow

Since signing co-admission agreements with 14 schools in a single ceremony last summer, East Carolina University administrators have continued to expand the Pirate Promise program, which now encompasses half of the state’s 58 community colleges.
Aimed at improving transfer student access and success, the program allows students to apply to a participating community college and ECU simultaneously. Upon completing an associate degree, they can seamlessly transition into degree-completion programs at ECU.

Dr. Ron Mitchelson, ECU’s acting chancellor, said strengthening relationships with community colleges is a priority because the transfer pathway is a great option for students. Financially, he said, students can potentially save more than $30,000 by spending their first two years at a community college, greatly reducing student debt and overall educational expenses.
In addition, community colleges prepare students for the college experience in a smaller setting. The Pirate Promise program also includes benefits such as access to ECU libraries and programming through the ECU Office of Student Activities and other organizations, ECU 1 Card eligibility, joint financial aid counseling and micro-scholarship opportunities, joint academic advising, and a waiver of the ECU transfer application fee.
“The transfer population is 30% of our total student body,” Mitchelson said, and it’s a good way to make college attendance less daunting and more cost effective. “There’s just no debating that it’s a great pathway.”
Dr. Algie Gatewood, president of Alamance Community College, visited ECU on Oct. 23 to ink an agreement between the two institutions. “One of my visions for Alamance Community College is for every resident and every student of the college to have the opportunity to go wherever she or he may choose,” he said. “If they choose to acquire a bachelor’s degree, then we can prepare them for that.”
Gatewood pointed out that ECU also benefits because transfer students have proven to be well prepared when they arrive at a four-year university.
“I think the transfer agreement with ECU will give our students hope and opportunity — hope in the sense that, wow, I can go to ECU after two years at ACC. Opportunity in the fact that they actually transfer and can complete the degree,” he said. “So it’s just a win-win-win situation.”
Community colleges with signed or pending agreements now include Beaufort County, Central Carolina, Carteret, College of the Albemarle, Craven, Edgecombe, Halifax, Johnston, Lenoir, Martin, Nash, Pamlico, Pitt, Roanoke-Chowan, Sampson, Wayne, Wilson, Brunswick, Cape Fear, Wake Tech, Montgomery, Richmond, James Sprunt, Blue Ridge, Coastal Carolina, Piedmont, Fayetteville Tech, Alamance and Rockingham.
 
-by Jules Norwood, ECU News Services