TIFTON — A new partnership between the University of Georgia, Wiregrass Georgia Technical College, and Southern Regional Technical College is certain to pave a new road into the future for their students.

The three colleges came together Oct. 24 to sign into action a Student Transfer Pathways program, the first of its kind between their schools, allowing students in agricultural fields of study at either technical school to transfer directly to UGA.

Through the program, students in applied fields like agribusiness, agricultural education, agricultural sciences, and environmental systems would be given the opportunity to transfer to the University of Georgia Athens Campus after accruing thirty credit hours at either Wiregrass or Southern Regional, or to the Tifton Campus after reaching sixty.

Michael Toews, assistant dean of the University of Georgia Tifton Campus, stressed the need to provide the students of these fields with the best education the three schools could offer so as to prepare them to revolutionize the future of agriculture. He was optimistic that the new program would provide their students with boundless opportunities in their education moving forward.

“These are the sort of things administrators dream about, because we’re making conditions better for our students,” Toews said. “This is a great move in terms of the future of rural Georgia; Tift County and the surrounding counties’ agriculture in the future is going to be all about technology, and days like this facilitate developing the workforce that we need in order to keep agriculture successful here in Georgia.”

Jim Glass and DeAnnia Clements, Presidents of Southern Regional Technical College and Wiregrass Technical College, respectively, were likewise excited for the agreement between their schools and UGA, confident that the program would not encourage students to stay in and create growth in the area around their schools, but spur future recruitment to their institutions through potential new students looking to take advantage of the pathway themselves.

Praising the efforts of the trio of administrators for clearing the way to better education for their students, Dr. Dean Kopsell, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at UGA, expressed hope that this program would ripple across the state and inspire other schools partnered with the University of Georgia to open similar pathways for their students.

Toews presented the presidents of the technical colleges with a set of paintings based off of the mural put up in the Academic Programs Building of the UGA Tifton Campus, viewing it as a fitting symbol of their collaboration and a perfect means of honoring the newfound partnership between their schools.