RISE Academy celebrates Inaugural Evening of Impact
The University of Texas at Arlington College of Business RISE Academy celebrated its inaugural “Evening of Impact” event on May 16, 2024.
RISE Academy, which stands for Resilience, Integrity, Selflessness, and Excellence is a program that provides students of various demographics an opportunity to jumpstart their careers with internship opportunities, networking events, travel abroad opportunities, and development workshops. The academy provides students a path to develop professional skills through hands-on experiences by connecting them with faculty scholars and mentoring employer partners.
Cookies adorned with the RISE Academy logo sit for attendees at the RISE Academy ‘Evening of Impact” event at the University of Texas at Arlington Library on May 16, 2024.
The “Evening of Impact” event highlighted the milestones of the students, the academy, and achievements during the past year. During the event, students, faculty, and business partners reminisced about workshops they’d participated in, events they took part in during study abroad programs, and discussed the future of the program.
“When we completed our interviews to join the RISE Academy last spring, a lot of students sold themselves short. They didn’t see the opportunities available to them. But I have seen the growth in many of our students in just the past year,” said Jhonniece Meeks, UTA College of Business Coordinator of Access and Achievement. “RISE is about bringing together like-minded individuals that will push you and encourage you to continue.”
RISE is made up of a diverse group of 29 students, with 52% coming from low to middle income families, 52% identifying as Hispanic or Latino, 29% identifying as Black, 11% identifying as White, and 3% identifying as mixed descent. This group of diverse backgrounds leads to unique perspectives of experience in business, life, and development.
“This is just a sense of what UTA is overall, diverse,” said Jhonniece. “It ensures that our diverse students get to go out and see the workforce they’re going to work in. Things out there might look a little different, but the goal of the program is to make sure that you’re integrated into a diverse organization.”
RISE Academy Leadership, Myrtle Bell PhD, Thomas M. McMahon Professor in Business Ethics and Associate Dean of Access and Achievement (Left), Philisa Stanford, Director of Access and Achievement (Middle) and Jhonniece Meeks, Coordinator of Access and Achievement (Right) pose of a photo during the RISE Academy ‘Evening of Impact” event at the University of Texas at Arlington Library on May 16, 2024.
Four students were highlighted during the event as representations of the acronym that makes up RISE, Resilience, Integrity, Selflessness, and Excellence.
The Awardees of the RISE awards are as follows:
Resilience: Juan Gonzalez
Integrity: Byran Velasquez-Sanchez
Selflessness: Leslie Vega
Excellence: Anesah Collier
To close the event, Myrtle Bell PhD, Thomas M. McMahon Professor in Business Ethics and Associate Dean of Access and Achievement, highlighted the impact the RISE Academy has had on their students and explained the pride she had in those who participated in the academy.
“I can’t express just how transformative this organization has been for our students lives. Since RISE started 15 months ago, our students have been to Spain, they’ve been to various companies, they’ve learned to speak openly, it has been wonderful,” said Bell. “I truly expect that you will go out and change the world with what you’ve learned and do things that help make the world better.”
Juan Gonzalez (Left), Bryan Velasquez-Sanchez (Middle-left), Leslie Vega (Middle-right), and Anesah Collier (Right) pose for a photo after receiving awards during the RISE Academy ‘Evening of Impact” event at the University of Texas at Arlington Library on May 16, 2024.