Meet Jake Ptacek, executive director of the DDCE’s Dual Enrollment Initiatives.  Housed within the Longhorn Center for School Partnerships, the program offers dual-enrollment courses in math, chemistry, and writing for high school students across the state.

Originally from western Kansas, Ptacek came to UT Austin in 2007 to attend graduate school, where he taught rhetoric and English courses. After earning his doctorate in English in 2015, he began working as the SPURS (now WritingBridge) coordinator in 2015.

A proud Longhorn, Ptacek says that he enjoys everything about his job, but his favorite part is working directly with PCARP’s high school students.

“For so many of our students, college seems like something that’s out of reach,” Ptacek says. “So I’m always really excited for their campus visits, which is often the moment when they start to realize that college is not only something they can do, but it’s something they can be successful at.”

Away from campus, Ptacak is a film buff and enjoys watching movies in his free time. A serious Prince fan, he’s also currently teaching himself to play all the guitar riffs from the late impresario’s early albums. Currently he’s hard at work on the solos for “Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad?” and “Little Red Corvette.”

Read more about his work in this Mission Moments story.