Say Thanks to the Mentors in Your Life!

It's only a few weeks until National Mentoring Month in January! The month is a way to recognize and celebrate the mentors in our lives, consider opportunities to volunteer as mentors, and support mentor programs and their life-changing impacts on youth.

In the weeks ahead, think about the people who have been mentors and role models in your life. Be they formal mentors, teachers, professors, coaches, relatives...the list certainly goes on. I invite you to write and share brief tributes to any of these individuals discussing the impact your mentors have had on you.

You can submit these tributes using this online form, and I will post any "mentor thank yous" on my blog in the days leading up to "Thank Your Mentor Day" on January 25th.

Collaboration Success Story: October 9th Tutor Training Conference

On Saturday, October 9th while thousands of Chicagoans loaded up on carbs in preparation for the Chicago Marathon, volunteers and staff from Cabrini Connections, Chicago Lights Tutoring, and Cabrini Green Tutoring Program had a marathon day filled with great workshops and training sessions at the Fifth Annual Tutor Training Conference.

The conference took place at Fourth Presbyterian Church, home of Chicago Lights. The day was filled with a wide variety of skill-building workshops on topics such as tutoring students in reading, teaching math skills, and helping students in the college admissions process. There were also workshops that discussed the role of mentors during difficult times in a youth’s life and workshops that offered volunteers a view inside today’s schools.

I moderated a panel called “The Changing Faces of Cabrini Green” in which a mother who is a Cabrini Green Community Activist and her son discussed the history and present situation of Cabrini Green along with the realities—positive and negative—of living in that community.

The conference was a huge success and we had more volunteers from Cabrini Connections attend than ever before (not bad for a Saturday with 80 degree weather!). EL Da’Sheon Nix and Bradley Troast from Cabrini Connections played a large roll in motivating our volunteers to attend and in planning this conference—congratulations to both of them! (read EL’s blog entry for his account of the conference).

More than just a victory for the three programs involved, however, this training conference is a great example of how tutoring and mentoring programs can benefit through collaboration. Although the three programs that teamed up for the conference operate independently of one another, the leaders of each program realized that not only do all the programs serve a similar demographic by working with students from the Cabrini Green area, but the tutors/mentors from each program also need similar sets of skills and training. Rather than holding three separate volunteer training events (read: extra planning time, more money, and additional staff), the joint conference enabled each program to share the workload and the benefits of a tutor training conference. What's more, volunteers could pick up tips and ideas from representatives of all three programs not just their own.

Tutor/Mentor Connection actively encourages tutor/mentor programs throughout the city to collaborate in shared efforts. Rather than looking at similar organizations as mere competitors, they can be viewed as potential collaborative partners. The Program Locator is one way that T/MC helps programs identify other similar organizations existing in their geographical regions that they might reach out to for collaboration.

In addition, Mike Trakan,the T/MC GIS Mapping Specialist, makes a wide variety of maps relevant to tutoring/mentoring programs in Chicago. Many of these maps show how programs along with businesses and faith communities could work together to help youth in specific neighborhoods in Chicago. I encourage you to support Mike's work at the upcoming map gallery event, "Mapping Solutions" on November 17th at Webster's Wine Bar.

Thanks to all of the volunteers who attended the October 9th Conference--I look forward to seeing the payoff of the event during tutoring and mentoring sessions this year!

Makeover...T/MC Addition

Yesterday, CC, T/MC got a mini-makeover.

Two groups of incoming Northwestern freshman visited us through the Freshman Urban Program (FUP). FUP exposes Northwestern freshman to communities, social issues, and organizations throughout Chicago in the weeks before these soon-to-be Wildcats officially start their undergraduate careers.

Yesterday’s groups of students worked on a wide range of projects to spiff up our center prior to Cabrini Connection’s official 2010-11 start-up next week. The “FUPers” painted artwork on several walls, went through the library and got rid of antiquated books (copies of What Is the Internet? from 1994 are probably not particularly high on the reading lists of our tech-savvy students), and cleared out paperwork from old files.

We even had one person look through pages on our websites to repair broken links and update information. He contributed to some of the work I have been focusing on these past several weeks. While our office needs ongoing cleaning and maintenance, so do our websites, resource libraries, and databases. As of the beginning of August, for instance, The Program Locator had well over a hundred missing or broken links—the majority of which have now been repaired.

Checking in with organizations in order to update their information has provided me an opportunity to learn about programs and reach out to their leaders. Some have moved locations or changed personnel. Others have started new centers. Unfortunately, still others have been forced to shut down due to insufficient funding—stark reminders of how important it is for us to build ongoing partnerships and consistent support for tutoring and mentoring programs.

The visit from FUP students was an example of one of many ways universities can play an integral role in forming those types of ongoing partnerships. In fact, part of the Tutor/Mentor Connection’s strategy is to engage university communities and form partnerships with university departments, programs, and professors. As shown in former PIP Fellow Chris Warren’s concept map of resources at Northwestern and as described in Bradley Troast’s recent blog post, universities have a tremendous wealth of resources, organizations, and student groups that could form meaningful partnerships with tutoring and mentoring programs throughout Chicago.

Thank you to the leaders and freshman from FUP for their contributions to both our physical and virtual space. A lot has happened in Chicago since I was an incoming freshman—we have welcomed a new president, we have lost the Olympic bid. I wonder what changes these students will witness to the city in their four years at Northwestern---with a new mayor in store and a gradually recovering economy, Chicago's landscape will undoubtedly shift for its residents, its businesses, and its organizations. I feel optimistic.

Time to Turn the Calendar...

Don’t get me wrong, I love summer. But each year growing up, I was always itching to go back to school by the time August rolled around. I remember the nervous excitement that would build through the entire month of August as I gradually found out about teachers, bus routes, and locker assignments.

Although Chicago’s current blazing heat would suggest otherwise, the school year is quickly approaching. Along with the chance for department stores to capitalize on “back-to-school sales,” it is also a time when the media turns its attention to the state of American education.

As discussed in a recent New York Times article, our country’s “dismal” college completion rate is an issue that must be addressed while youth are still in their kindergarten through high school years. Even for those of us not living in neighborhoods with failing schools, this issue should cause us deep concern. In fact, the president of the College Board asserted that “The growing education deficit is no less a threat to our nation’s long-term well-being than the current fiscal crisis.” Sorry for the bad news.

While distressing statistics pervading the news should certainly elicit our alarm, they should not leave us feeling powerless. In fact, this is an excellent opportunity for us to reflect upon what we can personally do to turn things around—if not for entire school systems, perhaps for an individual student.

As T/MC President Dan Bassill discusses in his recent blog entry, this is a vital time for tutor/mentor programs to recruit volunteers and supporters. I urge you to explore the T/MC Program Locator to find a program in the Chicago-land community where you can become a mentor for the 2010-2011 school year. If working with students directly is not where you feel drawn, consider what else you might offer an organization: website design, event planning, administrative work, advocacy, donations…the list goes on. Any type of support is desperately needed to sustain the hundreds of tutor/mentor programs throughout the city (not to mention thousands of other programs throughout the U.S.).

Having just graduated from college, I am still in the habit of thinking of this season as a time of transition and an upcoming “fresh start.” Although this mentality might change as I move from school toward a career, I still hope to use this time period to think about my personal choices, aspirations, and commitments. I encourage you to join me in reflecting upon what we can each do during this season to invest in education—be it our own or that of someone else.