Mapping Northwestern University for Tutoring/Mentoring Programs

So as I've mentioned in previous posts, Colleges and Universities are full of valuable assets for Tutor/Mentor Programs like ours. They are chock full of smart and engaged people who want to make a difference. However, for better or for worse, universities are multifaceted communities, with a wide variety of buildings, departments, offices...etc. They also have an unfortunate tendency to be composed of various organizational silos that inhibit communication between different parts of the university. In fact many a program coordinator has been frustrated by the seemingly endless amounts of emails and phone calls necessary to reach the right administrator who can actually begin to help forge a mutually beneficial relationship.

Therefore, after facilitating a workshop about ways to constructively engage Northwestern University at our May Conference, I decided it would be beneficial to put together a concept map of all of the different parts of NU that could help a tutor/mentor program like ours. From the various service learning, work-study, internship and practicum opportunities available for non-profits to secure skilled and committed volunteers to the various philanthropic wings of the university, consider this map a guide to the assets of Northwestern University. Don't forget to click through to the links embedded on each item to find out more. The JPEG above is just a static graphic, click here to access the map complete with all its links. Hope you like it and pass it on to people and organizations you think it could benefit.

According to our tutor/mentor program locator there are 8 programs currently operating in the 60201 area code and about 10 more close by in Rogers Park. Programs like these could greatly benefit from knowing what parts of the university to build relatoinships with, I know Cabrini Connections certainly can, and is benefiting from our connection to Northwestern. Anyway, stay tuned for more useful concept maps in the near future!

Find the map at: www.tinyurl.com/northwesternmap

Engaging Universities Workshop

So fresh off the heels of our 31st Tutor/Mentor Conference, which we hosted on May 27th and 28th, I feel invigorated. I attended the November Tutor/Mentor Conference but was able to take a more proactive role at this conference due to the fact I already had one under my belt, and was more familiar with the organizational aims of the conference. One highlight was having the opportunity to present my own workshop about Engaging University Communities to help non-profit tutor/mentor programs find many of the resources that they need to sustain and grow themselves.

To help me I brought in a number of friends and colleagues to share their perspectives. First was Molly Day, co-founder and executive director of CampusCATALYST, an organization that engages college and business school students in high-impact, pro-bono consulting projects with local nonprofits. She graduated from NU last year and is currently a PIP fellow. We're actually working currently with a team of campusCATALYST students who are helping us to monetize our static and interactive GIS mapping capacity, found on www.tutormentorprogramlocator.net.

Another friend and PIP fellow who joined us was Ryan Pederson, who currently serves as the Campus Director for the Center for Global Engagement (CGE) at Northwestern University. He graduated from Northwestern University last year where he was heavily involved with the campus chapter of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. He discussed some ways that programs can effectively engage faith communities on campus as well as shared some insights he gleaned from working with student leaders through the Center for Global Engagement. He also spoke to the advantages and disadvantages of engaging Greek communities on campus.

We were also lucky enough to be joined by Sue Sowle, who coordinates Project SOAR, a remarkable mentoring program at the McGaw YMCA in Evanston. At McGaw, NU students play integral roles in nearly every aspect of their youth programming, particularly their mentoring program, which is comprised of both paid and volunteer staff recruited from NU via work-study positions that are paid by the university. This provides the YMCA with a reliable source of motivated, intelligent and passionate students who can mentor area youth. Sue spoke about the benefits of their relationship with NU as well as details about how exactly she went about setting it up.

Finally, future Cabrini Connections fellow Bradley Troast and co-chair of the Northwestern Community Development Corps joined us to share his successes with engaging students as volunteers at dozens of non-profit sites around Evanston and Chicago. As a current NU Senior who has headed up a major student-led community service organization he lent a very interesting perspective to the workshop.

As facilitator, I also shared my thoughts about how Cabrini Connections has benefited from intentionally engaging university communties, particulaly Northwestern as half of our full time staff are NU alumni. Through making a point to reach out to the NU community via our ning group: http://nututormentor.ning.com/ and personal networks, we have been able to host our spring Tutor/Mentor Conference at the NU school of law downtown and will be hosting our upcoming November conference at the NU Evanston campus. We've benefited from having a full-time intern in Diana Castaneda via her SESP practicum and a part-time intern Jessica Rockswold who is currently analyzing our students grade cards in order to quantify the impact that our program has had on our students' grades. Besides NU, our Media Outreach intern Meagan Hermanowicz from DePaul has played an essential role in our Public Relations and helping to draw resources to our organization and our steady flow of interns from IIT are constantly helping us to improve our online T/MC content.

All in all, I think this 90 min workshop offered a plethora of resources to its attendees and should be repeated in the coming years. In our struggle to stay afloat in this economy, it's important for tutor/mentor programs like ours to reach out to University communities who often have the human, financial and organizational resources that we need to maximize our impact. Hopefully future workshops can continue to make this case in new ways and taking into account emerging university institutions that hold promise for non-profits such as the Northwestern University Center for Civic Engagment.

Perhaps you'd be interested in sharing your own knowledge/experiences in engaging universities like Northwestern?

Intern Spotlight: Meagan Hermanowicz

This week I'd like to draw attention to a volunteer who's not a mentor here at Cabrini Connections. Her name is Meagan Hermanowicz and she's a DePaul University Senior who is currently serving as our Media Outreach Intern. Meagan grew up in Northbrook and ended up going to DePaul University for a number of reasons: it was close to home, her sister was a student there when she applied and it is a well-rounded school, which was particularly important since she didn't know quite what she wanted to study while she was applying. In fact, she started off as a psychology major and eventually switched to business, with a particular focus on marketing and advertising. When asked how she got into business and public relations she laughs and tells me, "I actually started off planning parties for my friends. I'm the kind of person who's very persistent with people, so that's what really got me into it." Needless to say, she threw some great parties.

She got involved here at Cabrini Connections by responding to a flyer that I put up, looking for someone to help fill the vacuum created when our former development and media outreach coordinator left. When asked what in particular piqued her interest about the position, she says "It definitely just seemed like a good thing to do. Most internships I was finding weren't anything I'd really enjoy. I like the fact that I can work on my own time, socializing and networking, meeting lots of new people. I like making connections with people and I like what Cabrini Connections is doing. It's really beneficial for the community."

Since she came on board roughly 2 months ago, Meagan has thrown herself into her role, doing everything from researching reporters and sending out press releases about our recent Art and Film Festival, to securing raffle prize donations and negotiating free poster printing at a fantastic local print shop Document Technologies (DTI). She arranged for some artists in her personal network to donate artwork to the Art Festival and has been doing everything she can to get out the word and secure sponsorship dollars for both our upcoming Year-End Dinner and Golf Benefit, which will take place on June 4th and July 16th respectively. She is also currently helping us find volunteers to work with our kids to help them prepare entertainment for the Year-End Dinner. We are so happy to have such a kind, passionate and enthusiastic youth advocate interning for us and want to make sure that all her hard work doesn't go unrecognized. So, thanks so much for all your help thus far, we wish all college students were so willing to get involved and use their talents to help bring positive social change to students and communities who need our help!