College Program: Creating Life Long Learners

In tonight’s college mentoring sessions, one of our tutor’s comments stood out to me and reinforced my vision of the college program: creating life-long learners. While doing a intake session with one of our student/tutor pairs tonight, I asked the tutor to recount the story of her journey in higher education. This tutor told us all about the exams she had to take to attain her dream of becoming an attorney. This tutor told us that every time she took an important academic test, she thought that she was done with tests for the rest of her life. After getting through the SAT, LSAT and Bar exam, this tutor realized that she would never be done with taking tests. In fact, she has to continue earning continuing legal education credits (CLE’s) to maintain her licensing. After listening to her story, I reflected on how her realization that she would never stop taking tests holds true for all of the academic challenges we encounter in our lives. Whether we face tests at school, at work or in our personal lies, we never stop learning.

As college tutors we help students look at the long-term picture of what they want their lives to look like and in imagining this long-term picture we should stress the importance of seeking out knowledge and applying it to their daily life. At Cabrini Connections, we work with at-risk youth, and these students often lack resources critical to attaining a higher education and jobs. However, the College Program strives to create resourceful students. We want our students to know that if there is a question related to their academic or professional development that they cannot answer or a resource they lack, they can find someone out there that knows the answer and someone who can help the student obtain necessary resources. We encourage students to ask questions, find information, consider their options, try out a plan and evaluate how it works for them. This strategy does not just work for high school students applying to college. It is invaluable for students and professionals over the course of their lifetime.

Ultimately, the College Program teaches our students a process. We cannot provide a road map to success that will apply to every student. However, we can show them that planning for the future is a process of asking questions, researching the possibilities, trying out different paths and evaluating the outcomes. Empowering your student to become life-long learner can help them navigate the difficult process of picking a college and finding out “what they want to be when they grow up.”

Encourage your students to always keep learning. When you keep learning, you keep growing.

--Carla

Volunteer Spotlight: Susan Nice

Veteran volunteer Susan Nice, a realtor at D’Aprile Realty, Inc. has been working with Kenwood Academy senior, Eboni Rivera for the past 3 years. After finding our program online, she came in for an interview and was immediately matched up with Eboni, who was lacking a committed mentor at the time. Luckily, they got along great right off the bat and have continued to grow in their relationship throughout the past 3 years. For Susan, Eboni “has always been easy to work with, eager to learn and very motivated to come to tutoring and work together.” At first at tutoring, they would primarily work on homework assignments, such as Eboni’s math homework. Now Susan finds herself assisting Eboni with longer papers, big projects and stepping more into her mentoring role as they try to figure out Eboni’s future after she graduates in June!

Besides academic tutoring, Susan and Eboni will occasionally go out on the town. They have gone to the movies, Bulls games, out to lunch and have even shopped together for particular occasions, such as when Susan has helped pick out dresses for some of Eboni’s formal school dances. Susan also picks Eboni up from school in Kenwood and will sometimes attend her school events. According to Susan “We always have fun when we’re together.”

Susan has found it a pleasure to work with Eboni over the years and is excited to be helping her through the college admissions process in whatever way she can, though admittedly, Eboni has taken a lot of initiative and has made considerable progress on college-related stuff with her church groups and school counselors/teachers. At this point, they’re both waiting to see what Eboni’s financial aid package will be at Florida A&M University, her 1st choice school. Throughout the years Susan has supported Eboni as she changed her desired career path from medicine in favor of embracing her more creative side and becoming more serious about studying journalism.

When asked what has kept her volunteering at Cabrini Connections over the years she replies “My bond with Eboni has kept me here, the sense that I’m doing something for someone else.” However, reflecting on her time here she offers “I feel like Cabrini Connections has changed a lot, it’s taken a lot of different directions, I feel like right now it’s really student friendly and getting everyone more involved. There are lots of initiatives being taken that are good for everyone here”. Thanks so much for your hard work and dedication Susan! That’s why you’re in the volunteer spotlight!

Student Spotlight: Sean Mayfield

8th grader Sean Mayfield came into our program 2 years ago straight from Cabrini Green Tutoring Program with his tutor, Alan (AJ) Tyson in tow. In fact, it was Alan who first told Sean about our program here at Cabrini Connections and originally encouraged him to continue on past 6th grade. We’re glad they did because Sean has become one of the most active and engaged students here at Cabrini Connections. He constantly goes above and beyond, seeking out ways to get involved and taking leadership positions, despite only being in 8th grade. For instance, he is the youngest student on our Youth Leadership Council, which he was voted onto by his peers and their mentors. He also came into our center each week over the past summer to be the beta tester for Steve and Alice’s Tech Club, which meets on Tuesday nights and has grown exponentially since the summer. Through his involvement in Tech Club, he has acquired the skills to design his own website, which is now up and running with personal content.

Sean and his mentor AJ have come to be quite close over the past 4 years. One thing they both share is a love for reading, which they often do together. For instance, right now they are reading a collection of science fiction short stories entitled “The Martian Odyssey.” In fact, most days after school when Sean isn’t here at Cabrini Connections working on homework or with tech club, you can find him at the Borders near North and Clybourn, soaking in as many books as he can. Besides sci-fi, he has a particular affinity for Manga, or Japanese comics, for the uninitiated.

Despite his literary passions, Sean’s favorite subject is Math, which he has been exposed to a great deal since he attends Newberry Math and Science Academy. He’ll soon be changing schools however as he enters high school next year. Remarkably, Sean was admitted to all 6 of the high schools to which he applied, including Noble Street Charter, UIC College Prep and Rauner College Prep. He has decided to attend Rauner where he will work hard towards accomplishing his dream of becoming a video game designer.

Although he does play a lot of video games, Sean has another factor motivating him to become a video game designer…his 29 year old brother, who is currently in the Air Force, has worked as a video game designer, designing games for game boy, PC and Playstation 2, including the new Street Fighter game.

In addition to being featured in the student spotlight, to reward him for all his hard work, Sean will be attending a free dinner at Charlie Trotter’s next Tuesday, where he will eat dinner with other youth leaders in our program and learn about careers in culinary arts. Congratulations Sean and bon appetit!

campusCATALYST @ cabriniCONNECTIONS

Earlier this week Dan and I met with Liz Weber, a co-coordinator of campusCATALYST, which is a relatively new organization at Northwestern that gives undergraduates a chance to work with Kellogg MBA students, taking on a consulting role for local non-profits. Cabrini Connections, The Tutor/Mentor Connection was selected as one of the 5 organizations that they will be consulting with during this upcoming Spring quarter. Therefore, we met in order to determine an area of need that a team of 5 undergraduates and 1 Kellogg MBA could tackle in the coming months. Dan and I decided that this would be a good opportunity to try to expand our "Business School Connection" model, which sees business schools as resource-rich potential partners that should have a vested interest in working with youth tutor/mentor organizations around the city.

We are hoping that this partnership could be loosely modeled after our Lawyers Lend a Hand Program, which brings together lawyers of all stripes from the Chicago Bar Association who are interested in using their networks and resources to "lend a hand" to at-risk kids throughout the city in the form of renewable grants to Chicago Tutor/Mentor Programs. Last year the "Lend A Hand" program distributed over $200,000 in grants to 27 different tutor/mentor programs to be used for general operating funds, the most difficult yet useful type of funding for programs like ours to receive.

With this project, we’re aiming to use campusCATALYST's talents and relationships with the Kellogg school of Business to increase their engagement with tutoring/mentoring programs across the city, including our own. The skills and expertise that business schools impart on their students and alumni are exactly the kinds of skills that tutor/mentor programs need to increase their effectiveness and impact on the kids they serve. For example, in conceptualizing the relative lack of tutor/mentor programs compared to the number of at-risk kids who need them, it is helpful to think of it as a marketing and distribution problem. We’re selling hope and opportunity delivered by adult tutors and mentors. For kids, volunteers and business partners to respond, we must have a good product, we must offer effective services and we must have as many distribution points as possible so our services are easy to access, we must have great people and we must sell, sell, sell!

We feel that business must be more responsible for youth entering the workforce. They cannot depend on public schools or the government to create a system that will be competitive with education to careers programs in other countries. We believe that in today’s climate of increasing corporate social responsibility, high profile business schools, such as Kellogg School of Management, have an opportunity to take the lead in encouraging and supporting business involvement in the process of pulling at-risk kids towards college and careers. The Tutor/Mentor Connection has already met with faculty and leaders of a number of Chicago business schools with a goal of enlisting faculty at one school to become a partner with the Tutor/Mentor Connection the way the Chicago Bar Association has become a partner through our “Lawyers Lend a Hand” initiative and in the way that www.verizonreads.org supports literacy programs throughout the country. These organizations believe in the effectiveness of tutor/mentor programs in bringing about a wide variety of positive youth outcomes including but not limited to: improved grades and self-esteem, improved H.S. graduation and college matriculation rates, reduced likeliness of teen pregnancy, initiation of drug and alcohol use and improved school attendance.

The partnership we are seeking is significantly different from traditional philanthropy, which often initiates a project and then asks the organization to seek other sources to keep it going. We are aiming to create a sustainable partnership where Kellogg and other business schools take a leadership role in channeling resources to tutor/mentor programs around the city, helping to pull disadvantaged kids to success, to careers and towards making a positive contribution to society.

Once this resource stream is established, we want to develop a competition between business schools around the city and country to put together teams of students and alumni to fight to raise the most funds and/or bring much needed resources to the many under-funded tutor/mentor programs in each city. Since tutor/mentor programs offer a unique solution to some of the most hot-button social issues of our time: poverty, educational inequity, corporate social responsibility…etc, this provides business schools a great opportunity to use their resources to make a big impact on at-risk youth while at the same time, building positive PR for their schools and developing tomorrows workforce.

Interested in this idea? email me at chris.warrens.mail(at)gmail.com and we can discuss some different ways to get involved

Volunteer Spotlight: Charlie Megan

This week we’re proud to put 3 year veteran tutor, Charlie Megan, in the Volunteer Spotlight! Back in 2006 Charlie was looking to get involved in youth mentoring through Big Brothers/Big Sisters. He found himself seated next to Cabrini Connections Founder and CEO, Dan Bassill at a Union League Club annual dinner and the next thing Charlie knew, he was paired up and working with Jones College Prep freshman, George Johnson, his current mentee. At that time George had been bouncing around between a handful of tutors looking for the right match. Upon Charlie’s arrival, they hit it off right off the bat and started making great strides with George’s math coursework. Charlie found that, since George has the smarts to be getting good grades in math, they would focus on improving his organization, making sure to get him in the habit of writing out all the steps as he arrived to a particular solution.

However, Charlie’s mentoring role has taken different forms at different times to suit his student’s particular needs. During the past few years, Charlie has worked to earn George’s trust and friendship, focusing on building their repoire so he can be more responsive to George’s needs. To this end, Charlie has also been building a relationship with George’s family. For example, he went to his 8th grade graduation and was able to meet his parents and some extended family. Charlie stays in particularly good contact with George’s mother. They typically exchange emails about 3 times per week, updating each other on George’s status, challenges, achievements…etc. as well as to confirm that George will be attending tutoring each week. Charlie has also made an effort to develop relationships with individuals at George’s school, such as his school counselor, to stay abreast of any important developments at school. He also ensures that they meet once a month outside of our center for dinner or just to go shopping together for school supplies.

Though Charlie had never mentored youth before starting here at Cabrini Connections, he has always had a fondness for teaching—he taught at a sailing school growing up. For this reason, he has found his time here to be a real learning experience. However, in his relationship with George, Charlie has found out that the key factor is consistency. George knows exactly what to expect from him week after week and can count on him to be there for him.

Having studied finance at Michigan State and gone on to start his own real estate development firm, Red Ceder Partners, Charlie is no stranger to the hard work and dedication it takes to see a project through to completion. Thus, we are confident that he and George will stay the course and reap the rewards of the significant investment they’ve made in each other. Congratulations Charlie and keep up the great work!

College Program: It’s College and Career Month!

This March is an exciting time at Cabrini Connections: College and Career Month. This month we’ll be focusing on preparing for college and careers and today’s post will focus on developing your student’s professional skills.

As tutors and mentors we often focus on the academic and personal side of the relationship with our students, but it is also important to focus on your student’s professional development. At-risk youth especially need their tutors to introduce them to the values and norms of the professional world. As a supportive adult in your student’s life you can play a critical role in teaching your student skills that will pay off over the course of your student’s working life.

It is often hard to imagine a student as a professional. After all, as adults we look at our students and want them to enjoy being young. However, the teenage years are perfect for planting the seeds of professionalism in your student and for beginning to cultivate a mature and responsible young adult.

Students require basic training in professional skills that we often take for granted at work: punctuality, good posture, appropriate dress and speech, and organization, just to name a few. Teaching students to take personal responsibility, particularly through punctuality and good organization skills are often (hopefully) skills that your student receives some training in at their school. The finer points of professional, knowing how to dress and speak, are often harder to teach a student. These skills are nevertheless important in helping your student prepare for future job and college interviews and for interacting in a professional environment.

A good way to introduce a high school aged student to professionalism is through a practice mock interview and job shadowing. Help your student prepare a resume, one that highlights their academic achievements, extracurricular activities and an work or volunteer experience they might have and give your student a mock interview for college admissions or job. This exercise will help a student understand the functions and importance of a resume and interviews. Job shadowing can demonstrate the importance of etiquette and professional dress at work. If you have a student shadow you at work, ask them to take notes and report back to you on their observations. Some questions for observations on professionalism can include:

• How do the employees of this workplace speak to each other?
• How do the employees of this workplace dress? Make sure you explain the purpose of your dress code to your student and note that workplace dress codes vary. Some workplaces require business professional or business casual dress while others require a uniform or permit casual dress
• When do employees take breaks from work?
• How do employees share resources, i.e. workspace, supplies to equipment?

Taking the time to focus on professionalism with your student will introduce them to skills and experiences that will frame how they approach the professional world as a young adult. If you address this topic with your student, you can help them become comfortable with behaving professionally and another step toward success.

-Carla

Student Spotlight: Marcus Burks

Wells Prep 8th grader Marcus Burks is glad to be involved with Cabrini Connections. Despite living on the South Side, Marcus is determined to show up each and every week to tutoring and has had perfect attendance so far during this brutal winter. Although Marcus has been paired up with his Mentor Joe Fridlin since the 5th grade, this is their first year active in our program. They met through Marcus’ cousin when Marcus was involved in a youth program at the old YMCA. They stayed in touch and are now building a strong mentoring relationship. They often find themselves working on social studies and reading, subjects where Marcus seeks improvement.

When not at Cabrini Connections, Marcus is the starting small forward and shooting guard for his school's basketball team . Although last year he didn’t get a lot of playing time, with a new basketball coach who appreciates Marcus’ talent despite his small stature, this year Marcus is having a great season!

Despite being only in 8th grade, Marcus is inspired to become a lawyer. He sees himself getting his degree at Northwestern University and going on to study law. Maybe it’s just the glasses, but all throughout Marcus’ life people have commented on his ability to argue and make his point articulately. Being as committed as he is to his future, Marcus attended a college visit and information session at Westwood College this fall with a group of other students. He even met with the dean of the college, whom he impressed with his intelligence and charm.

Like many of us, Marcus can’t wait until it’s summer again, so he can hit the neighborhood pool and hang out with his friends without worrying about getting frostbite! By then, he’ll know what high school he will be attending. He’s hoping to get accepted to Whitney Young, one of the most competitive schools in the entire city. However, Marcus knows that success doesn’t depend solely on what school he attends; he knows that either way, he’s going to have to take advantage of opportunities at programs like ours to connect with people all over the city who can help ensure his success! Congratulations Marcus and keep up the great work!