Diversity Team
Final Report - Grant Year 4

Minority Mentoring Program

The Michigan Center for Teacher Recruitment (MCTR) is a new initiative based on the South Carolina Teacher recruitment model. The MCTR is a model that is overarching theme for several diversity programs in the College of Education. The MCTR received its title in 1999. This report will address the Minority Mentoring Program. The Minority Mentoring Program (M2P) is designed to increase the retention rate of underrepresented minorities. M2P is comprised to five tiers: residents from the Saginaw Community, SVSU administrators, faculty, and staff, and upper class students. The rational for this program is to mentor students, assist in their transition to university life resulting in successful matriculation towards a career goal.

The research and rationale for M2P comes from data and articles published on successful mentoring programs such as the Big Brother Big Sister Agency, the National Mentoring Council, and data from National Education Association. Most of the research comes from literature that speaks to the benefits of mentoring for at risk and troubled youth and students at universities.

Population and Participations

The development of M2P began with the former Dean of the College of Education diversity committee, which later evolved into the Minority Mentoring Program. The original team members are: Dr. B. Jean Jones, Dr. Camille Cammack, Mr. Al Vinson, (retired principal), Mr. Ledell Alexander (math instructor). The other Saginaw community residents and SVSU faculty and staff were contacted to help formulate a mission statement, goals and benefits. Additionally this group was responsible for the development of policies and procedures, forms, advertisement and recruitment strategies for the program. Mr. Vinson and Mr. Alexander have had experience mentoring, counseling, and teaching students. Dr. Jones and Dr. Cammack have taught as professors at SVSU for over five years.

The mission of the SVSU Minority Mentoring Program is to assist Africian American, Latino American and Native American students in the successful transition to university life in a new community, and in the the successful matriculation towards a career goal during their SVSU experience.

The goals for the program are:

• Improve scholastic performance
• Provide smooth transition from high school to college
• Increase minority retention and graduation rates
• Increase minority activity within SVSU
• Increase minority student activity in the larger Saginaw community

Students were recruited through student organizations such as OBU Organization of Black Unity, Greek Letter organizations, Latino Club and several others. Recruitment also included distribution of brochures to admissions, Minority Student Services, other student support services, and Campus Life.

The M2P program began with 29students. The demographics include 22 African American females, 1 Latino female and 6 African American males. The age range of the participants is from 18 to 49. The participant’s demographics include the cities of Saginaw, Detroit, Grand Rapids, Pontiac, Woodhaven, Flint, and Auburn Hills. The students are working towards bachelor degrees in different disciplines, except one student has previously earned a bachelor’s degree and is seeking a teaching certificate with the support of the program. By the end of the program, winter semester, 8 more students joined the program; two African American males, 1 Latino female and 5 African American females.

Approximately, a month and a half after the program began; students who were placed on academic probation and academic dismissal became participants. The contact was made with those students through a letter. The students were offered an opportunity to meet with the director and discuss their concerns. Students who were dismissed, records were reviewed and if they meet certain qualifications they meet with the vice president of academic affairs. If everything was agreed upon, they were readmitted to the university. The students must attend meetings, maintain contact with their mentors and their grades must be monitored.

M2P is a volunteer mentoring program comprised of 8 SVSU faculty members, 13 SVSU staff members, and 27 Saginaw community residents who are actively mentoring students. However, we have other SVSU faculty and staff who have not been assigned a student for mentoring but provide other resources in support of the program. The program mentors are a reflection of the local Saginaw Community, the university faculty and staff, and students above their second year in college. Mentors who do not hold day positions have attended several workshops offered through the RERC of the College of Education. There are 41 mentors offering their service in support of students. 10 percent of the mentors are retired.

Mentors met twice per month in the initial developmental stages of the program. They continued to meet monthly, including the monthly-required meeting with the student(s) they mentor. Additionally, students were matched with one mentor but later in the program the students received a second mentor. This was done to be able to provide round the clock assistance to the students. Now students receive a primary and a secondary mentor.

Trainings and Workshops

The training activities for the program involved the mentors and the students. The mentors and students were trained in successful mentoring. Students and mentors received three hours training over two sessions on Seven Habits of Highly Successful People. There was a program overview meeting, which included training in effective mentoring designed to improve the quality of mentoring contact time. Other ideas shared at the mentoring meetings included how to study, and the value of regular meeting with your instructors, and note taking. One session included a tour of the computer-training center and its services. Information collected at one of the sessions included the student’s vision of requirements for having a successful mentoring program (Appendix). The feedback from all the training sessions was very positive.

Other training workshops for the mentors included: Who are mentors, best practices in mentoring, and building relationships.

Additionally, students received more training in study skills, note taking and in class skills, note taking for math, effective listening, pre class strategies, in-class strategies, and after class strategies.

Participation

Most workshops, trainings and meetings were held at the College of Education on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Two days were used to try and meet scheduling conflicts due to the students’ classes. Although, we tried to accommodate all students, there were some students who were unable to meet due to having classes both nights. However, their mentor would keep them abreast of the meeting and workshop contents.

Returning participants. Records are currently being collected to determine how many students who participated in the program Winter 2003 returned to the university Fall 2003.

Future plans

Future plans for M2P is to initiate publicity and contact with the students earlier at the start of the school year through mailings to new enrollees, brochures, a September sign-up for students, and increase meeting announcement locations. A calendar of meeting dates and programs for the school year will be developed by the content development team and handed our at the initial introductory meeting. The meetings dates will be arrange to minimize conflicts with other school schedules. Plans developed from the 2002-3 program will be implemented with few changes for the 2003-4 school year. This will speed up the mentor-matching and implementation process.

Other ideas under consideration are development of a monthly newsletter, arrange tutoring support, feedback on service needs to the college, scholarship and financial aid resources, and adding more structure in the mentoring office (contacts, follow-up documentation, and responding to teacher progress reports). Another consideration for M2P is the hiring of the Institute of Proactive Strategies, Inc. This is an agency based in Flint, MI that provides workshops on relationship building, college skills, how to be successful in college and other academic trainings.

Evaluation

Students and mentors were administered a diversity pre survey and September 2003 students received the post survey. Results are pending.

Winter 2003 was a pilot for the Minority Mentoring program. All Fall 2003 incoming students to the program will be required to take the diversity survey. Students will be provided a survey for each student support programs. This survey is based on affective behaviors and perceptions.

Summary to date

The M2P pilot for Winter 2003 was completed with success. There are some changes needed such as collection of student report forms. The content development team completed the Minority Mentoring Manual. The program will continue and it is the hope that the university administration will continue to participate in supporting the program to increase retention and graduation rates of minority students. A meeting will be scheduled to meet with the vice president of academic affairs, assistant vice presidents, and the dean of the college of education to present the program. We will continue our efforts to design and develop a CD to identify financial resources with website links.

The dissemination of the Minority Mentoring program will continue by word of mouth, distribution of brochures, presentations and workshops. The Minority mentoring Program will be presented in Atlanta, Georgia at the ACE national conference, October 22, 2003.

Urban Teacher Preparation Program

The Urban Teacher Preparation Program is based on a model of multiple entry points into the urban teacher preparation that seek to tap potential candidates (Appendix A). The UTPP was implemented in January 2003 with a cohort of 16 elementary and secondary students. The rationale for this program is to recruit and prepare pre-service elementary and secondary majors to work with diverse student populations and deal with the complex social and cultural situations associated with working in urban school settings using a culturally responsive inclusive pedagogy. This program is in its very early stages of development. The UTPP Model has three major components culturally responsive inclusive curriculum, school and community experience, and mentoring. The program has four entry points; (1) Young Educators Society (YES) which is design to work with students at the pre-college level (middle and high school) interested in exploring teacher education through the implementation of service based clubs, (2) Teacher Cadet Program (high school) recruitment and retention strategy designed as an introduction into teaching which is a curriculum based program for exploring teaching, (3) Grow Your Own Teacher Program (GYOTP) (college of education) which is collaborative effort between Saginaw City Schools and SVSU and its para-educators, (4) the Minority Mentoring Program (M2P) (pre college of education) which is a retention effort to improve scholastic performance and graduation rates by supporting students during transition to college and early coursework that precedes professional studies.

The Saginaw Valley State University’s Teacher Cadet Program received its site license from South Carolina Center for Teacher Recruitment January 2003. SVSU is the only licensed and certified site in the State of Michigan to offer Teacher Cadet training for teachers. SVSU has two certified teacher trainers, Dr. B. Jean Jones and Ms Daphne May-Gibson.

Research

The research and rationale for the program comes from culturally responsive pedagogy. Most of the research base comes from literature that speaks to the benefits of cultural responsive instruction and practices. Additional documentation is provided from the research conducted by Haberman, Ladson-Billings, and Gay.

Population and Participants

The original team members: Dr. B. Jean Jones, Dr. Camille Cammack, Mr. Al Vinson a retired principal and Mr. Ledell Alexander, a mathematic teacher. Dr. Jones and Dr. Cammack are faculty members in the Elementary, Early Childhood and Special Education Department. Three other members were added to this team, Ms Daphne May-Gibson, a secondary teacher and Teacher Cadet instructor/trainer, Ms Earlean Chaney, a middle school teacher and YES advisor, Ms Emma Morrison, a secondary teacher and YES advisor and Ms Gennetta Thomas, supervisor/human resources and coordinator for Grow Your Own Teacher Program (GYOTP).

The implementation of the UTPPP was a pilot for Winter 2003. The participants were comprised of 3 students that are African American, 10 students that are Caucasian, 2 students that are Latino and 1 student that is Asian/Pacific. Two students have previously earned bachelor’s degrees and are seeking teacher certification.

The issue which raised the greatest concern, was the procedure used to identify participants. These participants were assigned to the course and did not volunteer. Therefore, the only data collected was through the Clinical Experience Office.

Recruitment procedures in the future procedure will be self identified by selecting the Urban Teacher TE 100 off the Clinical Experience website.

Completed Curriculum Revision

The elementary courses that have been revised include TE 100 and TE 342 (See Appendix). Two powerpoint presentations were developed for TE 342; culturally responsive pedagogy and what is service learning? The YES manual for middle and high school activities was completed (See Appendix). Additionally, a technology website for Teacher Cadet has been developed with a teachable lesson plan for students on the maintaining the site. The GYOT program developed a manual that provides the development and implementation of the program, workshops and training, district and university audit, and guidelines and qualifications for the program (See Appendix).

Summary to Date

All projects have been completed and submitted. However, we currently do not have a cohort to pilot TE 100 or TE 342. Everything has been place on hold until department approval has been given.

There is a planned meeting to meet with the faculty on October 9 and October 13, 2003, to present the program. During that meeting three tentative course schedules will be presented, rationale for the program, overview of culturally responsive pedagogy and service learning projects. This procedure is being utilized to receive department permission to proceed with the development and implementation of the pilot for the UTPPP. We will continue to gather community agencies and organizations for student learning projects.

The Urban Teacher Program will continue to be highlighted through workshops, presentations and the development of a brochure. The Urban Teacher Program will be presented in Atlanta, Georgia at the ACE National Conference in October 2003.