Mentors help local students
By Kristi Walker
Staff Reporter

Students are taking leadership classes to a new level by becoming Mentors in Action at a local sixth-grade school, Leadership Center director.

“The hope is to increase self-esteem in these students and to increase retention rates of students for high school and college,” Walsh said.

The year-long program involves 23 TCU students who have signed up for the MIA class through the Leadership Center. Each TCU student mentors one or two students once a week, said Walsh.

MIA was originally the idea of students Kristin Spratt, Christine Schmidt and Jamie Pacilio, former students of the “Foundations of Leadership” class, who wanted to put their leadership training into action, Walsh said.

Now, in conjunction with Fort Worth ISD, TCU students and the Leadership Center, the program has begun. The mentors will first undergo two training sessions to help develop their leadership and mentorship skills, Walsh said.

Rosemont 6th Grade School students participating in the two-hour after-school program are led in self-esteem exercises and talk with their mentors at each session, said Walsh.

Darron Turner, director of Student Development Services, said MIA will give the younger students a chance to interact with college students and to see that college is an option for them.

“We want them to see themselves in a positive light,” Turner said. “We want to help them realize what they want to do in life, and then show them they can do it, and how to do it.

Turner also said the program offers a chance for TCU students to give back and to be a part of something bigger than themselves.

Schmidt, a senior speech pathology major, said she is optimistic about the program, since it already has more people than the original estimate of about 15 participants.

The desire of the students involved is to establish a relationship and to be a friend that these children might not find any other place, Schmidt said. Mentors want to talk to them, help them with their homework and play games with them, Schmidt said.

“There is a high rate of ninth-grade drop out students in this area because of confidence issues,” said Schmidt. “We want to encourage them to go to school, listen to their teachers, go to college and to see their future, regardless of their home situations.”

The mentor program will end with a shadow day that involves the Rosemont students attending TCU classes and eating at the Student Center with their mentors, Schmidt said.

Spratt, a senior finance and accounting major, said an original goal was to allow students to put what they learn in the leadership classes to use, and to see how important it is to serve a community and give back to others.

The mentors are scheduled to meet the students for the first time at 3:30 p.m., Sept. 24, at Rosemont 6th Grade School.

For more information contact Cyndi Walsh at (817)257-7855.