Mentoring Symposium

It Begins with Me: The Mentoring Effect

January 27-28, 2012

View Invitation (PDF Download)

WHAT:

A collaborative symposium about Mentoring by Western Washington University, Compass 2 Campus and Washington Campus Compact celebrating National Mentoring month!

The mission of the symposium is:
To build a community of people interested or engaged in mentoring and to learn from and with each other through dialogue about why mentoring is essential to our future.

WHERE and WHEN:

Friday, January 27, 2012

3:30 to 5:00 - Registration and Poster Set up: Miller Hall
Registration will begin on Friday afternoon at 3:30 PM in Miller Hall, first floor, in the Collaborative Space (see signage).

5:00 to 6:30 - Poster Session and Reception: Miller Hall first floor hallways
Join us Friday night for the Mentoring Successes Poster Session, including reception! Registration and poster set up will be 3:30 PM to 5:00 PM. View informational posters from a variety of mentoring programs across the Pacific Northwest.

6:30 to 8:00 - Dinner: Miller Hall Collaborative Space
Then network at the Mentoring Symposium dinner, held in the new Miller Hall Collaborative Space. Take advantage of the opportunity to meet program staff, fellow colleagues, and join in the conversation about mentoring.

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Saturday, January 28, 2012

8:30 to 9:00 - Saturday Registration: Viking Union Multi-Purpose Room

9:00 - Welcome from Dr. Francisco Rios, Dean of Woodring College of Education, Viking Union Multi-Purpose Room
Francisco Rios, Ph. D., is Dean of the Woodring College of Education at Western Washington University. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin and worked at California State University San Marcos and the University of Wyoming before arriving in Washington. His research interests include teachers of color, Latinos in education, and preservice teacher education with a multicultural focus. Francisco is the Senior Associate Editor of Multicultural Perspectives, the Journal of the National Association for Multicultural Education. He spent spring, 2005 as a Fulbright Fellow at the Pontifica Universidad Católica Valparaíso in Chile. Francisco served as program chair for Division K, (Teaching and Teacher Education) for the AERA Annual Program, 2007. Francisco served as the founding director of the University of Wyoming¹s Social Justice Research Center. In 2008, he received the Distinguished Scholar Mid-Career Award, from the Committee of Scholars of Color in Education from the American Educational Research Association.

9:30 to 11:15 - World Café: Viking Union Multi-Purpose Room
The morning will feature dialogue World Café style.

11:30 to 12:00 - Lunch: Viking Union Multi-Purpose Room

12:00 to 12:30 - Mentoring Stories: Viking Union Multi-Purpose Room
This is a chance to hear mentoring stories from multiple perspectives.

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1:00 to 3:00 - Break-out Sessions: Academic West Building

Session Selections:

Dr. Marilyn Chu
Professor of Early Childhood Education, Western Washington University

Mentoring through Inquiry: Supporting future and current teachers to investigate questions about how young children learn.
Discussion will include ways to collaborate with teachers and future teachers to examine their questions, teaching stories and observations of their interactions with children. We will explore a variety of communication strategies to spark curiosity and self awareness in teachers of young children.

Tim Costello
Director for Service Learning, Western Washington University

Mentoring: Critical Reflection in Action
In this interactive session, using the key component of critical thinking and reflection from the service learning model, we will explore questions that celebrate, challenge and convey some of the complexity of mentoring relationships. Reflection is ongoing and will deepen your mentoring experience and improve and inspire your program, employing questions rather than answers as an axis for creativity and sustainability. Participants will connect the mentoring experience to broader concepts of respect, trusting and equitable relationships, social change, etc., and will learn the practice of critical reflection that can be applied to the mentor, the mentee and mentoring programs.

Gracielle Loree
Diversity Recruitment and retention Specialist; Woodring Peer Mentoring Program, Western Washington University

Managing Mentoring Programs At (Almost) the Speed of Light! Using Technology to Increase Group Efficiency.
Managing and organizing a mentoring program can be a time-consuming and daunting task. In this session, we will explore the use of online tools (specifically Google applications, Doodle polls, and Survey Monkey) to manage and evaluate your mentoring program. Participants will get tutorials and hands-on experience using these efficiency-boosting tools.

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Session Selections: (continued)

Dr. Karen Hoelscher
Professor of Elementary Education, Western Washington University

Cultural Awareness and Responsiveness: Developing Mentors’ Capacity to Share Their Life Stories.
Recognizing and responding to others’ cultural constellations requires being clear about your own life story and becoming appropriately curious about other peoples’ lives. In this session, we will explore the use of the Pecha Kucha presentation model (20 slides, 20 seconds each) to create visuals representing the groups and communities to which we belong.

Stefanie Boyer
Retention Project Grant Manager-Washington Campus Compact

Data Dissemination: Creating and Showcasing Impactful Data
This workshop will guide you through how to use data and showcase it using creative and dynamic strategies to rally more support for your various mentoring programs.

Dr. Kristen French
Professor of Elementary Education and Director of the Center for Education, Equity and Diversity, Western Washington University

Teaching for Mentorship, Empowerment, and Love
How do we create critically caring spaces for youth empowerment? In this interactive workshop, participants will engage with critical consciousness building through real life examples with youth. Participants will have opportunities to wrestle with their own role as a mentor, as well as leave with a tool kit of ideas and opportunities to develop spaces for empowerment.

Dr. Stan Goto
Professor of Educational Leadership

Recognizing Difference: Mentoring College Students who are not of the Majority
Effective mentoring requires faculty and staff to treat all students fairly and equitably. But does this mean that mentors must use the same approach with all students without considering ethnicity, generational status, or other factors that might distinguish an individual from the majority? The presenter will summarize findings from a qualitative pilot study of mentoring practices at Western Washington University. An open discussion will follow.

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3:00-4:00 - Closing: Academic West Building
We will end our time together with a reflection of the dialogue from the symposium and a look to the future for what we can all do to take our conversations back into our communities.

7:00-9:00 - Compass 2 Campus Viking Night – Carver Gym
Please join us for Compass 2 Campus Youth Mentoring Initiative Night at Western Men’s Basketball game in Carver Gym against Simon Fraser. Tickets available upon request…and some will be raffled!

Directions:

Campus Map (PDF Download)

Parking:

Free parking is available in the gravel lots (12A and all C lots) after 4:30 PM and all day Saturday. There will be a shuttle running from 8:00 AM until 9:00 AM on Saturday to transport you from the gravel lots to the Viking Union. At the end of the symposium the parking lot is easily accessible from the AW building.

Directions to these parking lots:
Enter campus from Bill McDonald Parkway and follow the signs to the shuttle pick-up area. Parking in the 'G' lots (11G, 14G, 15G, 17G, and 8G) is available, but limited. Cost is $2.00 per hour at the pay boxes (boxes take cash or credit cards). All of these parking lots are on the campus map. Additional limited (free) roadside parking may be available on Garden, North Forest, and State streets.

Symposium Lodging:

Preferred WWU Group rate is available at the Lakeway Inn and Convention Center. Please reserve room by January 5, 2012 to receive the preferred rate.

Toll free: 888-671-1011 or 360-671-1011

Questions:

If you have any registration questions, please contact Shar Sarte Prince at: compass2campus.events@wwu.edu or 360-650-4565.

***Scholarships for Registration costs are available. Please contact us to determine eligibility.

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Goals and Objectives

Goals of the Compass 2 Campus program:

• To encourage underrepresented, low-income, diverse, students, starting at the fifth grade to complete high school and enroll in some form of post-secondary education.
• To provide mentors and role models for area youth using a service-learning model.
• To provide 5th graders an opportunity to visit and experience a University.
• To support educational achievement through tutoring.
• To increase awareness of life options after high school.
• To provide scholarships for C2C students who graduate from High School and are admitted to WWU.
• To develop teaching, communication and leadership skills among college mentors.
• Offer mentoring experience to WWU students as a way to give back to their community.

Why Compass 2 Campus?

This program was established from an original program created by Cyndie Shepard at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay called Phuture Phoenix. It was designed to encourage students who typically do not consider higher education in their futures, and to provide support and tools necessary to complete high school and consider some form of post-secondary education, whether at a university, college, community college, technical college or trade school.

C2C benefits the community because it helps kids gain the skills and ambition to succeed in life. It hopes to increase high school graduation and college attendance rates while helping these students to enter their futures with increased confidence and improved goal setting abilities. The result is having a better trained and better educated workforce and a community empowered by active productive citizens.

What happens at C2C?

All 5th graders from participating schools visit and tour the WWU campus every fall. Their C2C mentors show them around and chat with them about what it is like to be a college student.

The C2C mentors then visit their students throughout the school year for a minimum of 4 hours per week to tutor, develop relationships and mentor them.

As the fifth graders progress through middle and high school, C2C mentors continue to serve these students to offer encouragement and support to graduate from high school and pursue higher education.

A new cohort of 5th graders is added to the program every year, as C2C continues to follow previous cohorts through 12th grade.

Who is involved?

Western Washington University and Whatcom Community College students serve as mentors to participating C2C students grades 5-12.

Currently, 5th, 6th and 7th grade students from participating Whatcom and Skagit County schools are mentored in the program. Those schools include:

As students progress through middle and high school the C2C mentors will follow them, supporting their achievement towards graduation.

Partners

Contact us

"I think we miss a lot of very bright children by just assuming that they'll never make it because they don't do well in school. We typically let those kids go. We're saying, 'We're not letting you go.'" - Cyndie Shepard

Cyndie Shepard
Miller Hall 2B
516 High Street
Bellingham, WA 98225-9103
360.650.3093
cyndie.shepard@wwu.edu

Shar Sarte Prince
Miller Hall 2C
516 High Street
Bellingham, WA 98225-9040
360.650.4565
shar.sarteprince@wwu.edu

What is Compass 2 Campus?

The Western Washington University Compass 2 Campus Mentorship Initiative is a pilot program implemented by House Bill 1986 which passed both Houses of the legislature on April 21, 2009. The program is designed to increase access to higher education by providing an opportunity for students from traditionally underrepresented and disadvantaged backgrounds in Whatcom and Skagit counties to be mentored by C2C students.

The program has the following objectives:

• Increase GPA and reduce truancy among elementary students.
• Empower kids to make good choices about the future.
• Increase C2C students' leadership and commitment to giving back to their community.

Our overall goal is to help more students graduate from high school and encourage them to consider some form of higher education.

We are excited about this initiative! This program has the chance to make a real difference in the lives of hundreds of young students in our community. We would love to have your involvement, please feel free to contact us for more information.

Program history

The Compass 2 Campus program focuses on furthering educational opportunities for underrepresented, first generation, diverse children in Whatcom and Skagit County Schools. It was originally conceived at the University of Wisconsin Green Bay as the Phuture Phoenix Program by Cyndie Shepard, the wife of Bruce Shepard, President of Western Washington University, and Ginny Riopelle, UW-Green Bay Council of Trustees member.

Cyndie was taking a tour of Green Bay area schools in January 2002 after her husband's recent appointment as Chancellor of UW-Green bay. While at a local inner city school, she had the opportunity to sit and talk with a 5th grade boy in the principal's office. During the course of their conversation, she became concerned. The young boy felt that he had no hope for a bright future. He felt that he would end up like his father, who was in prison.

Cyndie was aware that Northeast Wisconsin had a lower than average rate of students graduating from high school and going on to college. This brief encounter inspired Cyndie, an educator herself, to think about ways she could encourage children in the Green Bay area to finish high school and pursue some kind of post-secondary training or education. Cyndie and Ginny sat down at lunch to discuss what she had experienced and brainstorm ideas about a mentoring program. An afternoon of chatting produced a blueprint for a program, which they chose to call Phuture Phoenix because it promoted UW-Green Bay, the founding institution, and was symbolic of its mascot, the Phoenix. From this "blue print," Cyndie developed the mentoring program at UW-Green Bay and it has been successfully running since 2003.

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Program history (page 2)

When Cyndie and her husband, Bruce, came to Western Washington University in the fall of 2008, she was contacted by the Higher Education Coordinating Council Board in Olympia to better understand the Phuture Phoenix concept they had seen on the UWGB website. Cyndie was asked to present at a meeting of the "K-12 Pipeline Committee" working on ways to increase access to higher education for Washington students. After her presentation, the HECC Board asked if Cyndie would consider transporting a similar program to Western and create a pilot mentoring initiative for other colleges, universities, and post secondary institutions to have as a model for possible replication. They offered to support this initiative by creating a legislative bill and working to pass it.

In April of 2009, HB 1986 was passed by the Washington legislature and signed into law by Governor Gregoire, establishing Compass 2 Campus as the pilot mentoring initiative for the state of Washington. This bill gives credence to the commitment of the state to support mentoring as an effective way to encourage post secondary education to underrepresented students in our K-12 school system.

In the fall of 2009, Western Washington University mounted the Compass 2 Campus program with the support of nine local school districts in Whatcom and Skagit counties, Western faculty and staff, and hundreds of Western student mentors.

Sister programs and educational partners ››

‹‹ Back to the beginning

UW-Green Bay's Phuture Phoenix

This is the original award winning program in Green Bay, Wisconsin that has been bringing 5th graders to their campus since 2003 and following them until high school graduation, offering encouragement, tutoring and support from trained university student mentors. Visit the program at http://www.uwgb.edu/phuturephoenix/.

UW-Eau Claire's Blugold Beginnings

This is the third sister program modeled after the original Phuture Phoenix and mounted in the spring of 2010 on the UWEC campus. Shepard also helped to mount this program with UWGB colleagues through a grant from the Great Lakes Higher Education Guaranty Corporation, based in Wisconsin. Visit the program at http://www.uwec.edu/dos/blugoldbeginnings/.

Educational Partners

Compass 2 Campus has strong partnerships in Whatcom and Skagit counties. Partners in the endeavor of encouraging young children to consider some form of higher education in their futures are:

• Whatcom Community College
• Skagit Valley College
• Northwest Indian College
• Bellingham Technical College
• Communities in Schools

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Watch the videos

Check out the videos from Compass 2 Campus over the years:

• 2011 overview of C2C
• VTV segment
• Interview with Cyndie Shepard
• 2010 highlights
• 2010 opening ceremony
• 2010 'cookies with Bruce'
• 2009 highlights

2011 overview of C2C

2011 overview of the Compass 2 Campus program for area students.

Video by Robert Clark

Viking TV segment on C2C

Viking TV segment featuring Compass 2 Campus.

Video by VTV

2010 interview with Cyndie Shepard

Cyndie Shepard was interviewed by Fox Sports Northwest's Brad Adam during halftime of a WWU men's basketball game on campus.

The game was aired live on FSN, and Cyndie's interview was shown live as part of the broadcast.

2010 highlights

Highlights of the 2010 Compass 2 Campus tour for area fifth-grade students.

Video by Robert Clark

2010 opening ceremony

Opening ceremony of the 2010 Compass 2 Campus tour for area fifth-grade students.

Video by Robert Clark

'Cookies with Bruce'

During the 2010 Compass 2 Campus tour, students had the opportunity to ask questions of WWU president Bruce Shepard during a "Cookies with Bruce" segment.

Video by Robert Clark

2009 highlights

Video by Lisa Spicer

How can I help?

Compass 2 Campus is a huge effort, and support is always needed in a variety of ways.

Here's how you can get involved:

• Become a mentor
• Become a lead student
• Volunteer to help
• Donate to Compass 2 Campus

Become a mentor

Every fall, WWU students are recruited into C2C as mentors. The program is linked to two courses; EDUC 201, the introductory course and EDUC 202 the continuing course, offered every quarter except summer.

EDUC 201 - WWU Youth Mentoring I (3 credits): Introduction to mentoring using a service learning approach. This campus-wide initiative is designed to encourage underrepresented, low-income, first generation and diverse 5th -12th grade students to graduate from high school and consider post-secondary education. It teaches C2C students the dispositions/behaviors necessary to become a successful academic mentor for these students.

EDUC 202 - WWU Youth Mentoring II (3 credits; repeatable up to four times for 12 credits): Field based mentoring using a service learning approach. Expands on earlier experiences with underrepresented, low-income, first generation and diverse 5th-12th grade students.

Consult classfinder for current CRN's and class times. All enrolling students must select a class AND a lab. The class meets for the first 3 weeks of each semester. Students then attend the lab portion of the course where a school is selected and hours are served each week at that site.

Volunteer Mentoring

Once a student has completed the 201 course, he or she may also volunteer to continue mentoring in the schools. The student must register with the program as a volunteer and follow program guidelines and procedures to be included. Volunteer involvement is offered every quarter except summer.

A Washington State Patrol background check form must be completed and clearance is required to participate in C2C. Forms are on-line on Blackboard when enrolled in the course and must be submitted by the first Friday of each quarter, with a check for $12 as a processing fee. The Office of Public Safety submits the results to C2C. Cleared students may then enter the classrooms to complete their field experience hours.

Volunteer to help

As part of our tour day on October 25th, many groups of students will be touring the Western campus. We will need to have some experienced adult supervision on campus that day. These adults will be needed as a safety measure to be present on the WWU perimeter, answering questions about locations on campus, helping in emergencies or with problems, maintaining cell-phone communication with the program director to relay needed information, and generally talking with students, acting as ambassadors for the Western campus.

If you would like to be a volunteer for Compass 2 Campus, please fill out the information and return it via completion of the Volunteer Registration Form. You will then be contacted about attending a meeting in late September to set up your volunteer post and give you information about the tour day. Thank you in advance for your willingness to help our young students consider college in their future!

Become a lead student

Compass 2 Campus supports lead student positions through a work study grant and private funding in the schools we serve. These positions will be for WWU students, education students preferred, who either qualify for work study programs through Financial Aid or meet the requirements for the position (non-work study) and who wish to spend 8-10 hours per week working with 5th graders and fellow WWU students for each school year. The responsibilities of these positions include:

• Working with the program director to develop and organize the field placements for the WWU student mentors enrolled in the mentoring course.
• Collaborating with on–site school principals, counselors, and/or teachers to identify and schedule 5th and 6th grade students needing tutoring and/or mentoring assistance.
• Assisting in scheduling WWU students for their field placement experiences; monitoring their work with students; keeping records of their participation.
• Collecting attendance and grade improvement data as directed by principals, counselors and the program director.
• Assisting WWU students assigned to schools with questions, issues of concern, placement, student issues, etc.
• Keeping the program director informed regarding problems, issues of concern, etc.

Educational benefits of this work experience:

Students selected for these positions will be interfacing with 5th, 6th and 7th grade students, teachers, school personnel, and principals in the schools in which they are assigned. They will benefit educationally by developing leadership skills within this milieu, understanding the school community in which they work, building relationships with future educational colleagues, developing teaching and communication skills, and strengthening collegial relationships with their peers as part of a concerted effort to assist young children from low –income, diverse backgrounds. These skills will assist in teacher preparation for these students, thus building their repertoire for future employment in the teaching or human service profession.

Current Lead Students, 2010-2011 School Year:

Donate to Compass 2 Campus

Donations are accepted via the the WWU Foundation website.

Donation Gift Levels

Tour information

C2C Day is Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2011

Each fall, all 5th graders from participating schools are brought to the WWU campus for a "kick-off" tour. The tour day is a coordinated effort between the university, local school districts and the community. The tour is an all day field trip for the students and their teachers and they participate in the following ways:

• Touring "real" WWU classrooms where professors have opened the doors and provided a view of college education for the 5th graders. Over 125 classrooms and demonstrations have been open to our tour guests.
• Touring university housing and activity centers where Western students typically live and participate in university offerings.
• Visiting WWU service centers, so that young students also get a bird's eye view of how to navigate a university.
• Touring the WWU library, a favorite to our 5th graders, to see the educational treasures available to students.
• Viewing Western's cultural resources; sculptures, art galleries, music, theatre and dance performances.
• Lunching on campus with mentors at the Viking Union.
• Opportunities to meet the university administration; the President has "cookies and questions" with the kids to talk and get to know the kids.
• Teachers receive opportunities to extend their education through in-services, dialogue sessions, campus tours and work time with colleagues.

Related links:

• Compass 2 Campus Teacher Form
• Compass 2 Campus Student Interest Form
• Watch video from Compass 2 Campus over the years

News coverage

Stories about C2C and its sister programs appearing in the news media:

• FDLP Connection: Introducing Fifth Graders to Government Publications
• The Bellingham Herald: Whatcom fifth-graders learn about college at Compass 2 Campus day
• The Bellingham Herald: Photos: 2011 Compass 2 Campus
• Western Today: Photos: Area fifth graders learn all about college during Compass 2 Campus tour day
• WWU Press Release: Compass 2 Campus Brings Hundreds of 5th Graders to WWU Campus October 27
• WWU Press Release: Wisconsin Council honors program co-founded by Cyndie Shepard
• Western Front: Compass 2 Campus hosts second annual field trip
• Western Front: Fifth-graders experience campus life