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HBCU DIGEST, BLACK PR WIRE: Statewide minority mentoring program

HBCU Digest, Black PR Wire
10-31-13, 11-1-13
SEC statewide minority mentoring program

HBCU Digest and Black PR Wire reported on the College of Education’s partnership with Florida’s historically-black colleges and universities to form the Situational Environmental Circumstances (SEC) mentoring program. The statewide program matches student mentors at the colleges and universities in Florida with minority male elementary school students. Cheryl Williams, the College of Education’s community and government liaison and the SEC’s assistant director, and Randy Nelson, founder of 21st Century Research and Evaluations, were quoted in both articles. 

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UF, historically black colleges and universities launching statewide mentoring for at-risk minority youth

Cheryl Williams and Michael Bowie, the prime drivers behind the recent launch of a statewide mentoring program for at-risk minority youth.

Cheryl Williams and Michael Bowie, the prime drivers behind the recent launch of a statewide mentoring program for at-risk minority youth.

Research has shown that minority youth in Florida are less likely to graduate from high school and more likely to encounter law enforcement officials compared to their white peers.

University of Florida education researchers want to reverse that trend through a new program that will provide 150 at-risk minority students, particularly young black males, with role model mentors and other supportive services as a way to increase the students’ chances of academic and social success.

Collaborating in the effort are the UF College of Education, historically black colleges and universities in Florida, state legislators including senators Christopher Smith and Dwight Bullard and Representatives Perry Thurston and Dwayne Taylor, and community organizations including Partnership for Strong Families and 21st Century Research & Evaluations, Inc. 

“We need to provide children with viable options that will lead them towards a successful life,” said Cheryl Williams, the College of Education’s community and government liaison, who worked with Florida legislators to secure funding for the mentoring project. “Education is a key component of that success.”

With $619,000 funded by the Florida Legislature, the Situational Environmental Circumstances Mentoring Program (SEC) will match student mentors at the historically black colleges and universities in Florida with minority male elementary school students. The mentor-mentee pairs will share similar challenging backgrounds such as low socioeconomic home environments, delinquency records and poor academic achievement.

“It makes good sense to start at the elementary level because we have the opportunity to intervene in a trajectory that often leads to the prison pipeline,” Williams said. “From an early age, we can change their outlook and impact on our global society.”

The high school graduation rate for black males in Florida is about 47 percent, according to the Schott Foundation for Public Education’s 2012 “Urgency of Now” report. Government data also shows that black males constitute 47 percent of the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice and 46 percent of the Department of Corrections’ incarcerated populations.

To reverse this trend, the SEC model is rooted in the idea that “high-risk youth have various situational and environmental circumstances that impact their life choices and opportunities for success,” said Randy Nelson, the founder of 21st Century Research & Evaluations, Inc., a Tallahassee-based human services firm, and the lead developer of the SEC model.

“The traditional model of attempting to correct anti-social behavior by adjusting these kids’ attitudes and sending them back into an environment that breeds negative behaviors has not worked,” Nelson said. “We need to teach them skills that will allow them to navigate and negotiate within these environments by showing them how to make good decisions, like choosing a solid education and recognizing what kind of people can lead them down the wrong path.”

This is why the mentoring initiative pairs these underserved children with relatable mentors whose positive behavior they can emulate. 

The mentors for the UF-led project will be chosen from the University of Florida, Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU) in Tallahassee, Edward Waters College in Jacksonville, Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach, and Florida Memorial University in Miami Gardens. Each institution will select and train between eight and 10 mentors, who will receive monthly stipends. After training, each mentor will be matched with three or four at-risk children—or 30 total – from local low-performing elementary schools.

The mentors will meet with each of their mentees four times a month, with two of those being one-on-one. Every other month, SEC leaders will host a workshop on important motivation-building topics, including self-esteem, parent and family issues, anger management, peer pressure, conflict resolution, understanding diversity and goal-setting. After each workshop, the elementary students will have discussions with their college mentors about what they learned.

“What makes this so difficult is that these are elementary school kids and we’re going to have to be much more interactive and simplistic in the way that we present this information to them,” said Michael Bowie, the director and principal Investigator of the state-funded project. Bowie also directs the Office for Recruitment, Retention and Multicultural Affairs at UF’s College of Education.

UF’s aim to help underserved elementary school students is a first for the SEC model, which has been implemented in the past within Florida middle and high schools.

Samuel Johnson, a fourth-year student at FAMU, was a mentor for one of the first SEC programs last year. He mentored four high school students in Tallahassee, and he will be a mentor for the UF-led program as well.

“These kids have had hard lives, but somebody has to tell them things like that they don’t have to own a handgun or they don’t have to start drinking when they’re 12 years old,” Johnson said. “If they want to be a doctor or something, they can. They just need to put effort into it.”

Research tracking the SEC program’s past effectiveness, at the middle and high school grade levels, shows an overall improvement in the youths’ academic performance and attendance and marked reductions in disruptive behavior at school.   

When the UF-led project begins in September, the research team will also evaluate the program’s impact on the elementary school mentees. Bowie said if the mentoring project succeeds with the elementary students, the SEC team will seek funding to continue tracking the mentored youth through the K-12 system and college.

CONTACTS:

Writer: Alexa Lopez, news and communications, UF College of Education; aklopez@coe.ufl.edu; 352-273-4449
Media Relations: Larry Lansford, director, news and communications, UF College of Education; llansford@coe.ufl.edu; 352-273-4137
Source: Michael Bowie

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State scholarship program aids future minority teachers

Carolina Diaz

Sixth-grader Carolina Diaz did not feel like her Hispanic roots made her a minority within the diverse collection of students at her Miami Beach elementary school. Instead, it was her limited grasp of English that made her feel like an outsider.

Things changed when her teacher, a young Jamaican woman, told Diaz that she saw something special in her; Diaz could work as well as other native English speakers, her teacher told her. This minority teacher’s confidence in Diaz was enough to inspire the sixth grader to become a teacher when she grew up.

“I do believe it made a difference for my teacher to be a minority because she made me feel more comfortable,” Diaz said. “As a young student coming from a vibrant Latin culture, white American teachers at times appeared to me as impersonal.”

Years later, Diaz received the Minority Teacher Education Scholarship from the Florida Fund for Minority Teachers (FFMT) to study elementary education at the University of Florida. She received her master’s degree in elementary education and now teaches at UF’s English Language Institute.

Since 1996, the statewide FFMT program, headquartered at UF’s College of Education, has been providing scholarships helping thousands of minority college students pursue dreams of receiving a teaching degree.

FFMT offers a $4,000-a-year Minority Teacher Education Scholarship over two or three years. Incoming juniors of African American, black, Hispanic/Latino, Asian American/Pacific Islander or American Indian/Alaskan Native descent are eligible. Recipients must be enrolled in one of 37 approved teacher education programs in Florida.

Yet for most FFMT scholars, the scholarship offers much more than financial assistance.

“FFMT has made me feel valued,” Diaz said. “The program is supporting diversity because it recognizes that most teachers in the United States are statistically white, middle-class women and FFMT is doing something to change that. It’s not just a statistic that goes unsolved.”

FFMT scholars are required to commit two or three years, depending on the length of their scholarship, to teach in a Florida public school after receiving their degree. If this requirement is not fulfilled, they must repay the scholarship amount to FFMT.

FFMT hosts an annual conference and offers mentoring and pre-professional development for scholarship recipients. FFMT Executive Director Michael Bowie said such training helps foster an understanding and acceptance in today’s students that the world, and Florida in particular, is becoming more diverse every day.

“Having diverse teachers is important for everybody – it shapes us,” he said. “If children don’t see themselves reflected in the classroom, the psychological effect of that is not being able to think ‘I can do that too.’”

In fact, current scholarship recipient Shayla C. Davis, an African-American UF senior studying elementary education, has been able to see the effects of having a minority teacher in the classroom.

“The students begin to look forward to seeing you and you begin to realize how great of an impact you make on their education,” said Davis, an intern at Williston Elementary School.

One third-grade girl of a minority background once approached Davis and said, “Miss Davis, I want to be a teacher just like you.”

“That just shows how much students are watching you, and how much of a difference you make by just being there for them,” Davis said. “They just appreciate interacting with someone who looks like them.”

Originally, FFMT was able to offer the scholarship to 700 minority students in the state each year. However, due to millions of dollars in state budget cuts, FFMT can now only aid about 250 prospective teachers.

Since the program’s inception, FFMT has produced more than 3,500 teachers in Florida’s public schools, according to Bowie. He said about 80 percent of scholars remain in teaching or administrative positions at these schools after the two or three years required for the scholarship.

“It‘s a win-win situation for the state,” Bowie said. “This program has demonstrated its success.”

Applicants must be a Florida resident of junior standing in an approved teacher education program at a college in the state. Apply online at ffmt.org.

CONTACTS
SOURCE: Michael Bowie, executive director of the Florida Fund for Minority Teachers, mbowie@coe.ufl.edu; 352-273-4367
WRITER: Alexa Lopez, new media coordinator, news and communications, UF College of Education; aklopez@coe.ufl.edu; 352-273-4449

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