Western senior Amy Tiland (left) hands out wizard hats to the group of Washington Elementary students she, senior David Chong (center) and sophomore Chelsea Roys (right) led around for the day. Photo by Hailey Tucker
Dressed in bright neon T-shirts, hundreds of fifth-graders flooded Western’s campus Tuesday to kick off a program that encourages them to pursue higher education.
More than 800 fifth-graders came to Western for guided tours as part of Western’s mentoring program Compass 2 Campus, directed by Cyndie Shepard.
Compass 2 Campus, funded by private donations, is a pilot program and mentoring initiative that aims to increase access to higher education among fifth-grade students.
The program currently reaches 10 elementary schools across Whatcom and Skagit counties.
“I believe that kids need, at that young age, to have a lot of involvement to show them what is possible in their futures,” Shepard said.
To start off the day’s events, Shepard held a assembly in Carver Gym to welcome the fifth-graders and their mentors. She asked how many of the fifth-graders them wanted to go to high school and college and invited a three of them to the stage where they put on caps and gowns and were given imitation diplomas.
The 450 Western students who signed up to be mentors for the program were divided into four class sections to prepare for and learn about effective youth mentoring, before working with the elementary students.
The students were mentored for three weeks before visiting the schools. The mentors met with their fifth-graders for the first time during the week of Oct. 19 and are expected to make weekly visits to the elementary schools until the end of the quarter.
The mentoring program is intended to help at-risk youth who come from disadvantaged backgrounds and whose parents earn low incomes or have not been to college.
The program will follow the children all the way through high school as a way to encourage them to graduate and pursue higher education.
The program is also a way for college students to become role models for at-risk youth, Shepard said.
Once the fifth-graders recognize they have the potential to go to college, they may be more inclined to do better in school, said Woodring Elementary Education professor David Carroll. Mentors can help children understand what they are capable of academically, he said.
“The mentoring relationship helps these young students develop a sense of identity as potential college students,” Carroll said.
One place the fifth graders visited was the admissions office. During a tour, the person giving the presentation asked a group of fifth-graders what they thought college students did for fun. One child raised his hand and said they attend parties. The presenter and the mentors smiled and looked at each other, then continued to ask the rest of the group what else they thought the students were involved with at Western.
The fifth-graders also explored places including dorm rooms, Wilson Library, the Viking Union Multipurpose Room and the Viking Commons.
The fifth-graders visited classrooms from different departments, such as mathematics, history, communication, biology and chemistry.
Marinel Beltran, Western sophomore and Compass 2 Campus mentor, said she is considering pursuing elementary education.
Beltran said she was able to discover places on campus she had not seen before. She said her group went to the planetarium, a first for Beltran. She said the children in her group were amazed by the size of Western’s campus.
“One of the girls looked straight up at the building,” Beltran said. “She’s like ‘Wow, this school makes me feel [small].’ They were really amazed at the size of our library.”
Western sophomore Jessica Wolfer said the fifth-graders in her group were so excited by what they saw on campus that they decided it would be their school of choice.
“Western is the school they want to go to,” Wolfer said. “They don’t even want to look anywhere else.”
During the last event of the day, mentors and their groups gathered in Carver Gym to eat cookies and ask Western President Bruce Shepard questions about the campus.
Some of the questions asked were whether or not monkeys still inhabited Miller Hall, how much it costs to run the university and what could make Western a better place.
“By having you come here,” he said in response to how to improve the university. “You’re our future. You’re our whole state’s future, which is why we need you here at the college.”
Beltran said she encourages Western students to get involved in the program.
“Anybody from any interest could get something from this course—either being with the students or learning about your school or remembering the value of education,” she said. “I don’t think you could get away after this course without smiling and feeling proud of yourself and feeling like you’ve accomplished something and changed people’s lives.”
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