| Jessie's Gift Mentoring Program | |||||
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 From left: Emi Guimond, Ted Pickett, Mike Culliver, Kate Faasse, Sarah Richardson, Matti Smith, Meg Goebel, Nicole Flood, Nikki Pavona, Meagan Burton, Danielle Russo, Carlen Kernish, Ashley Wright, Regan Hedges, Nick Lerma, Emily Lawrence, and Co-Instructor Terry Langston Jessie’s Gift is a research/mentoring program that links Albion College students with local elementary school children in an intensive service-learning partnership. Albion College students commit one unit both fall and spring semesters to tutoring and mentoring local youngsters who exhibit behavioral and/or academic difficulties that threaten their future school success. The specific goals for each child will be worked out in collaboration with teachers and parents, along with the children themselves. In general terms, then, the goals of this program are to build strong relationships between Albion College student mentors and local kids, raise these children’s aspirations for the future, deepen their attachment to school, improve their basic academic skills where possible, and reinforce their positive social skills. Jessie’s Gift honors the legacy of Jessie Driscoll Longhurst who participated in an earlier Building Assets in Middle School Girls program during the 2001-02 academic year when she was still a senior at Albion High School. Jessie’s passion, wisdom, energy, generosity, and incredible sense of humor, along with her heartfelt commitment to racial justice in America, are the benchmarks against which we will be measured. Her dedication to the Albion community and its children was truly a gift to us all. Jessie's Gift is also a research seminar in which students are expected to articulate a specific research question related to childhood, inequality, race relations, gender, or some other factor that shapes the lives of children in the Albion community, and to explore these question in depth over the course of this academic year. This seminar emphasizes the learning component of “service-learning” in other words and is designed to prepare graduates for their personal and professional lives after Albion College. |