University Partnerships

Creating University Partnerships has been a long-term goal. Embedding the Tutor/Mentor Institute into one or more universities can unleash the talent and resources of the university and its alumni.

This PDF was created by a team of DePaul students in early 2000 as a "strategic plan" that universities could use as a starting point.

Here are additional pages to learn about this idea:

  • 30 year history of reaching out to universities - click here

Below is a proposed outline of how a university such as Northwestern, Michigan, DePaul (or any others) might be drawn into partnership.

Suggested steps to turn vision into action:

Goal: Development of student/faculty/alumni led marketing program which results in a year to year growth of university faculty, students, alumni in building and sustaining programs which lead at-risk youth into careers. This SlideShare outlines this goal.

One of the products of student research would be creation of a map showing all departments within the university which are connected to this goal (but maybe not connected to each other) The map below was created in 2008 to show departments and organizations at Northwestern University that could be a source of partnership, volunteers, interns, ideas and support for Tutor/Mentor Connection.

NU+cMap.jpg
See actual full size map.

Chris Warren, a 2008-09 PIP fellow from Northwestern University created this graphic, and wrote “Colleges and Universities are full of valuable assets for Tutor/Mentor Programs like ours. They are chock full of smart and engaged people who want to make a difference. However, for better or for worse, universities are multifaceted communities, with a wide variety of buildings, departments, offices…etc. They also have an unfortunate tendency to be composed of various organizational silos that inhibit communication between different parts of the university. “

Our goal is to recruit a team of students, faculty and/or alumni who will act as a “Tutor/Mentor University Connection” connecting the resources of the university to each other, to the Tutor/Mentor Connection, and to tutor/mentor programs operating throughout the Chicago region and the rest of the country.

Steps to achieve this goal:

1) recruit faculty volunteer from undergrad/grad/ and adult ed. This team has to understand and be committed to the long-term potential of being a partner to the Tutor/Mentor Connection by understanding the benefits to university, to teaching, to publishing, to students, to fund raising, etc.

2) recruit student rep from each area to be current year team (Y2K+10 Mentoring_NU Campaign)

Research components of the plan, which will be baselines for future marketing efforts, would be:

1) What is the Tutor/Mentor Connection? What is it's history, goals and strategic plan? Look at how interns have tried to answer this question between 2005 and 2015 by:

  • a) browse the articles in this Ning forum. Look at the profiles of each past intern, and read their reflections.
  • b) look at work other interns have done - review these strategy presentations done by interns; look at these graphics, created by interns
  • c) scroll through this link to find interns from Chicago universities. Read their blog articles and reflections.
  • c) look at articles in the Intern blog, started by Michael Tam, and intern from Hong Kong, in 2006

2) Develop long-term goals, business plan for an on-campus Tutor/Mentor Connection, as "credit" project to be delivered by Dec 31. Work closely with T/MC to do this

Once an on-campus Tutor/Mentor Connection is formed, the actions of the group would mirror actions the T/MC has taken since 1993.

1) Develop a library of information: what is need for youth tutor, mentor and learning programs in the neighborhood and/or city where the university is located, or where students involved in the project live? What are means of student/business involvement in lives of at-risk kids that end with kids in careers? what processes exist to track/report/share best practice and progress reports

2) What youth serving programs already exist in the area surrounding the university, or in its focus area? Build a directory. Plot on maps. Use blogs and social media to share information about these programs.

3) What is current involvement of university family (faculty, alumni, students, admin) in this issue, as volunteers, donors, board members, researchers, etc. (quantify via surveys of these groups). Build a directory and share it on Y2K+10 Mentor-NU web page (built and maintained by student team …as teaching tool)

4) How can the percent of involvement in each of these categories increase, both in quantity, in quality, and in distribution throughout the Chicago region? Solutions should include recruiting students/alumni to volunteer in Chicago/Evanston tutor/mentor programs (and to help start new programs where there are voids, such as in non-school hours programs serving Evanston, IL youth). Could also include students serving as non-paid interns in alumni companies to launch/lead recruitment/involvement campaigns from those companies. This provides manpower to company while offering visibility and introduction of student/job seeker to influential alumni.

This should set the stage for prioritizing some year-round marketing efforts to generate annual increases in each of these categories, with the student/alumni team from one year providing a year-end report to the public (Forbes?) which also provides a vision and outline of goals which the next year's student team will adopt. Note, the alumni team should begin to stabilize after awhile, since alumni do not leave the community as often as students.

This plan provides some recognition and incentive tools which can serve as motivators for students, faculty and alumni to participate. The better they do, the more powerful the recognition/motivators will be in encouraging future and further involvement.

History: This document was prepared in mid 1990s to show goals of partnership with Illinois Wesleyan University. click here

Web sites:
http://www.tutormentorexchange.net
https://tutormentor.blogspot.com/search/label/universityTMC
http://tutormentorconnection.ning.com
http://michaelcnt.blogspot.com/

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