Mercer’s Mentors

By Hirsch, Rod

Professors at colleges and universities in Mercer County are increasingly turning to mentors in the workplace to help supplement what’s taught in the classroom with practical lessons learned on the job and in the real world.

Mentors’ personal experiences can expose students to both the advantages and downside of a given profession and ultimately help a student make a sound career choice.

In addition to providing encouragement or a promising job lead, mentors can be an inspiration or serve as a role model,providing insight with a firm hand and solid advice.

Beyond the confines of a nurturing campus, mentors can help students see for themselves up close and first hand the realities of what it takes to make a living and whether their job choice is a good fit.

Many of the schools count on alumni to volunteer their time as mentors.

“We have wonderful alumni who give their time to interact with students,” said Beverly Hamilton-Chandler, director, Office of Career Services at Princeton University.

“Our ‘Princeternship Program’ is just one of the ways that we are using to fosterconnections between students and alumni.”

The Princeternship Program is a career exploration program that offers Princeton undergraduates an opportunity to start investigating a career field of interest and make professional connections by spending time with alumni in their workplaces.

“The value of the Princeternship Program is in how both students and alumni can benefit together over a short period of time,” Hamilton-Chandler explained.

By spending between one and three days with a mentor, students can “test” a career choice without making a long-term commitment, while alumni have the chance to connect with current Princeton students and share their experiences and reflections about their education and career in a meaningful way.

During the winter and spring of 2008, 20 alumni and 31 students participated in the Princeternship program, according to Hamilton- Chandler.

Opportunities in the fields of architecture, business/ management, engineering, journalism/media, law, marketing, and medicine were available. The Princeternships were located within commuting distance of campus, including New York City and Philadelphia.

Mercer County College is also looking to take advantage of its broad base of alumni who live in the Mercer County area, according to Charles Weatherspoon, student services coordinator.

A pilot program will be launched in the fall semester of 2008 involving upwards, of 15 students, according to Weatherspoon.

“We’ll be approaching the professional community this summer,” he said. “We’ve already outlined the objectives and goals of the mentor program based on the programs we have at Mercer County Community College.”

With the state capital nearby, likely areas of concentration will include government careers and the legal profession, Weatherspoon said.

MCCC was prompted to go off campus to expand its mentor program based on the success of its ongoing student peer-mentoring program.

The Venus and Mars programs – for women and men, respectively – pairs older students who’ve been enrolled at MCCC for at least three semesters with new students, according to Weatherspoon. The groups meet biweekly.

“What we hope to do is create a dialogue, a partnership and friendship to help the younger students understand the nuances of college life,” he said.

The program extends beyond campus, with the Venus and Mars students attending conferences and workshops throughout the state. Last month they traveled to Rutgers-Newark for a conference on community service and service learning projects in conjunction with the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and a second conference at the main Rutgers campus in New Brunswick on student leadership.

Rider University sponsors one of the oldest successful mentoring programs that pairs university students with middle school students from the Trenton public schools.

Minding Our Business was founded in1996 by Dr. Sigfredo Hernandez, College of Business Administration, and since that time the program has touched the lives of thousands of students.

The purpose of MOB is to advance the personal and vocational development of Trenton youth through entrepreneurship education and mentoring, according to Hernandez.

Each semester, the MOB program recruits university students to serve as mentors, who after intensive training set out to help guide the 11-14-year-old Trenton students learn how to start and run their own business.

Students on both ends of the equation benefit from the experience, according to Hernandez.

“It’s a win-win situation for both Trenton students and Rider mentors,” Hernandez said.

“One of the things that came as a surprise to me after the first year of the program is that the mentors benefit as much as the Trenton students do or even more,” Hernandez said.

“This alumni survey confirms that,” he continued, citing statistics compiled from Rider alumni who served as MOB mentors between 1997-2005.

“We asked the mentors to reflect on their learning experience and what they said was it helped them grow and that they developed important life skills through the program,” he said.

According to Hernandez, 79 percent said the program has a positive impact on their communications skills; 78 percent, entrepreneurship; 89 percent mentoring; and 84 percent leadership.

“The program has had a significant impact in terms of the skills they’ve been able to use through the years and at work,” Hernandez said. “In addition to that, they have become more interested in community service because of the program, with working with kids because of the program and they have become more interested in starting their own businesses because of the program.

“As an educator, I wish that all the courses I teach would have the same impact on my students,” Hernandez added. “MOB really energizes me and provides a lot of satisfaction.”

Equally passionate are those students who enroll at Thomas Edison State College, a non-traditional “virtual” institution of higher learning that relies heavily on cyberspace and one-to-one teacher/ student relationships reliant on e-mail and telephone.

“The philosophy of our school is to provide learning opportunities for self-directed adults who are fueled by a passion to learn but who are limited by the need to work or take care of a family; our philosophy is to create opportunities for adults to fulfill their professional goals without sacrificing personal and professional responsibilities,” said Thomas Edison spokesman Joseph Guzzardo.

The key to the success of the programs at Thomas Edison is the reliance on mentors – instructors who work with students on a one- to-one basis; the school chooses not to use the term “professor.”

“Regardless of what the student is taking, there is a one-to-one relationship,” he explained. “What happens is that relationships are built up online or by phone; students are able to get a lot of information from their mentor on how to apply what they’ve learned, that is a very important part of what we do,” he added.

Thomas Edison is the state’s third largest public university, with 16,400 students enrolled at any given time, although that number is fluid, as the school does not adhere to a traditional spring, summer and fall semester; students work at their own pace, and are awarded their certificates or diplomas as they complete their course work, according to Guzzardo.

Copyright Mercer County Chamber of Commerce May 2008

(c) 2008 Mercer Business. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.