NSBE - Winter 2010/2011 - 10

ThE ProgrAMs zoNE

TAPPING THE POWER OF YOUTH
By Eric Addison

SBE’s focus this year on Pipeline Development is generating a number of new ideas about how to get and keep more young black students on the path to engineering careers. It has also led to new spins on two old ideas: Adopt-A-NSBE Jr. and PCI (Pre-College Initiative) 150. NSBE hopes that revamping these initiatives will extend its collegiate members’ outreach to middle school and high school students. Adopt-A-NSBE Jr. was launched in 2004. Just as its name implies, the initiative provides incentives for NSBE collegiate and Alumni chapters to support existing NSBE Jr. chapters or start new chapters. “A collegiate or Alumni chapter in a certain area would go out to a local high school or middle school and pull that chapter under its wing,” explains NSBE Pre-College Initiative Manager Franklin Moore. “They would invite the NSBE Jr. students to come to programming on the collegiate side and would assist them through pre-college visits and tutoring sessions, as well as help them with the technical competitions.” This year, Adopt-A-NSBE Jr. was relaunched with a new focus on outreach from the collegiate chapters. “I think the collegiate members are uniquely positioned to reach young kids who are out there in the community,” says NSBE National Chair Calvin Phelps, who is a master’s degree student at Cornell University, “and not just necessarily by starting a NSBE Jr. chapter, although we definitely want them to do that. It’s really just about being out there in the community and showing our kids our faces, so they can see that there are young black people who look just like them who are doing these things in the STEM fields.” NSBE Membership Coordinator Kenjie Davis says the process for participating in Adopt-A-NSBE Jr. has been streamlined this year. “We’ve made it a lot easier for individuals to be a part of it and be engaged in it,” Davis says. “For example, we’ve eliminated the form that was required to participate. Now the initiative is really centered (on) getting the chapters engaged and getting them involved with the NSBE Jr. students. If you set up a new chapter and get the chapter to active status, or if you take a chapter that’s been defunct and bring it to active status, you’re automatically entered into a drawing. The prize is seven free registrations to the Annual Convention: one

NSBE hopes to extend its collegiate members’ outreach to middle school and high school students.

chaperone registration and six NSBE Jr. student registrations.” NSBE’s Pre-College Initiative chair, Whitney Pollard, says she’s made the PCI 150 program a main focus during the early part of her term. “We’re bringing back and implementing PCI 150, in line with the Academic Excellence national directive,” says Pollard, who benefited from the program herself when she was a high school student in Baton Rouge, La. “What the program basically entails is allowing collegiate students to tutor NSBE Jr. members on SAT, ACT and PSAT preparation and other college admissions prerequisites, and also to provide mathematics and science tutorials. “The name of the program is going to be changed, because PCI 150 only served 150 students nationwide,” Pollard reports. “NSBE paid for those students to participate in Fall Regional Conferences, Annual Conventions, Try-Math-A-Lon and the Science Fair. We want to touch more than just 150 students now.” Pollard says the plan this year is to expand participation by decreasing the per-student cost of the program. Travel and benefits will be scaled back. Davis points out that up to now, NSBE’s efforts to enhance collegiate involvement in the Pre-College Initiative program have been based on increasing the amount of work that members put into the program and the numbers of members who are doing the work. He believes the next step should to find ways to make the programs more efficient in delivering services. “It’s definitely a lot of work,” Chairman Phelps concurs. “But it’s not something that has to be a massive, massive time commitment. Really, you gain a lot more by having lots of small interactions with students than you do from having massive programs. I think one thing college students can do is be available to the younger students once or twice a week; come in and help the students with their homework for an hour. And it doesn’t have to be the same NSBE collegiate member every week.” Pollard says she believes the benefits to collegiate mentors run both ways. “I feel that it’s a plus on both sides, because if it’s done correctly, you’re introducing students to your university. Then they can not only increase your community service and your mentoring of students but also help with the enrollment iswww.nsbe.org

10 • nsbe magazine • winter 2010/11

NSBE - Winter 2010/2011

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NSBE - Winter 2010/2011