Mentoring

The Milton S. Eisenhower Foundation announced Monday the launch of three mentoring, tutoring and job-training programs that aim to help children from some of Baltimore's most troubled neighborhoods. Half a million dollars over the next two years will go toward one program that will pair mentors with Barclay elementary school students and two programs in Druid Heights that will work to lower dropout rates among high school students and help those who have already dropped out get diplomas, receive training and find employment.

You empty your pockets of change, keys and pens, walk slowly through a metal detector and raise your arms above your head for a top-to-bottom frisking. A grim-looking security guard unlocks a metal door, then two more, closing each behind you with a "thump" as he leads you further into the detention center. Then a final door swings open. "Welcome," exclaims an affable young woman, gesturing toward a table laden with food and surrounded by fresh-faced teen-aged boys. "Won't you sit down and join us?"

One of the added benefits of Orioles second baseman Brian Roberts being with the team while he continues to recover from multiple concussions is his ability to impart wisdom onto his younger teammates. Roberts has begun to take outfielder Adam Jones and infielder Robert Andino under his wing in teaching them his mentality of stealing bases. "They both seem very interested in that aspect and it's something I feel like I have quite a bit of experience at," said Roberts, who is second on the Orioles' career stolen-base list with 274 and had four seasons of 30-or-more steals.

Mixing kids and coffee is typically ill advised, but in the case of Brian and Holly Gray, the combination has yielded pleasant results. Last August the couple opened Creating Unlimited Possibilities — CUPs — Coffeehouse in Southwest Baltimore's Hollins Market community to give disconnected youth a chance to gain basic job and life skills. Like the Rev. C.W. Harris, who was profiled in a previous Sun article, their work was awarded a $15,000 grant by BMe (Black Male Engagement)

Business and labor leaders in Maryland are being urged to allow their employees to volunteer for the U.S. Department of Labor workforce quality program.The program matches volunteer role models, or mentors, with disadvantaged or at-risk youths. The goal is to motivate the youths to stay in school and acquire basic skills needed to survive in a competitive workplace.In the Baltimore area, information on youth mentoring programs is available fom Kalman Hettleman of the Baltimore Mentoring Institute, at 301-685-8316.

Initially a business concept, then a feminist one, now it's an educational one.Mentoring -- in which someone who has made it helps along someone who hasn't -- suddenly has become hot among educators and others trying to solve high drop-out rates among inner city youth.Mentoring pairs successful members of the community with schoolchildren deemed "at risk" for failing school or falling prey to the crime, drugs or teen pregnancies that pock their neighborhoods.The idea has drawn much enthusiasm, and most major cities have some sort of mentoring program.

The chief executive of a faith-based mentoring program was released on bail Friday after being charged with raping a 15-year-old girl who is a client of the organization, Baltimore police said. Douglas A. Hicks-Bey, 48, who runs B-Moor Youth Services, was charged with rape, child abuse, assault, perverted practice and other sex offenses in connection with incidents that police said took place in his home in the 4000 block of Edgewood Road in Northwest Baltimore. Hicks-Bey was released on $175,000 bail, with instructions to appear in Baltimore District Court for a preliminary hearing Feb. 8. Court documents indicate that the incidents with the girl took place between Jan. 1 and Tuesday.

Dr. Margaret Jensvold hoped to break ground in science -- not law -- when she accepted a prestigious fellowship at the National Institute of Mental Health in 1987.The Johns Hopkins medical school graduate had been named one of the six "most promising" psychiatric residents in the United States. She envisioned a future in research and writing, perhaps chairing a department at a medical school one day.Instead, Dr. Jensvold has all but abandoned that dream to turn a national spotlight on a scientific fraternity she says squeezed her out of its ranks.

To hear her attorneys and other supporters tell it, Dr. Margaret Jensvold had a great triumph and possibly even put a crack in the glass ceiling, that metaphorical barrier said to impede the careers of women and minorities in America.But it is evident her victory in federal court early last month was costly to her. And it was won not without possible damage to the age-old, informal method of teaching known as mentoring."I really think my career as an academic researcher is over," said Dr. Jensvold, who graduated in 1984 from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

IN ALL the fuss about Atholton High School's homecoming, it's nice to remember that a school is also a place for learning. And what better way to learn than by experience? Atholton has a mentoring program in which students can receive credit for time they spend working in a chosen field. The students spend from five to 10 hours a week in the program. It's a good opportunity to explore possible careers. A number of students are considering teaching. Junior Sarah Blackwell is mentoring children at Cedar Lane School in Columbia.

A Baltimore jury convicted a man of robbing, then killing his mentor in a youth program and shooting another man who survived, the State's Attorney's Office said. Antomar Jones, 21, was riding home with his mentor Corey Alexander, 31, and Anthony Taylor, 31, when he pulled out a handgun and robbed both men, according to prosecutors. He made them stop the car in the 5700 block of Nasco Place in the city's Loch Raven neighborhood, and Taylor attempted to flee. Jones shot at Taylor, hitting him in the cheek, but the older man carried on running - hearing a second gunshot as he did so - and made it to Good Samaritan Hospital to get help.

All of us mourn the loss of Richard E. Hug, who had a profound impact on the civic and political life of our community (May 7). I thought it might be useful to single out the incredible impact that Dick had on the formative years of the University of Maryland Medical System beginning in 1984 and continuing to this day. In our privatization process beginning in 1984, Dick was a key member of the first board of directors and, equally important to...

LaVar Arrington was one of the nation's highest-rated linebackers in the nation during his high school and college career. He was named Parade National Player of the Year after his senior year at North Hills Senior High School in Pittsburgh, and he was drafted No. 2 overall in the 2000 NFL Draft after his junior season at Penn State. But the former Washington Redskins star said he never would have reached those heights if he didn't know the fundamentals. That's why he's teamed up with Heads Up Football to help teach youth football players the proper way to play the game.

The university's decision to suspend 27 Tufts players for using sexist and racist comments during a women's volleyball game may have cost the Jumbos a pair of losses to New England Small College Athletic Conference opponents. But coach Mike Daly said he stood behind the penalty. “No regrets whatsoever,” he said Monday morning prior to Tufts practicing at Stevenson's Mustang Stadium in Owings Mills in preparation for Tuesday night's game against the No. 2 Mustangs. “We've got great kids, we've got a great university, and we've got a great lacrosse program.

Former State Superintendent Nancy Grasmick has joined the staff of the Kennedy Krieger Institute, a renowned special education and research institution, where she will lead a new Center for Innovation and Leadership in Special Education.  The Institute announced this week that Grasmick, who started her career teaching deaf children at William S. Baer School in Baltimore, will serve as the director of the newly formed center which they said...

SARASOTA, Fla. - Around this time last year, Manny Machado spent his spring on a nomadic journey shuffling between the Orioles' minor league and major league camps. He wore No. 95. When he made appearances in the major league camp, he dressed in an auxiliary clubhouse isolated from the big league players. But after an early-August call-up from Double-A Bowie - a move that helped propel the Orioles to the playoffs - the 20-year-old Machado is entrenched in the clubhouse this spring.

Wardell Scott, 17, says he was a good student at Patterson High School, but he lost focus and was pressured into fights by rival teen factions.About two years ago, Wardell was kicked out of Patterson in his ninth-grade year because of disciplinary problems. And that, he says, was enough reason to leave school for good and help his father with masonry work. That is, until he was inspired to persevere.Wardell and other young American Indians in the Baltimore area are finding guidance in the Native American Mentoring Program, a big-brother, big-sister arrangement between adults from a variety of backgrounds and Indian children.

WHEN THE BOYS at William Paca Elementary gather for their biweekly, after-school mentoring session, they probably think they are hearing their assistant principal, David Lewis, and in the strictest sense, they are. But in the metaphorical sense, those kids are hearing the words of former Dunbar coaches Bob Wade and Pete Pompey, channeled through Lewis, a former Poets football star turned popular school administrator. "Our kids have so much baggage, and the way I approach them is as a father figure, the way Coach Pompey and Coach Wade did to me, where they gave you that individual time, but you know not to cross that line," Lewis said.

Since 1917, scientists and engineers at the U.S. Army Edgewood Chemical Biological Center have extended their talents and expertise in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) beyond the defense against chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosives threats. They have mentored students in their surrounding community in an effort to inspire, develop and attract a highly-skilled STEM workforce that is prepared to find solutions to complex problems and to tackle the challenges of the future.

Catonsville-based Alpha Omega Technologies performs work for one federal agency, and it wants more contracts - a daunting goal for a small company in a time of tight budgets. But the head of the 25-person software firm thinks he has a leg up after months of assistance from industry veterans, introductions to federal decision-makers, advice about how to get a foot in the door with the National Security Agency, and lots of specifics about how other companies succeeded or got tripped up in pursuing and handling federal work.