Michigan Journal of Community Service LearningAn Innovative University-Based Mentoring Program:Affecting College Students’ Attitudes and EngagementCarolyn Hughes Megan Welsh Allison MayerJennifer Bolay and Kathryn SouthardVanderbilt UniversityStudents who had enrolled in an innovative university-based service-learning class were asked to reflecton their expectations prior to mentoring youth attending high-poverty high schools, and whether theybelieved they had met these expectations post-mentoring. Findings indicated that students primarily weremotivated by learning about the effects of poverty and forming ongoing relationships with their mentees,and that these expectations generally were met as a result of their mentoring experiences. The unique ser-vice-learning program, which allowed university students to mentor in youths’ actual high school class-es and provided ongoing support for the mentors, may have been critical components of the learningprocess and is described in detail. Recommendations for future research and implications for replicatingsimilar service-learning programs are discussed.Service-learning is designed to provide credit-bearing educational experiences for students toacti v ely address community needs while reflectingon their service acti vity to further their understandingof course content and enhance their ci vic engage-ment (Ash, Clayton, & Atkinson, 2005). A primarygoal of the service-learning movement in higher edu-cation is to increase students’ community involve-ment and a wareness of issues of social justice andsocietal inequities (Einfeld & Collins, 2008; Eyler,2002). The link between experiential learning andpersonal dev elopment is formed through ongoingwritten reflection explicitly tying community experi-ences and course content (Correia & Bleicher, 2008;Dunlap, Scoggin, Green, & Davi, 2007). Althoughlittle research exists in v estigating the process throughwhich social awareness and civic engagement arepromoted (Einfeld & Collins; Jones & Hill, 2003),the reciprocity of benefits experienced by both thestudent and the community may be a contributingfactor (Schmidt, Marks, & Derrico, 2004).An additional service-learning goal is to challengestudents’ negati v e stereotypes and assumptions aboutindi viduals from culturally diverse backgrounds, par-ticularly those from disenfranchised or marginalizedgroups (Boyle-Baise & Langford, 2004). A uniquechallenge occurs when economically privile ged col-lege students interact with members of low-incomeen vironments during their service-learning experi-ences (Dunlap et al., 2007; Jones & Abes, 2004),necessitating efforts to counter potential incidences of“blaming the victim” for the effects of one’ s econom-ic situation (Moely, McF arland, Miron, Mercer , &Fall 2009, pp. 69-7869Illustre, 2002). For example, Rockquemore andSchaf fer (2000) reported that the primarily Whiteaf fluent college students in their study initiallyexpressed deeply rooted negative attitudes toward thedestitute and disenfranchised individuals they encoun-tered during their service-learning experiences. Unlessspecific strategies are introduced to assist students inadopting a more complex view of a social problem,they may perpetuate the “fundamental attributionerror” of locating the problem within the indi vidualrather than considering the conte xt within which abehavior occurs (Rhodes & DeBois, 2006).Mentoring, in which a caring adult provides sup-port to a youth via a one-to-one relationship, may bean ideal vehicle to allow college students engaged inservice-learning to expand their awareness of com-plex social problems (Parks, 2000). Rather than sim-ply encountering a community en vironment on a reg-ular basis, establishing a mentoring relationship withayouthnecessitatesone-to-oneinteractionwiththesame person over time. Aside from the potential ben-efits av ailable to youth in a mentoring relationship—such as social, emotional, and cognitiv e dev elopment(Rhodes, Spencer, Keller, Liang, & Noam, 2006)—through repeated interactions, the mentor has anopportunity to see beyond initial impressions to amore complete picture of en vironmental factors influ-encing youth dev elopment. For example, a mentorfrom a middle class or affluent background initiallymay be shocked by a lo w-income youth’ s limited aca-demic performance and tempted to blame poor gradesor limited skills on “laziness” or “disinterest.”Ho we v er, ov er time the mentor may become aware of70the cumulativ e ef fect on the mentee of poor nutrition,family mobility , inadequate instruction, and limitedschool resources, and begin to realize the differencesin privilege and opportunities av ailable to the youthand those experienced in the mentor’ s own life. Thisexpanded social awareness may prompt the mentor tochallenge her negati v e assumptions about youth fromhigh-pov erty backgrounds and, instead, advocate forsocietal change and social action (Dunlap et al., 2007;Rhodes & DuBois, 2006).Despite the dual benefits of mentoring in terms ofsupporting youth from low-income environmentsand educating college students about socialinequities, few studies of univ ersity-based service-learning mentoring programs are found in the pub-lished literature. The few that exist provide limitedinformation on the content of the service-learningcourse or the mentoring process itself (e.g., DuBois&Neville,1997;Rockquemore&Schaffer,2000).Further, although mentoring in a youth’s own en vi-ronment has the potential to educate mentors first-hand about the challenges facing at-risk youth, nopublished study has been found of a uni v ersity-basedservice-learning program in which mentoring activi-ties occurred in actual high school classrooms serv-ing high-pov erty youth.This qualitativ e study extends the literature on ser-vice-learning and mentoring by addressing two pur-poses. The first is to describe an innovative uni v ersi-ty-based mentoring program in which studentsenrolled in a service-learning class mentor youthattending high-poverty high schools. We believ e thisis the first published study in the United States inves-tigating the effec ts of a university-based service-learning program in which participants mentor high-pov erty youth in their actual high school environ-ments versus a setting removed from the youths’ o wnschools or communities (e.g., college campus cen-ter). This unique program directly addresses potentialstereotyping by college participants by