This past Saturday, Wesleyan played host to a group of students of somewhat smaller height than the typical pre-frosh. Arriving by school bus, seventeen students from Hartford’s Annie Fisher Middle School spent the early hours of the morning touring the campus as part of a mentoring program organized by the Kappa Alpha Psi (KAPsi) fraternity.
Every month, members of Wesleyan’s KAPsi chapter go to the Annie Fisher Middle School to mentor students; with 614 students, this is one of the larger, predominantly African American, urban schools in the Hartford area. Last Saturday, students got a chance to visit their mentors and explore the Wesleyan campus, learning about the college experience first-hand from KAPsi brothers and other students.
Led by Kappa Alpha Psi’s former president Fabrice Coles ’05 and fellow fraternity brother James Wallace ’05, the students made a broad circuit of campus, bounding along with the limitless energy and carefree humor of nascent teenagers. Starting on the steps of the Admissions Office, the group surveyed Andrus Field, toured through Olin Library and the Exley Science Center, and ended up at Freeman Athletic Center before finally heading to their bus to return home.
Both engaged and somewhat distanced by the seemingly endless, often foreboding expanse that the campus presented, most of the twelve- to fourteen-year-old students were none too shy in sharing their thoughts on Wesleyan.
“Y’all got no trophies!” shouted one student in protest, peering into Fayerweather Gym’s vast array of empty display cases.
Each month, the KAPsi brothers participate in different mentoring activities with Annie Fisher students, ranging from basketball games to museum visits. The program is designed to provide guidance and companionship to the students while also stressing the value and rewards of education.
“We’d like to think that we’re setting a great example for them and that one day they will go off to college and continue to do great things with their lives,” Coles said, who co-lead the tour. “But also, we are happy about the fact that they can have some fun too. We discuss topics, we play sports, we eat together. It’s a great time.”
On campus since 1986, Kappa Alpha Psi Inc. fraternity belongs to a state-wide chapter that includes member groups at University of Hartford, Trinity College, Eastern Connecticut State, Unversity of Connecticut and Central Connecticut State. The Annie Fisher mentoring program is the latest manifestation a nationwide community service initiative called “Guide Right” that Wesleyan’s KAPsi chapter joined in 1990.
The day’s tour hit most of the major campus landmarks, but the students were especially impressed with the Freeman Athletic Center. After scoping out the indoor swimming pool, they were lead into the Bacon Field House, where a dozen students took off at top speed around the track, only to return panting with exertion. They took a continual interest in many of the sports games taking place around campus; while passing a women’s rugby game on Fauver Field, several students were surprised to learn that rugby, not soccer, was actually the mysterious sport being played.
The visiting students were escorted by their teacher, Karen Brooks, or “Miss Brooks” to her students, who expressed faith in the program’s aims. She explained that the mentoring initiative is crucial in helping to set positive role models for children, letting older college students encourage and motivate younger students.
“I feel that these children have an opportunity to open up their eyes to the different things that the world has to offer outside their urban community,” Wallace said. “Not only do they get to have fun with big brother/ big sister types that share their interests, they can learn from us and our experiences so that they can keep on the right path and give them a sense of security that they are doing the right thing.”
Many of the Annie Fisher students already had ambitious goals in mind; when asked what she wanted to be when she grew up, one young girl replied “a pediatrician,” while a boy professed his hopes to become a basketball star-turned-rapper.
Members of Wesleyan’s chapter of KAPsi were not the only chaperones on the tour as several members from other Hartford-area branches came along to help out and engage the kids. KAPsi has also made an effort to solicit the participation of several school and civic organizations outside the fraternity in helping with the Guide Right program. The Hartford KAPsi chapter has also won Chapter of the Year over the last two years for the strength of its social programming and community service work.
Ashalon Banks, a KAPsi member and the program coordinator for Guide Right, was adamant in his commitment to the program, highlighting its anti-drug, pro-educational emphasis as an essential component of the mentoring system’s success. Stressing the program’s real-world pragmatism, he pointed to a “career day”style program that would bring speakers from several different professions to help educate the students about the job marketplace.
After two hours on campus, the students all grabbed bag lunches and piled onto their school bus for the twenty-five minute ride home. Coles deemed the day’s activities a success.
“Most of the kids were very engaged in the tour we were giving and I enjoyed that responsiveness on their part,” he said.
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