The annual Male Initiative Project conference at DePaul The Community Outreach team within EMM’s
Center for Access and Attainment (CAA) was recently awarded a grant from the Vincentian Endowment Fund
to establish a pathway to DePaul for males of color from Chicago through its partnership with the Male Initiative Project (MIP), a school-based mentoring program for African-American and Latino males from Chicago public and Catholic schools.
Strategically Increasing Enrollment for Males of Color
A strategic goal of the project is to more intentionally develop a pathway to DePaul for males of color. Community Outreach reaches nearly 400 high school and middle school males annually through MIP activities. Key actions were identified to better engage this population and the entire network of MIP schools in the enrollment process:
- Build MIP participation in CAA pathway programs such as CAA's College Connect, a summer program focused on academic enrichment, cultural exploration and career awareness for high school junior and senior students from Chicago’s schools.
- Engage staff from Undergraduate Admission to encourage freshman applications to DePaul as well as explain the DePaul Admission Partnership Program (DAPP), a transfer program designed for students beginning their college education at a community college.
- Collaborate with campus partners to create more opportunities for MIP participants to visit campus and learn about what DePaul has to offer, including interactions with DePaul males of color.
Strengthening College Readiness Curriculum
Another goal of the grant is to build community among MIP schools and participants while providing them with a learning experience that assists with college readiness. To this end, a pilot group of two to four schools will utilize Remix Learning, a digital learning platform that pairs technology and mentoring to facilitate learning. This tool was developed by CDM professor, Nichole Pinkard, who is providing the software for shared research and analysis with Community Outreach for future projects.
Previous funding from the Bank of America Foundation allowed Community Outreach to pilot Remix Learning last academic year and conduct an evaluation of its effectiveness. Informed by the results, the curriculum will be strengthened with assistance from COE faculty member Horace Hall. Community Outreach will work with participants to increase use and engagement with the tool.
DePaul’s Long-standing Commitment to the MIP Partnership
Since 2007, DePaul has partnered with MIP, a network of school-based mentoring programs within several middle and high schools designed to improve the high school graduation and college completion rates of African-American and Hispanic/Latino males. In light of funding challenges within CPS and partner schools, Community Outreach has demonstrated DePaul’s commitment to the success of MIP in many ways, including securing grant funds which allow DePaul to help sustain the program and increase its effectiveness.
Areas across DePaul have embraced this partnership program in mutually beneficial ways. Faculty, staff and students have come together to provide workshops for the two annual MIP student development conferences (which together average more than 350 males in attendance); nursing students have gained valuable hands-on experience conducting health screenings for conference participants; and research opportunities have been provided for graduate psychology students.
For more information about DePaul’s involvement with MIP, click
here.