CHAPTER 3
JPMorgan Chase Foundation
Fellowship to Improve Educational Outcomes for Young Men of Color
Twinkle Morgan, Calvin Hadley, and Mark Rigdon
An increasing number of business leaders and corporations understand how the crisis facing young men of color impacts their ability to attract and retain the diverse talent they need to compete in the global economy. To address this issue and help build a prepared, diverse talent pool, JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPMC) created The Fellowship Initiative (TFI), an innovative program designed to equip young men of color with the knowledge, skills, and experiences needed to succeed in life.
Program Description
The Fellowship Initiative pursues its mission by providing program participants with the academic, social, and emotional supports they need to complete high school, earn a college degree, and launch successful professional careers. JPMC’s commitment to TFI reflects its belief that corporations have an obligation to actively engage in efforts to address critical social issues and its recognition that while money is important, it’s not enough. Firms like JPMC can bring multiple resources to bear, including, money, talent, and ideas, on the most pressing social issues of our time in ways that drive beneficial outcomes for deserving individuals and communities.
To ensure TFI’s success, the firm leveraged current best practices by recruiting experienced partners and integrating their diverse approaches into a cohesive program. As new, often unanticipated program needs emerged, TFI adapted its framework to address those needs and discontinued areas that were found to be less critical. This approach ensured that the program could be scaled easily and modified in appropriate ways that were responsive to participants’ needs. The firm’s decision to cover all of the costs associated with TFI for all students also ensured that the students were able to participate fully in all program activities regardless of their financial circumstances.
Target Audience
The first cohort of TFI Fellows was recruited from 25 public (non-charter) schools. Leaders from each school were asked to nominate up to five young men of color in 9th grade who showed academic potential but were not yet living up to that potential. Applications for the program were recruited from this pool of 125 nominated students.
The Fellowship Initiative’s admission process was rigorous and demanding. The 12-page application included three student essays; a detailed school/teacher evaluation; two short parent statements; academic records; and general household, financial, and demographic information. The selected students were then invited to participate in two one-on-one evaluations and a group interview with TFI’s selection committee. The information collected from all of these stages in the admission process provided multiple opportunities for the admissions committee to look into the hearts and minds of the candidates and better understand their families, school experiences, and social backgrounds.
While academic achievement and intelligence were factored into the selection process, the core mandate was to identify the least-served students with average grades who exhibited the following characteristics:
A strong interest in attending and graduating from college
Determination and perseverance in the face of challenges
Leadership potential and a commitment to public service
Financial need
After candidates were recommended by the selection committee, TFI’s program staff narrowed the final pool down to the 32 Fellows who were admitted to the program. The most challenging aspect of this task was determining the proper balance of candidates across the higher, middle, and lower segments of the midlevel student population to ensure that the program could properly address the students’ individual and collective needs.
Exhibit 3-1. Recruiting Highlights and Demographics of the Fellows Selected (Class 2017).
Recruiting Highlights |
Demographics |
Target schools invited: 25 |
Average grade point average (GPA): 84% |
Students nominated:125 |
Ethnicity: 69% Black/African |
Students interviewed:48 |
22% Latino |
Schools participating:18 |
9% Asian |
Fellows recommended:32 |
Parents’ education: 3% grade school 38% high school |
Schools represented in final selection:15 |
31% some college/no degree |
|
25% college/professional degree |
|
3% information not provided |
|
Income: 7% low income (below $30K) |
|
41% moderate income ($30K–$60K) |
|
13% high income (>$60K) |
|
Free reduced-priced lunch: 75% eligible |
|
25% not eligible |
Of the 32 students admitted to the program, 16 (50%) fit squarely in the academic middle (grade point averages [GPAs] of 80 to 85); eight (25%) were higher performing students, with GPAs in the 85 to 90+ range; and eight (25%) were lower performing students, with GPAs under 80. The decision to admit these students was ultimately driven by applicants’ demonstrated desire to succeed, family, recommendations of school leaders, and their ability to navigate difficult circumstances (Exhibit 3-1).
From the moment the candidates started the program in July 2010, the TFI Fellows were held to high standards, and their families were expected to reinforce these expectations at home. To ensure that everyone understood what was expected, TFI required the Fellows and their parents/guardians to sign a code of conduct agreement that affirmed their commitment to the program and their willingness to comply with all of the demands associated with preparing the young men for college and successful professional careers.
Partners
Implementing TFI necessitated partnering with a number of proven youth development organizations. The initial partners included the following:
• LEAD Global: a national partnership of top multinational corporations and graduate business schools that encourages students to pursue careers in business
• Sponsors for Educational Opportunities (SEO): an academic enrichment and career development program that prepares high school students to gain admission and succeed at competitive colleges and universities nationwide
• Youth About Business (YAB): an entrepreneurial training program that delivers an innovative curriculum designed to prepare youths for workplace success
Shortly after starting the program, TFI staff recognized that the TFI Fellows were going to need more than the services and supports offered by the initial set of program partners. As a result, the following additional partners were recruited:
• Academic: |
Princeton Review for SAT and ACT preparation |
• Global: |
African Leadership Academy |
• Experiential learning: |
Alpine Endeavors, US Navy SEAL Consultant, Outward Bound |
• Infrastructure: |
iMentor |
• College access/success: |
College Summit, Venture Forth Consulting (scholarships/college selection), Essay Intensive (college admissions essay writing and coaching), Write for the Future (college admissions essay writing), JPMorgan Chase Volunteers |
• Social/emotional support: |
Mary Pender Greene Group |
Once assembled, this powerful group of partners was able to address virtually all of the Fellows’ needs. It’s worth noting that the Fellows’ enthusiasm about working with the partners inspired a sustained level of commitment to the program by these organizations and their staff. They came to feel a strong sense of ownership over the welfare and successful development of the students.
Program Model
The Fellowship Initiative’s design emphasized (1) academic development, (2) access to resources and opportunities that disadvantaged students often lack, (3) exposure to people and places that were able to broaden the Fellows’ personal and global awareness, and (4) strong social and emotional supports that encouraged personal growth and accomplishment. Specifically, the core elements included the following:
• Academic preparation through summer and Saturday academies
• Entrepreneurial training and professional development
• Global exposure: South Africa immersion
• One-to-one mentorship via JPMorgan Chase executives
• Social and emotional supports
• Leadership training via classroom and experiential learning opportunities
• College visits
• SAT/ACT preparation
• College access support
• Cultural exposure and networking
• College and scholarship essay coaching via JPMorgan Chase executives
• Speakers series/super-mentors
• College success skills training
To help ensure the success of comparable programs replicating TFI’s model, its core elements are detailed in the following subsections.
Year 1: From the Summer After Freshman Year to the End of Sophomore Year
Once admitted, each student attended a 1-week business camp designed to enhance analytical, leadership, and teamwork skills. This launching point, hosted on Columbia University’s campus, was also selected to provide students with residential college experience and the opportunities associated with higher education. Two days of intense instruction in the basics of corporate finance were followed by a 3-day mergers-and-acquisitions exercise during which the Fellows assumed the roles of company chief executive officers (CEOs), chief financial officers (CFOs), and chief operating officers (COOs) who were responsible for trying to negotiate a merger deal. The experience provided an opportunity for the Fellows to apply what they learned earlier in the week, and exposed Fellows to the broad world of the financial services sector. The Fellows reported that the experience motivated them to excel in school so that they could qualify for the kinds of careers they learned about during the week.
Immediately following the business camp, the Fellows participated in a rigorous 3-week summer academy and a 9-month Saturday academy curriculum. The curriculum was adopted from the SEO Scholars Program, which used the New York State learning standards and core curriculum in English and mathematics as the foundation for advanced lessons. The supplemental academic instruction focused on critical thinking, reading comprehension, vocabulary acquisition, writing, grammar, and math. The Saturday academies were held three Saturdays per month, during the school year and the curriculum introduced each week was modified repeatedly to ensure that it responded to the unique needs of the Fellows as their academic strengths and weaknesses became more apparent.
In the third month of the program, Fellows were paired with mentors from the firm. The mentors were tasked with helping to identify developmental needs among the Fellows and counseling them about what was required to succeed in college and the corporate world. All mentors were JPMC professionals who committed to working with their mentees for at least 1 year and ideally for the length of the high school program. Mentors were also asked to maintain weekly email contact with their mentees and to participate in four to six TFI group events annually.
Beginning in the second semester starting in January, mandatory tutoring was added 1 day per week for those Fellows who struggled most in math and English. Students’ performance during the previous week’s Saturday academy was used to drive the content that tutors worked on with the Fellows.
Year 2: From the Summer After Sophomore Year to the End of Junior Year
Recognizing that personal growth is accelerated when individuals are taken out of their comfort zones, TFI selected an outdoor leadership experience that was designed to expose Fellows to a variety of stressors intended to help them understand that they were capable of much more than their current perceptions of their personal limits permitted.
In consultation with qualified wilderness experts, TFI designed a 10-day outdoor leadership experience that included a 6- to 10-mile daily hike through high mountains, rock climbing, and rappelling up and down 100+-foot elevations, and a series of challenges that required teamwork, as facilitated by strong leaders. The first half of the expedition focused on teaching outdoors skills—cooking, equipment usage, camping, use of map and compass, and so on. The second half put these skills into practice and culminated with a task that required quick decision making under adverse conditions and forced the Fellows to think out of the box to solve vexing wilderness survival challenges.
The experience was extremely demanding physically, mentally, and emotionally, but a majority of the Fellows reported that it had a profound impact on them. They noted that the trip strengthened their capacity to make sound decisions under extreme pressure with limited information. It also helped them develop strategies for managing stress, controlling impulses, and persevering in the face of obstacles. Finally, it broke down the remaining barriers that separated the Fellows and facilitated a bonding among them that proved critical to the program’s long-term success. However humbling it was for the Fellows to live out in the wilderness for close to 2 weeks, their collective experience helped build the Fellows’ resiliency and self-confidence.
Following this experience, TFI hosted a 3-week summer academy that focused on English and mathematics (see curriculum above). Students continued these lessons through the fall of their junior year at Saturday academy sessions, again held 3 weekends per month.
January to May of junior year was dedicated to a 12-week Saturday SAT preparation course taught by the Princeton Review for June SATs. TFI also hosted a 3-day college trip to five colleges in the northeast to help determine the best match for each Fellow’s needs. The schools visited included a large state school, a small liberal arts school, a private college/university, and other colleges with distinguished programs. Fellows later visited a historically black college and completed a brief ACT preparation course as well.
Exposing the Fellows to current trends in culture, business, and politics was a fixed element of TFI’s programming each year. Examples included the Fellows’ participation in the Steve Harvey Mentoring Weekend, attending an off-Broadway show about the Tuskegee airmen, and visiting the White House and the U.S. Capitol.
These experiences allowed the Fellows to engage in discussions with some of the country’s most well-known icons, who served as super-mentors and shared their life stories, pointing out the similarities they shared with the Fellows. This experience helped the Fellows understand that their distant dreams were achievable if they remained focused and worked relentlessly to achieve success.
Year 3: From the Summer After Junior Year to the End of Senior Year
In the summer after the Fellows’ junior year, TFI partnered with the African Leadership Academy (ALA) in Johannesburg, South Africa, to offer the Fellows a global immersion learning experience. The ALA is notable as a school that trains future generations of African leaders. The Fellows were paired with these remarkable students for a 2-week civic leadership development program that also included related cultural visits to the Apartheid Museum, Soweto, other historical sites, and the Pilanesberg Game Reserve. Having an opportunity to live with the African students, many of whom came from backgrounds of extreme hardship and poverty, provided the Fellows with a sense of perspective that helped them view their own circumstances in new ways that further inspired them to achieve their own transformative dreams and become more active in the civic life of their communities.
College Access
Following the trip to South Africa, the remainder of the Fellows’ summer was devoted to kick-starting college applications and writing their personal essays. This process helped the Fellows explore their personal histories and take stock of their strengths and weaknesses. It also convinced the staff that the group needed more intense college access support to ensure that the Fellows were successful in positioning themselves for admission to a range of schools that offered the quality academic programs and support systems the students needed to thrive.
Recognizing this need, TFI partnered with a number of college access specialists to ensure that the Fellows positioned themselves in the best possible light. The first of these partnerships was with College Summit, a nonprofit organization working to increase college enrollment rates among low-income students. Fellows and TFI staff attended College Summit’s 4-day summer program, where they spent hours mining their personal histories to discover critical details that could help explain why they would be an asset to any college or university program. TFI’s in-house writing teacher then coordinated a 5-month extended effort to recruit and engage a team of JPMC volunteers as one-on-one writing coaches who helped the Fellows further develop their essays through December of their senior year. Concurrently, TFI engaged experienced and well-respected consultants in the admissions and scholarship community to assist with school selection decisions and help identify suitable scholarships for which the students would be compete for.
The Fellowship Initiative also engaged psychosocial counselors to deliver programming designed to help the Fellows learn how to seek the critical social supports needed to transition successfully from high school to college. This meant explicitly addressing the challenges of transition from high school to college and proactively working with the Fellows to develop their self-awareness and coping skills.
There are a lot of reasons why students of color, particularly young men, fail to finish college. They include financial, academic, and social stressors that negatively impact students’ ability to be successful in college. TFI’s college success programming focused on helping them develop success strategies—everything from navigating roommate issues, to identifying on-campus resources, planning for effective time management, and obtaining internships during the spring of their senior year.
Following their enrollment in college, the Fellows have continued to receive support from SEO’s college counselors who interact with the Fellows regularly to make sure they are applying the strategies that they learned prior to their graduation from high school. In addition, during holiday breaks, the Fellows are given opportunities to participate in workshops on GPA management and effective study strategies. Other key collegiate skills will be provided throughout their college career.
Program Impact
The Fellowship Initiative was designed to change the life trajectories of young men of color. Measuring that change is difficult in the best of circumstances, because the causal link between TFI and the Fellows’ development is not always direct or linear. Because program evaluation models prioritize quantitative data so heavily, they can become blind to—or easily discount—great, even life-changing, progress that occurs imperceptibly over time. Recognizing this issue, TFI attempted to capture appropriate qualitative and quantitative data that could help tell a more integrated story about the impact that the program had on the life outcomes of its participants.
Retention
The Fellowship Initiative recruited 32 students in 2010. After the 3-year high school pilot, 24 students (75%) completed the program. Eight students did not complete the program for the following reasons:
• Six left due to poor mission and culture fit, including discipline problems. TFI encouraged these Fellows to leave the program.
• One left because he did not like the program design and the focus and scope of offerings.
• One left because he and his family relocated elsewhere.
Employee Engagement
More than 100 JPMorgan Chase professionals worked with Fellows as mentors, coaches, role models, speakers, or volunteers in various capacities. These business leaders and professionals were instrumental in reinforcing TFI’s culture of excellence and its aligned values.
High School Graduation
All the Fellows graduated from high school on time.
College Entrance Exams
The Fellowship Initiative’s Fellows outperformed national test-takers on both SAT and ACT composite scores, with a score of 1536 for TFI versus 1500 for the SAT national average, and 21.7 for TFI versus 21.1 for the ACT national average. On the SAT, TFI Fellows scored 21% higher than African American males and 11% higher than Latino males. On the ACT, TFI Fellows scored 28% higher than African American students and 15% higher than Latino students.
College Acceptance
All participating Fellows were accepted into 4-year colleges, with an average of nine acceptances per students; 70% of Fellows enrolled in colleges rated as very competitive to most competitive in Barron’s 2011 Profile of American Colleges; 58% of Fellows are first-generation college students.
Scholarships
Students in the program were awarded a total of $8.4 million in institutional awards and private scholarships in 2013.
College Financing
Over half of the Fellows (54%) have 90% or more of their college costs covered by institutional or public grants and scholarships.
Psychosocial Development
One of the program’s greatest outcomes was the influence it exerted on the healthy psychosocial development of the Fellows. Their experience in the program will fundamentally alter the Fellows’ life opportunities and their viability in the upper echelons of the workforce. The best proxy indicator of this comes from the voices of the Fellows themselves, who acknowledged the role the program played in elevating their academic goals and career aspirations, in addition to, facilitating life-changing personal growth. These voices were captured as part of a documentary about TFI produced in 2013 and in survey data collected from the Fellows. Notable insights gleaned from this information include the fact that 90% of the Fellows are committed to pursuing a master’s degree or other graduate degree following college. The Fellows made the following observations:
• “I am able to see potential in myself that was always there; now I strive for excellence.”
• “I am more mature; I push myself harder.”
• “In the years when I could not find the light within the darkness, TFI helped me find my own way to create my own light.”
• “I am much more confident.”
• “The way I carry myself professionally, personally, and socially has improved.”
• “I have been able to unlock my inner drive.”
• “TFI has helped my professional development and has pushed me to always think critically about my self-image.”
• “I learned to take advantage of all of the opportunities before me.”
• “I have become aware of my actions and I have homed in on and refined my raw talent.”
• “The way I carry myself has people thinking I am older than I am. I am more organized.”
• “I actually care about academics and my future.”
• “I think of how my actions will affect me in the long run.”
• “I don’t talk as much; I listen more.”
• “I’ve learned that I have to take responsibility for things I do.”
• “My attitude, work ethic, skills, and professionalism are better.”
• “I’ve become more responsible and mature.”
• “I understand ambition and what it takes to be successful.”
Conclusion
Our experience with TFI generated many lessons about how best to expand the horizons of young men of color and assist them in achieving their potential. Specifically, we learned the following:
• The cause and effect of success is not always precise or linear.
The Fellowship Initiative’s original paradigm for “success” was focused on achieving linear gains in academic performance that correlated with the amount of time spent in the program. In reality, TFI staff observed that Fellows lives were changing so much as they acclimated to the program during its early phases that merely sustaining academic performance levels became a benchmark of success. Only when the initial social/emotional work required by TFI had taken root among the Fellows were they able to see themselves as successful students and to improve their performance. Ultimately, this transformation in the Fellows perceptions of themselves as academically capable students was deemed as important an indicator of success as the actual gains in the Fellows’ GPAs.
• Address social and emotional needs first to set the stage for academic development.
Within the first 12 months, TFI lost seven Fellows from the program. This attrition prompted TFI staff to examine more closely how the structure of the program impacted its participants. Through this process, staff learned that the program offered limited opportunity during the Saturday academies for open discussions that could help students process and manage the complicated issues they were facing in their lives. From 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. each Saturday, the Fellows took six rigorous academic classes, with only 1 hour for lunch/social time. This regimented schedule meant that there simply wasn’t enough informal time to facilitate proper relationship building among the Fellows and with the staff. As staff worked to correct these problems, they restricted the Saturday academies to permit more time for interaction and discussion. This proved critical to helping Fellows improve their social and emotional management skills that were interfering with their ability to focus on improving their academics.
• Increase programming/direct contact hours/psychosocial partnerships.
When TFI shifted its model to accommodate more informal interaction between the Fellows and staff, it became clear that their emotions and their relationships with their family and peers had significant impact on what they learned and how constructively they were able to apply it. As a result, during the second and third years of the program, TFI worked closely with partners to develop programming and workshops that bolstered the Fellows’ ability to manage stress effectively and become more resilient in the face of adversity. This proved to be a critically important driver of the program’s success.
• Designing an effective method to build trusting relationships is as valuable as designing a curriculum.
As TFI staff built stronger relational trust with the Fellows, they began to seek help more often, allowing the staff to provide proper, timely guidance. Consistency in staffing was important in sustaining deep trust with the Fellows. It allowed the staff to become extended family members for the Fellows. Finally, it was important to establish a culture in which the Fellows never felt judged by staff early on in the life of the program. This allowed students the freedom to express themselves and share their innermost thoughts, which helped them resolve issues more quickly and proactively.
A key finding was that relationship building could have been accelerated by engaging with the Fellows in activities similar to those of the outdoor leadership experience at the beginning of the program. These experiences forged bonds and provided staff with stronger insights about and understandings of the Fellows.
• Not shirking from the challenging profiles of students proved inspiring to everyone involved.
The Fellowship Initiative sought to achieve the best possible outcomes for the Fellows. To facilitate this, the program leveraged each Fellow’s individual strengths to motivate and inspire the group as a whole. Those Fellows who marshaled the strength to overcome significant life challenges became models of perseverance and emotional fortitude, while those who faced academic challenges head-on became role models of scholastic resiliency. Once everyone realized that together they were stronger than the sum of their parts and that it was okay to lean on one another for support, the Fellows were able to deal with their individual and collective challenges more productively.
• JPMorgan Chase was able to lend its institutional “blue chip” excellence to individual lives.
Hosting the TFI program on JPMC premises proved to be important because it communicated to the Fellows that they were important to the firm and the broader world. The stability of coming to the Saturday academies also proved to be an important constant in the unstable lives of many of the Fellows. For these students, JPMC’s classrooms became not only a symbolic home, but a place where people expected excellence from them, despite their circumstances. This helped them to feel proud of who they were and where they were going.
• Academic enrichment must be multifaceted and flexible.
The Fellowship Initiative’s reliance on whole group instruction was not always optimal given the diverse academic needs of the Fellows. A more effective instructional approach would likely have included the following:
Differentiated instruction that permitted more personalized academic support.
More activity-based learning that provided outlets for releasing Fellows’ stored-up energy.
Better control of the diversity of school course content and rigor. As an example, TFI could have used diagnostic tests as part of the recruitment process to better understand the range of academic abilities represented among the applicants and assess their suitability for the program’s level of rigor.
Capacity to offer direct-service to students whose school GPA suffered as a result of social-emotional challenges.
• The people are the key to leadership, creativity, program design, and implementation.
The original TFI model called for a full-time executive director charged with designing the program, identifying program partners, and overseeing program implementation. During the recruitment process, the team recognized that a day-to-day program manager was also needed to provide continuity across program staff; to build relationships with students, families, schools, and partners; and to be a role model and disciplinarian. Together, the executive director and the program manager were also responsible for developing a culture that was accepting of all the Fellows, supportive of their efforts to grow, and rigorous in demanding that that they do their best.
The Fellowship Initiative recognized that, beyond a job description, one of the most important roles for the staff—full-time or part-time—was to serve as living, empathic role models for the Fellows. This necessitated the recruitment of people who not only were expert in their content areas but also understood adolescent development and the myriad issues that the Fellows experienced in their daily lives. All staff also needed to maintain a high level of cultural sensitivity to how family traditions/religion/community expectations impacted Fellows’ identity, views, and career aspirations. Finally, TFI staff had to possess the ability to offer ongoing constructive feedback when Fellows made poor decisions and to use these decisions to create teaching moments that reinforced the skills and strategies that the program sought to instill in its participants.
• Stability of operating infrastructure (facilities) and funding resources extended staff capacity.
The Fellowship Initiative’s guaranteed funding freed staff from the pressures of fund-raising and enabled them to support the holistic development of the Fellows. This might not have been possible if they constantly had to demonstrate the program’s effectiveness in improving student GPAs.
• Teaching the family is as important as teaching the Fellows.
It is critical to establish strong partnership with families, especially when they have other children to care for and work long hours to support their families. To do this, it is critical to communicate early and often with families to ensure that they are supportive of the program’s goals.
• Many times you have to “break down” before you can “build up.”
There is a growing body of psychology research focused on essential traits that contribute to human development and success, such as persevering despite obstacles, building stamina, and developing “grit.” These traits are notoriously difficult to teach. Key to the development of these traits was the Fellows’ 10-day outdoor expedition. The challenges posed by caring for themselves in variable and unpredictable outdoor conditions, hiking steep terrain, or climbing rock walls involved real risks. These risks, both physical and emotional, helped to educate the Fellows about their true character and their ability to cope in adverse conditions.
The time spent outdoors also promoted more authentic communication among the Fellows and created a safe space where they could express themselves freely, expose their innermost fears, and discover new strengths. This helped them acquire an increased self-awareness and the ability not only to recognize their emotional states but also to self-regulate their emotions and behaviors, new skills that were critical to their overall development.
• Enhance mentoring relationships: create opportunities to build natural bonds and maximize get-to-know-you time.
There is inevitable variation in the strength of mentoring relationships across any mentoring program. When TFI began recruiting and training mentors, program leaders were mindful of the research that indicates that poor mentoring relations, particularly those ending within 3 months, have a greater negative impact on a young mentee than having not engaged in the mentoring relationship at all. With this understanding, TFI took great care to make the best possible matching decisions, and aimed to provide mentor–mentee pairs with guidance and support that would facilitate high-quality mentoring relationships. That said, 45% of Fellows reported their 3-year mentoring experience with TFI was very positive, 40% reported it being somewhat positive, and 15% reported it being somewhat negative.
Fellows and mentors were matched in September 2010, approximately 10 weeks after the Fellows began TFI and 14 weeks after the mentor recruiting and training process was launched. The TFI team ultimately learned that the compatibility of the mentor–Fellow matches would have been stronger had staff waited longer to create pairs. As an example, the level of knowledge gained about the Fellows after the outdoor experience or from repeated Saturday programming would have been valuable in understanding what type of adult might work best with each one. Mentor–Fellow matches also would have benefited from an informal period beyond the mentor training to get to know one another through shared activities. Then more organic bonds would have grown, and mentors would have had sufficient time and gained sufficient trust to develop a high caliber of communication with Fellows.
Program Update
In the fall of 2013, the firm reviewed the results from TFI and concluded that they merited recruiting a second student cohort in New York and expanding the program to Chicago and Los Angeles. To facilitate this expansion, additional program staff was hired in early 2014. Then the new staff began recruiting new students. Between April and early May, the staff collected applications from more than 300 students across all three cities. Qualifying students and their parents/guardians were then invited to interview for admission, and, by mid-June, 120 students (40 in each city) were admitted into the program. In late July/early August, the new Fellows attended week-long residential orientation sessions at local universities in each of the three cities to prepare them for the program and to begin the process of building TFI’s distinctive culture. In early October, the Saturday academies began meeting and will continue to do so three Saturdays a month during the next three school years. We are fortunate to have an opportunity to apply the lessons learned from the first TFI cohort and will strive to innovate our model as we adapt it to meet the needs of the 120 talented young men with whom we are currently working.