Letter from the Conference Chairperson
Daniel F. Bassill (in
1973 with first mentee)
President, CEO of
Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC
and the Tutor/Mentor Connection
Meet Dan on Facebook or Linked In and Twitter
I have been involved as a volunteer and leader of tutor/mentor programs for over
35 years. I believe that comprehensive, volunteer-based non-school
tutor/mentor programs are just as important for helping youth succeed
in school as are well trained principals, smaller class sizes and new
curriculums. Such programs should be available in every neighborhood
with high poverty and poorly performing schools.
Thus most people who have met me have seen me point to maps of Chicago, showing
all of the places where volunteers and dollars are needed for good programs to
operate, not just the place where I need these resources to operate my own
program.
In June 2011 I created the Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC as a new way to support
what I've been trying to do via a nonprofit structure for the past 18 years.
It's the same purpose, just a different tax structure. I hope you'll support it
and that we can attract more investors to build the tools and strategies that
have been underfunded for the past 18 years. I will continue to support the
development of the Tutor/Mentor Connection in Chicago, but aim to help similar
groups form in other cities at a much lower cost than if they were to build this
from scratch.
The article below was written in 1995 when I was first starting the
Tutor/Mentor Connection. Find PDF versions of this and other stories written
since then at
http://www.tutormentorexchange.net/news-pr
If you compare the messages in these newspaper stories, with the messages on on my blog, and the strategies in the Tutor/Mentor Institute web site you'll see I've been giving a consistent message for 18 years. Cities do need a master plan that includes the non-school hours as well as the traditional school day. Resources need to be focused consistently at all high poverty neighborhoods with greater intensity and duration than in neighborhoods with a greater diversity of people who can model jobs and careers and help open doors as kids grow up.
Most importantly, I beleive that mentoring is a strategy that engages adults who don't live in poverty and who don't have kids enrolled in school, but who are needed to provide leaders, dollars and votes in order to create new public policies that support thousands of volunteer-based mentoring-to-career programs in big cities across the country.
I point to articles and videos like this one titled: Role
of Leaders - It show this to the Mayor
of Chicago, or your own city. Build strategies that help more and better volunteer-based tutor/mentor
programs be available to inner city youth.
http://www.tutormentorexchange.net/cabrinivideos/188-imagine32011
I am just one person. Until many of us connect and innovate ways to get the business community and other institutions involved in strategies that draw volunteers and donors to tutor/mentor programs in neighborhoods where they do business, or where their employees live, we will not have enough resources to do this work in all of the places where they are needed.
Thus, I hope you’ll join me at the next Tutor/Mentor Leadership Conference, or in an one-line forum where we can get to know each other and exchange ideas that lead to a greater involvement of people beyond those who lead non profits or teach in inner city school, so we have a more consistent flow of resources to every tutor/mentor program, and more tutor/mentor programs in places where they are needed. If you’d like to talk, call me on Skype at dbassill, or email me at tutormentor2@earthlink.net.
Dr. Daniel Bassill
President & CEO
Tutor/Mentor Institute, LLC
Tutor/Mentor Connection
Merchandise Mart PO Box 3303
Chicago, Il. 60654
