Minority Male Mentoring (M3)

In my first year as a tenure-track professor, I attended meetings with the Dean and Provost. I heard them talk about the "achievement gap" and "graduation rates." It was a deja-vu. I had heard all this before as a school social worker. What struck me the most was the discrepancy in graduation rates between women and men, particularly men of color. I thought about all the risk and protective factors involved and began to hatch a plan.

It turns out the disparities in graduation rates occur nationwide. For example, compare the differences in graduation rates between Asian females and Black males...

The University has a 2025 Graduation Initiative to increase graduation rates. As a social work scholar, I can't help but want to increase opportunities for the most vulnerable and oppressed. That's how we do. 

I wrote a small grant to start a Minority Male Mentoring (M3) program. It would confront the disparities using multiple levels of interventions:

I pulled together a dream team of professors and faculty members. Now we end our first year of program development with several upcoming national conference presentations and a manuscript in the works. We also got cool polos with the M3 logo. I feel like Wonder Woman in the Saturday morning cartoon TV show, Super Friends. The (invisible) plane has been built and is flying.