Mayor Bartlett's Mentoring to the Max Breakfast 2016, Part II

As mentioned previously, outstanding northeastern Oklahoma mentors, honored at Oklahoma Mentor Day at the State Capitol, were listed on the back of the event program and asked to stand to be recognized at the Mentoring to the Max Mentoring Breakfast with Mayor Dewey F. Bartlett, Jr.

Program back

Mayor Bartlett's Points

• January is National Mentoring Month.
• Tulsa Regional Chamber's Partner in Education Program for over 30 years has driven a highly successful collaboration between business and the schools.
• The City of Tulsa supports mentoring through career awareness, e.g., developing different types of career academies. 

     ~  Aerospace Academy (See previous post.)

     ~  Possible internships with the Tulsa Housing Authority 

         to provide high school students with internships to 

         learn about construction.

   
First Lady Victoria Bartlett's Points

• Emerson Elementary School's partnership with the City of Tulsa

     ~ Lunch buddies

     ~ Reading books to classes

     ~ Educating or engaging students on planning topics

     ~ Her riding with Emerson's Bike Club to City Hall 

• Now several bike organizations have adopted seven Tulsa schools to give children a fun, biking experience.

Mayor Bartlett said about her, "She's the heart behind our community-wide mentoring efforts and is our youth's Number 1 champion."

2015 Coaches' Mentoring Challenge New Mentors for Oklahoma

Beverly Woodrome, director of the Boren Mentoring Initiative, announced the number of new mentors recruited by Oklahoma mentoring programs during the 2015 Coaches' Mentoring Challenge: 3,821. She also thanked Mayor Bartlett and the City of Tulsa for its mentoring efforts and then reminded the audience that he is one of a handful of "Mayors for Mentoring" nationally recognized by MENTOR, the National Mentoring Partnership, for his mentoring advocacy and strategies. Mayors must have a list of mentoring-related accomplishments, initiatives, and pro-mentoring public announcements to be considered for this honor.

http://www.mentoring.org/our-work/campaigns/mayors-for-mentoring/ 

Surprise for the Bartletts!
Seeing Emerson Elementary School's principal Tammy States present with some students was not unusual because of the City's partnership with the school. Woodrome, however, then invited the three students to the podium. These Emerson sixth graders--Aiden and Jacob Joseph and Sylvester Calvin--bore gifts bags!

Aiden and Jacob Joseph and Sylvester Calvin, presenting on 
behalf of grateful Emerson Elementary School mentees, watch the 
Bartletts open their gifts. The Mayor received a "Mentor Tie" 
and the First Lady, a custom-embroidered mentoring apron.

As the event was ending, Mayor Bartlett immediately walked 
stage right in view of all, removed his jacket and tie, and put on the 
mentor tie the Emerson mentees had brought. Leaving early 
for another meeting, he was determined to wear his mentor tie. 
[Don't you just love Mayor Bartlett?] 

Mayor Bartlett with Aiden and Jacob Joseph and Sylvester Calvin

The Joseph twins, Sylvester Calvin stand in front of 

First Lady Bartlett and Mike Neal, chairman of the Tulsa Regional Chamber.

Cell phone photo

First Lady Victoria Bartlett and Pam Listar are listening intently.
Although this is not a sophisticated shot, the details on the apron 
presented to the First Lady are more visible. On the bib is the 
purple and blue Mentoring to the Max logo, and by her left 
hand  embroidered on the pocket in purple lettering
with a red heart image is "I 'heart' Tulsa Mentors."
Cell phone photo

Oklahoma State University's Dr. Jason Kirksey, Vice President 

for Institutional Diversity, who attended the breakfast on behalf 

of the Oklahoma Louis Stokes Minority Participation Alliance 

(OK-LSAMP), enjoyed meeting the Bartletts. 

Emily Harris, mentoring program director, and Treasure Sandeford,
executive director, both of the Boys & Girls Club of Nowata, take a
moment to pose with First Lady Victoria and Mayor Dewey Bartlett. 

Professional event photos provided by Pam Listar, communications director, City of Tulsa

____________________________________________

Notice that Mayor Dewey and First Lady Victoria Bartlett were among those honored on Oklahoma Mentor Day at the State Capitol on January 8, 2016. The certificate of each featured his or her name and read:

"Mentoring to the Max

City of Tulsa

In recognition of making a profound difference in the lives

 of youth through mentoring advocacy and leadership"

David L. Boren, chairman of the Oklahoma Foundation for Excellence, 

presents outstanding mentor tokens to Tulsa Mayor Dewey F. Barlett 

and First Lady Victoria Bartlett. Anil Gollahalli, president of the 

Oklahoma Foundation for Excellence, assisted in the presentation.

Photo by Travis Caperton, Capitol photographer 

__________________________________________

About the Mentor Tie

Briefly, the online search for the right mentor tie brought the Oklahoma Foundation for Excellence back to Dr. Susan Weinberger, a.k.a. Dr. Mentor, the consultant whom our former director Charlotte Jones had brought in to begin the Boren Mentoring Initiative and help with the Local Education Foundation Outreach. Woodrome, the current BMI director, not only became acquainted through many phone calls and emails but also developed a friendship with and appreciation of Dr. Weinberger on multiple levels.

The money for these classy, fine quality silk mentor ties is actually a donation to the Norwalk Mentor Scholarship, Dollars for Scholars, in Norwalk, Connecticut. 

http://www.mentorconsultinggroup.com/bookstore.html 

We were thrilled to be able to assist these appreciative students in honoring the Mayor and First Lady.

Mayor Bartlett's Mentoring to the Max Breakfast 2016, Part I

For the past few years, we have been honored and excited to attend the Mentoring to the Max Breakfast with Tulsa Mayor Dewey F. Bartlett, Jr. Each year the breakfast's programming differs but always informs the community and promotes mentoring, especially in the Tulsa area. What Tulsa is doing, however, is applicable everywhere.

View toward the stage and podium

This year Mayor and First Lady Bartlett and Kuma Browne Roberts,  program manager for Partners in Education for the Tulsa Regional Chamber as well as co-planner and co-host for the annual event, decided to recognize northeastern Oklahoma mentors who were honored at Oklahoma Mentor Day earlier in January. On the back of the event program was a list of those honorees (See below.). Also, during the event, Mayor Bartlett asked those outstanding mentors to stand. Northeastern Oklahoma representatives from all of the Boren Mentoring Initiative's network were also invited to attend.

Mayor Bartlett listens as First Lady Victoria Bartlett
shares information about Tulsa mentoring.

This blogger's summary from the breakfast:

Explore Downtown Tulsa

The George Kaiser Foundation in Tulsa began the Explore Downtown Tulsa program and Tulsa Community Foundation supports it. Explore Downtown Tulsa is a vehicle to get inner city poor kids to connect with the community and see a vision for the future.
http://www.exploredowntowntulsa.com/

Road Trip for Teachers 

The purpose of this initiative is to get teachers into businesses to see and also learn about skills industries need for the future workforce. 
 https://www.rose.edu/content/news-events/news/2015/07/28/oklahoma-education-and-industry-partnership-draws-the-attention-of-the-governor/. 

Note: Ben Robinson began something similar for Boeing in Oklahoma City and has been expanding the program. Some Oklahoma City teachers involved in this program have also been to NORDAM and other Tulsa companies.

Tulsa Road Trip for Teachers program links: http://www.tulsaworld.com/business/manufacturing/teachers-tour-broken-arrow-manufacturers/article_dac073d4-6ffe-5dec-8803-0072e64ddae3.html?_dc=374245963990.68835

https://storify.com/WylieWorks4You/road-trip-for-teachers-professional-services

Front of program -
Back of program in following post

InterninTulsa

http://www.internintulsa.com/ 

Three aerospace engineers from NORDAM spoke about NORDAM’s long-time, highly successful program. Interns spend 12-weeks at NORDAM to receive a high-quality experience. They are taught presentation skills, take personality and aptitude tests designed for industry, are matched with an engineering mentor, and actually work on a current NORDAM project. Brock Lindsey, the youngest engineer, was himself an intern while in college. When Lindsey graduated, he took his internship certificate, applied for a job, was hired, and has now had seven mentors of his own at NORDAM.

PDF guide about how to start an internship program 

http://ww3.tulsachamber.com/upload/file/intern%20in%20tulsa%20media/2014%20Hire%20Education%20Guide%20Web.pdf 

Virtual Job Shadow 

Rana McVay of Tulsa Public Schools introduced this program. After it was brought to her attention and TPS researched it, TPS bought it. Dee Phillips-Goodnight, an East Central High School teacher, and Landon Wolf, one of her students who has used the program extensively, spoke about it. Using the program has proven so successful, that the Tulsa Partners in Education (Chamber) and TPS are making virtual job shadow videos for the Tulsa area businesses—not associated with the VJS program but based upon its video models. Virtual Job Shadow has interactive activities such as résumés, etc. Surely, a consortium of businesses and/or the foundation could launch a pilot of VJS to evaluate results in OKCPS. Or not. https://www.virtualjobshadow.com/

  First Aerospace Academy

“With the support of Tulsa Tech and Tulsa Public Schools, the first-ever Aerospace Academy in the state launched Aug. 17, 2015 at Tulsa Tech/R.L. Jones Airport. When high school students complete this program, they’ll not only receive a high school diploma and training from the Aerospace Academy, they can attend Tulsa Community College through the Tulsa Achieves program and receive an associate’s degree in a technical discipline, all for free.” http://www.tulsacc.edu/degrees-and-certificates/tulsa-achieves 

Early Childhood Initiative 

Last but not least, the First Lady was approached to spearhead an early childhood program that doesn’t have city, state, or federal money. She has been going into churches and speaking with pastors to begin birth to school-age, i.e., early childhood education, conversations, so that economically challenged children will not enter school with 400-word vocabularies. The average child enters with about a 1500-word vocabulary according to research. 

Follow-up: The church/faith-based early childhood initiative is in the very beginning stages. The First Lady just began visiting with the pastors about this initiative, which is supported by the George Kaiser Family Foundation. The purpose is to engage low-income parents about the importance of interacting with young infants to help with the first formative years of their lives. Educational messages will target low-income families with a three-prong approach: faith-based communities; medical; and the business community.

[Note: Ultimately, this could result in more religious institutions' beginning specific programs for early childhood and families.The potential is enormous.]

These two Tulsa Public School mentees had a very
important part in the program. See the next blog post.

Other cities across the country have taken on this initiative and because Tulsa is already recognized as the best place in America for Early Childhood Education – through its Educare program – Tulsa wants to be recognized as the national leader in this effort to engage babies from birth with verbal communications: talking, singing, reading, playing, etc.

Thanks to Tulsa Regional Chamber and its wildly successful Partners in Education program.




Photos graciously provided by: 
Pam Listar
Communications Officer
City of Tulsa Communications Department

Tulsa Mayor's Mentoring to the Max Breakfast 2015, III

We have focused several blog posts on this event to illustrate the importance of mentoring as tied to workforce development. Every Oklahoma community, especially businesses, can focus upon mentoring as a means to a better economy and quality of life for everyone. We took the liberty of bold facing some points. 

Strong STEM, growing branches: Chamber devotes focus to mentoring in hard skills

By: D. Ray Tuttle The Journal Record January 27, 2015 

Pat McCelvey, right, of Newfield Exploration looks on as Anita Schroeder, principal of Park Elementary School in Tulsa, signs documents forming a partnership with the company. (Photo by Rip Stell)

TULSA – The Tulsa Regional Chamber and City of Tulsa promoted business mentoring at the Tulsa Community College Center for Creativity on Tuesday.

This year the chamber focused on mentoring in fields of science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, said Brian Paschal, the group’s senior vice president of education and workforce. Mentoring can be businesspeople meeting one-on-one with an elementary student for an hour of reading or actual internships in the workplace.

“We have identified that in the next five years, the highest-growth industries are all in STEM fields,” Paschal said.

Tulsa’s strongest employers are in manufacturing, aviation and aerospace, energy and health care, Paschal said.

“Going forward, those industries are projected to have the strongest growth and they all rely on STEM,” Paschal said. “We need to educate students on career options within STEM.”

Tulsa Mayor Dewey Bartlett emphasized how businesses helping primary and secondary students in the STEM disciplines improves Tulsa’s workforce. He also gave an update on Tulsa Technology Center’s Aerospace Academy at R.L. Jones Jr./Riverside Airport. The academy will offer a day of aviation-related courses for high school juniors and seniors.

“Our goal is to teach our high school students about the opportunities that are there,” Bartlett said.  

Many students are unaware of careers available locally, Paschal said.

“We want to get employers involved, obviously, and we need to educate students on where the jobs are, what skills are needed and explain to them the pathway to those jobs,” Paschal said.

At the same time, Bartlett said an objective of mentoring is to show potential employers there is an effort to develop an educated workforce in Tulsa, Bartlett said.

“Employers will see that Tulsa has a group of people being trained and view them as future employees,” Bartlett said. “They will not worry about being able to find employees.”

Tulsa’s Union High School has 11 students in its mentoring program, said Gart Morris, senior principal.

“This event today is significant because it gets information out,” Morris said. “We want to make a difference in the lives of those 11 kids. This program provides opportunities they would not ordinarily have.”

Bama Pies is one company that works with Union, Morris said.  The company offers classes in the fall and then provides internships in the spring.

Tulsa Union senior Bernard Dindy plans on attending a welding school once he graduates.

“Mentoring is important because I want to understand what to look for once I graduate,” Dindy said. “I want to take advantage of the program so I can get a glimpse of the real world.”

Tuesday’s event gives Morris hope that the Union program can grow.

“I see it happening exponentially,” Morris said. “People see a little success and that breeds a lot of success.”

The program benefits  not only students, but also the businesses that offer assistance, said Jim Spradlin, founding director of Train at Work. The Tulsa-based company offers training strategies for the workplace.

“From a business standpoint, I see opportunities for businesses to capture the skills in these students,” Spradlin said. “In some ways, students are ahead when it comes to the use of technology for business purposes. But, what students do not understand are business objectives and how to focus.”

Mentoring helps them focus, Spradlin said.

At the end of the program, Newfield Exploration awarded $25,000 to the Reading Partners program at Park Elementary in Tulsa.

http://journalrecord.com/2015/01/27/strong-stem-growing-branches-chamber-devotes-focus-to-mentoring-in-hard-skills-general-news/

Ret. 2-3-15

Tulsa Mayor's Mentoring to the Max Breakfast 2015, II

We are extremely proud of the Tulsa Regional Chamber's longtime work to build workforce through education. TRC is a pioneer in strategies to unit business and education in meaningful ways.

Mentoring to the Max highlights STEM mentorship’s role in workforce

By Kuma Browne, education program manager

Posted on: January 29th, 2015

It’s hard to overstate how important mentorship can be to a child. The stats are staggering.

• A recent Big Brothers Big Sisters study showed that students who meet regularly with their mentors are 52% less likely than their peers to skip a day of school and 37% less likely to skip a class.
• The same study also showed that youth who meet regularly with their mentors are 46% less likely than their peers to start using illegal drugs and 27% less likely to start drinking.
• Other studies show strong correlations between mentoring and reduced dropout rates and better academic outcomes.

But many companies don’t realize how important mentorship can be to their own futures and the future of their community’s workforce — particularly in STEM fields.

That’s why we joined Tulsa Mayor Dewey Bartlett and his wife, Victoria Bartlett, to host the Mayor’s Mentoring to the Max breakfast this week. It’s vital that our STEM employers understand the direct impact they can make on the stability of their workforce simply by allowing their employees to volunteer an hour a month.

The Tulsa area is projected to need an additional 15,000 advanced manufacturing workers through 2018. They will join our region’s fastest-growing local industry. In fact, we’ve had more manufacturing jobs added here than in all but 11 major U.S. cities, with a  growth of 27 percent since 2009.

The recent Workforce Analysis Project identified advanced manufacturing along with two other STEM industries — aerospace and energy — as the top growth industries for our city moving forward.

Mayor Bartlett told Mentoring to the Max attendees that STEM mentorship opens the door for a “pathway to prosperity” not just for students, but for the community as a whole. In fact, more mentorship locally is likely to make Tulsa “very interesting” to companies seeking new locations, he added.

A key component of the Partners In Education program, mentoring is a free and easy way to boost volunteerism and general well-being among your company’s employees, improve community standing and help make a difference in the lives of students. Mentoring can take a number of forms, including:

A regular but brief one-on-one session with a student in which a mentor visits informally with the child.

• Lunch buddies: More informal, lunch buddies need only spend one lunch hour a week with a student in a friendly lunchtime environment.
• A one-time “career presentation” to a classroom: Students can benefit from hearing the perspective of a member of the workforce regardless of profession.
• Workplace tours: Much like career presentations to classrooms, opening up your workplace to student tours can be a powerful influence on a student’s career choices.

There are countless avenues for mentorship in our region. Email me atkumabrowne@tulsachamber.com if you need help finding what works best for you or your staff.

Our Mentoring to the Max event was certainly a hit, and we encourage you to look for it next January when we again celebrate National Mentoring Month.

If you missed this year’s event, check out these stories:

• Fox 23: Mentoring program helping the community
• Channel 8: Mayors mentoring breakfast draws dozens
• Channel 6: Donation brings big boost to Tulsa elementary mentor program
• Tulsa World: Mayor Bartlett aims to strengthen high school mentoring
• Journal Record: Chamber devotes focus to mentoring in hard skills

https://www.tulsachamber.com/posts/mentoring-max-highlights-stem-mentorships-role-workforce/ 

Ret. 2-2-15