For more than 15 years, WWU program places mentors in schools, brings students to campus
By Charlotte Alden
When Lourdes Hurtado was a fifth-grader at Sumas Elementary, a Western Washington University student came into her classroom to help out. That student was part of the Compass 2 Campus program, which aims to increase access to higher education for students at Title 1 schools.
That experience, and visiting Western as part of the program, inspired her to pursue becoming an educator.
“I was like, I could really see myself here,” she said. “It gave me that inspiration that I could make it to college.”
This fall, Hurtado, now a third-year student at Western studying to be a teacher, spends two mornings a week at Nooksack Elementary as a Compass 2 Campus mentor herself, supporting fifth-grade teacher Anna Malpica and connecting with students.
A bill in the Washington State Legislature established the program in 2009, modeled after the University of Wisconsin Green Bay’s Phuture Phoenix Program. That program was co-created by Cyndie Shepard, the wife of former Western President Bruce Shepard. Since it was founded, 5,833 mentors have participated in the program, which now serves 40 K-12 schools in the region.
Bridget Galati, Compass 2 Campus executive director, said mentors (who are mainly Western students, but include some Whatcom Community College students) go to classrooms from Blaine to Mount Vernon to help out teachers and connect with students. The mentors provide some additional resources to low-income schools, plus show students that people just like them end up going to college.
“There’s people like you with your interests and your background now thriving in college,” Galati said, adding that she works to recruit diverse mentors.
Malpica, who has taken part in the program since it began, said her students want to “sit next to” Hurtado, “be in her presence,” and share their stories with her.
“Even if they don’t go to Western specifically, the idea that students can see college as a potential in their future is beneficial to our society as a whole,” Malpica said. “The Nooksack Valley School District mission is to make students career, citizenship and college ready. Even if they don’t go to college, whatever path they choose, this program is still part of that.”
Hurtado, who’s been in Malpica’s class for several weeks now, said she’s seen the kids grow, even in the short period she’s been in the classroom.
“They’re so driven already,” she said. “They just wanted a connection to show people that they’re able to do things, which is awesome, because they just keep showing me how they keep growing.”
Campus visits open worlds for students
The other half of the Compass 2 Campus program is campus visits. “Fall Tour Day,” long a staple of the program where fifth graders from around the region meet their mentors and catch a glimpse of college life, was canceled this year due to a lack of funding.
“Taking students into Bellingham to see a university, for some, is a once-in-a-lifetime, life-changing opportunity,” Malpica said of her Nooksack area students. “They think that going to town is Costco or the mall … And then for them to be on campus and to see things like a five-story, two-building library — they are awestruck at that.” whole,” Malpica said. “The Nooksack Valley School District mission is to make students career, citizenship and college ready. Even if they don’t go to college, whatever path they choose, this program is still part of that.”
But the program is still bringing smaller groups of students from around the two counties to visit Western. Galati said they try to design campus visits so students can learn more about all the opportunities available.
“If college just seems like high school but harder and you have to pay for it, who wants to do that?” Galati said.
One recent tour brought a small group of students from the Nooksack Tribe’s Youth Program to campus. They saw a show at the planetarium, played bingo in a classroom, talked to Indigenous students and faculty at Western’s Center for Education, Equity and Diversity, and ate dinner in one of the dining halls.
Susan Correia, the youth academic intervention specialist at the youth program, worked with Compass 2 Campus when she was a student at Western. She saw the tour as an opportunity to expose the students to unfamiliar components of college.
Student Natalya Roberts Humphreys, 14, said that the campus was “really nice.”
She said she was excited about the basketball team, which they got to watch practice. “They’re really understanding here about the culture,” she said, referencing the Native American Student Union.
Malpica said the visits to campus have been powerful for her students over the years.
“My students come away with the experience of being able to say, I could be a Western student, or I want to be a Western student, or even more powerfully: I am going to Western,” she said.
Charlotte Alden is CDN’s general assignment/enterprise reporter; reach her at charlottealden@cascadiadaily.com; 360-922-3090 ext. 123.
Source: Compass 2 Campus proves college can be a reality for underrepresented students