|
August 2000, Volume 68, Number 4 |
|
|
A Dream Comes True: Part 1 |
A Dream Comes True, continued...By JENNIFER REESE
From the beginning, Coonis has tried to keep in constant touch with the Dreamers via email, phone calls, and a chatty bimonthly newsletter that reminds them of important deadlines, congratulates them on birthdays, and announces social events, like potluck dinners and bowling nights. Communication has gotten harder now that there are 76 Dreamers (the IHAD program picked up some 18 newcomers after the first year) attending 26 different high schools. But in the early years, Coonis was in and out of the Flood School classrooms every day, making notes on what specific students needed help with from fractions to spelling to deportment. She matched up the students one-on-one with tutors from the Business School. The stream of Business School mentors has been steady over the years. At the beginning of every academic year, the IHAD program is offered among a range of public service options. It is a popular one usually around 60 students sign up. "These are kids who clearly need help," says Stanford student Larry Dillard, MBA Class of '01. "It's definitely a place where you can reach out and see your impact." Dumanian says the impact has affected not only the Dreamers but also the MBA volunteers, who find the personal payback is big. Many feel committed to the program long after they have left the School; a 1998 fundraising campaign that reached out to past volunteers raised $26,000 from 150 contributors (30 percent of those solicited). As for himself, Dumanian claims that aside from his family, the IHAD program is the "most personally gratifying thing I have ever done." The tutoring element has diminished over the years. "Once you get to high school, you kind of know what you need to do," says senior Ayana Goodwin. "It was much easier for tutors to help us with academic work when we were younger, but now with subjects like chemistry or physics they haven't gone through that in years," says junior Brenda Ramirez. "You show it to them and they're like, "I can't help you there! But we can go out for coffee!" Relations with Stanford volunteers now generally called "mentors" have changed. But they are just as crucial. Maybe more so. Interactions now touch on the more personal problems of adolescence, like fears about college, problems with girlfriends and boyfriends, and worries about not having enough friends. "We speak once a week and try to see each other once a week. Usually we'll just do the kind of thing friends would do we'll go grab a smoothie somewhere and talk," says mentor Jill Linderoth, MBA Class of '01, of her Dreamer. "From my perspective, it's nice to get away from the Business School and the frenzy that happens there and get back to the real world. I see the problems she's facing and remember how I went through a lot of the same things."
Maybe the most important way mentors have influenced and motivated Dreamers is as a source of inspiration. When Rolando Ramirez starts talking about his mentor, second-year MBA student David Cogman, this becomes touchingly clear. "He opened my eyes to what a successful person is and can be," says Ramirez with awe. "He's from England and he worked in Hong Kong and all over the world. Before I met him, I didn't have any idea of those kinds of options. My world was really small. He's telling me about his grueling flights from Hong Kong to New York, and all these things have never been a question for me." There has been some debate about whether it's a problem that every two years Dreamers have had to adjust to a new mentor. "In the first year, the Dreamer and the mentor are just feeling each other out. In the second year, things fall into place and they can tell each other anything," says Coonis. "The kids get attached. Then it ends. And while some mentors stay in touch, others don't. That's been hard on the kids." Some of the Dreamers agree. Others take it in stride. "It's the cycle of growing up. Every two years is a good time to get a new person with a new perspective," says Rolando Ramirez. "I think one mentor is ideal," says Dillard. "On the other hand, interacting with a bunch of different people can be good.
There's this network of people across the country who are there to help." It is also true that meeting a new mentor every two years helps increase the chance that there will be one who really clicks. Brenda Ramirez has had several mentors, but there was one who made a bigger impact than the others. Although that mentor graduated four years ago, they've remained close. "She's always listened to me," says Brenda. "She just keeps appearing in my life." Since its inception, the IHAD board has raised $1.1 million for the Dreamers from alumni, faculty, corporations, and foundations and guarantees $4,800 toward each student's college tuition. (The amount equaled the approximate cost for a California resident to attend a state school at the time the IHAD program was founded.) But the money has not just been stowed away for college. It has gone, over the years, for dozens of small things that have helped make college a possibility. It has gone for emergency aid to families of Dreamers who were about to be evicted from their apartments. And it has helped finance the myriad enrichment experiences that middle- and upper middle-class kids generally take for granted. Last year, for instance, IHAD helped send Ayana Goodwin to Mexico for the summer with the Experiment in International Living. Some of the money also has gone to help pay for private school tuition. IHAD has funneled dozens of East Palo Alto students into Bay Area private schools and has made up for shortfalls in their financial aid packages. In the Flood School class immediately ahead of the first IHAD cohort, only two students went to private high schools. Among the two IHAD classes that followed, 34 students went to private schools. Academically, private school has been helpful to the Dreamers. Private schools tend to have more resources and keep better track of students, channeling them into appropriate courses and ensuring that they aren't "lost in the crowd," says Coonis. It also has led to some hard times. "I wouldn't trade Sacred Heart for anything," says Oram Ramirez, a junior at the Atherton private school. "But I went through the most difficult experience of my life sophomore year. I disliked going to school every day. I didn't know who my friends were and I couldn't focus on anything." Oram's father, who speaks little English, is raising four children on a janitor's wages. Though Oram claims to have made peace with the fact that "material things don't matter to real happiness," unlike his affluent classmates, he doesn't have a car and rarely has pocket money to go to the movies. It has bothered him deeply in the past. "It was pretty tough; we were the only minorities there," says Ayana Goodwin. She adds briskly: "But it's fine now." Her sights are set on the fall when she will start at Hampton University in Virginia, which she chose for its strong biology department. The first group of Dreamers has been accepted into a wide variety of colleges, from Stanford in California to the University of Miami in Florida and Xavier in New Orleans. "We've shown it can be done. That with a little bit of attention and a modest amount of money, you can achieve some good success," says Aspen Ventures general partner Thad Whalen, MBA '92, who helped set up the original program in 1991 and is now president of its board.
The second group of Dreamers will graduate next year 33 of the 35 class members are on track to graduate, and all of them intend to go to college. The board is already at work on a new IHAD program, which will probably focus on a first grade class in East Palo Alto. The existing IHAD program will remain in place while the Dreamers are in college to ensure that financial aid packages come through and that any serious problems can be taken care of. But it will be drastically scaled back, and Coonis will be working only part time. "There comes a time when every little bird has to fly," says Coonis. "And now they're going to have to stretch their wings and do it." She doesn't sound worried or wistful. She sounds completely confident. THE PLACES THEY'LL GO
Perpetua Ahlijah: Marymount College (California) If you are interested in contributing to the new IHAD program, contact Peter Dumanian at 650. 325.3111 or (email) peter@redrockventures.com.
|
This is an official Stanford Graduate School of Business Web page
Copyright © 2000 Stanford University - Graduate School of Business