Arcadia University’s Center for Antiracist Scholarship, Advocacy, and Action (CASAA) hosted its first Race Matters Forum of the spring semester on Jan. 24, led by Social Action and Justice Education (SAJE) Mentorship Director Dr. Keisha Robinson. 

Dr. Robinson presented her Scholar 2 Scholar Mentorship Initiative, which she launched in 2022. The initiative focuses on fostering relationships within Arcadia University’s School of Education and providing mentorship to Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) students not only to prepare them to enter their desired field, but to thrive in it.

“The Scholar 2 Scholar initiative can have a positive impact on a student’s educational experience,” explained Dr. Robinson. “We assume that a student coming to school is all about academics, but what we’ve seen is that students need extra support in different areas like mental health, criminal justice, and public health. Mentorship can help with all of these areas. It might be the thing that helps the student stay at the school to finish their degree.” 

To go alongside the Scholar 2 Scholar Mentorship initiative, she also developed the Robinson Mentorship Framework, which infuses training and support systems, cultural competency, and collaboration and relationship building into mentorship to increase student retention and degree attainment. This framework is not limited to education students, and it includes a component to help them persist through their college careers, a component to prepare them to enter and thrive in the field, and a component to help them transition into leadership roles. 

“The Robinson mentorship method can be used across the board, I’ve seen it work in different departments,” Dr. Robinson added. “I strongly believe that this framework and this work can be transferable. Not only for BIPOC students in a predominantly white institution, but it can help at any institution.”

A main concern in the K-12 education system, according to The New Teacher Project (TNTP), is the underrepresentation of BIPOC educators. Dr. Robinson discussed this concern, explaining that only 21% of teachers in public schools during the 2022-23 academic year were people of color before emphasizing how important this representation is for students and their education.

“Educational success is pivotal to having a sustainable life experience, and mentorship has been a successful tool in ensuring a positive student experience,” she said. “However, If you have a 4.0 [gpa], that’s successful but that’s not all success is. You can have a 4.0, but if you don’t feel like you can come out of your doom room because you don’t have a friend to eat lunch with or a community to be around, then that’s not really success.”

Dr. Robinson also invited guest speaker Amora Mitchell, a junior Math and Education major and SAJE mentorship committee chair, to speak on her experience with mentorship and the work she is doing.

“One of our projects has been visiting St. Raymond’s of Penafort Catholic School in Philadelphia to speak with their students,” Mitchell said. “We as SAJE fellows know how important it is for younger students to see students like us on paths towards successful careers.”

Mitchell has also been invited back to her high school, the Science Leadership Academy in West Philadelphia, to speak with 11th-grade students in the school’s Career and Technical Education (CTE) program.

To close the presentation, Dr. Robinson emphasized the necessity of having strong mentorship and intentional programming and how it can assist in creating more equitable environments for individual students.

“Equity doesn’t look the same in every space, but giving everyone an opportunity to get some kind of equity for them is important,” she said. “Whether it’s support, resources, or anything like that. When we’re thinking about making something equitable, we need to think about the individual’s experience. We might never have a fully equitable environment for everyone, but mentorship can help create more opportunities and support for individual student’s needs, helping them have a better experience.”