This is the final evaluation report on the "Mentoring in the City" program of Marian College. The report is prepared at the request of the Marian College program for review by the principal funder of the Mentoring in the City program, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

The evaluator, together with his colleague Justin Fink, visited the program for two days in May 1996, and then again in February 1997. The first visit gave rise to a lengthy assessment report, attached, on "Challenges and Opportunities Facing the Marian College Mentoring in the City Program." This final report, briefer, considers the response of the program to these challenges and opportunities during the ensuing year.

Overall, the Mentoring in the City program is one of remarkably high character and quality. It has been led by a dedicated and effective leader, Alice Davis, and received the strong support of a strong and steady campus administration, headed by Marian President Daniel Felicetti. The program has produced at a high level of quality, and has established itself as one of the nation's signal programs in collegiate service learning.

In the 1996 visit, a mild discordance was noted between the MIC and Marian missions. Consideration has been given to this matter, and the broader MIC conception of "mentoring" has been recognized by College leaders and incorporated in the College's mission statement. More concretely, the College administration has underwritten the MIC with a $75,000 contribution during the current fiscal year, and gives every indication of increasing this level of support in future years. The Kellogg Foundation can take some considerable pride in this development, as Marian has been scrupulous in holding to his commitment to provide increasing support of the MIC as it developed.

The MIC approach is distinguished by its focus on working with groups of "at-risk" youth. The evaluator is pleased to note that this approach was noted in a presentation Director Davis made to the ARNOVA conference in November 1996, and commends the MIC in continuing to develop and articulate this valued approach to mentoring. (This point is especially important in light of the considerable amount of weight placed, not always with sufficient justification, on "mentoring" at the recent Presidents' Summit on America's Future. Mentoring is something the MIC understands and knows how to deliver; the world might want to beat a path to its door to learn from these experts.)

The assessment process discovered a rather wide disconnection between the MIC program and the mainstream academic curricula of the College. Some of this gap was intentional, as it is central to the MIC to focus first on service, and only secondarily on what the individual learns from that service. But it was also clear that a number of Marian faculty were interested in incorporating service learning into their classes. During the past academic year, the MIC expanded its outreach to faculty members, and by the end of the year, three departments had expressed direct interest in cooperating, and one (Sociology) was actively engaged in a collaborative effort with the MIC.

The high quality leadership and staffing of the program continued throughout the year of observation, if anything strengthened by the addition of Tamara Wolske as administrative assistant (who replaced another extraordinary staffer, Kate Ford). The continuing service of Beth Riehle, a highly creative and enormously successful field director, also assured the continuing distinction of MIC program delivery. Challenges of team building and human resources noted during the initial visit have also been addressed directly, and effectively resolved.

Integration and partnership of the MIC program to other service learning programs on campus progressed during the year, as well. The College wisely replaced its service learning director, facilitating a far more productive working relationship between the MIC and the reorganized service learning office, whose new director understands the MIC and works effectively with it. The appropriate institutional centrality of the MIC has been much more fully recognized by Marian College by these developments.

Progress may also be noted in the development of the Advisory Board to the MIC. The Board is in the process of "reinventing" itself, with a greater diversity represented in its membership and the adoption of an innovative nominations process.

The public presentation of the MIC's image and accomplishments has been advanced in a number of ways: by collaboration with the statewide "Caring Communities" project; by joining a 30-college consortium on service learning; by applying for a planning grant from the 21st Century Scholars program; by partnering with the Indiana University Center on Philanthropy in several ventures (and being mentioned in that center's publication on The Roots of Giving and Serving; by extending its reach into South Indianapolis; and by receiving increasing recognition in a variety of campus programs and publications. Each of these extensions comprises an important advance in the visibility of the MIC.

In summary, I would update the concluding paragraph Justin Fink and I provided to our assessment report a year ago:

Report prepared by Jon Van Til, Professor of Urban Studies, Rutgers University

15 May 1997