Financial Women's Association Committees

Purpose

Our mentoring programs at Murry Bergtraum High School and Baruch College strive to assist the development of young women, educationally and professionally, and demonstrate the FWA’s focus on future business leaders. Mentors share their knowledge and experience with mentees and help them to explore careers within the business community. Mentors have the opportunity to contribute to the community while staying connected to the younger generation.

The FWA program at MBHS began in the 1985-86 academic year and is one of the longest programs in the New York City Department of Education Mentoring Partnerships. We pair students in their sophomore or junior year with an FWA member who mentors the student until graduation. The program emphasizes academic preparation for college and exposes the mentees to cultural and social activities.

The Baruch program started in 2001 and emphasizes career preparation and provides networking opportunities to the mentees, career development programs and exposure to potential employers. Baruch mentors and mentees also participate in cultural and social activities, many jointly with the MBHS mentors and mentees.

Objectives

Continue to attract qualified FWA members to become mentors. Both programs have mentor needs. Our objective is to have 30 mentor/mentee pairs at Baruch and 35 mentor/mentee pairs at MBHS. We attained the goal at Baruch but not at the high school.
Continue hosting joint meetings of Baruch and MBHS mentors. Mentors have the opportunity to explore the similar as well as unique features of each program. The meetings also provide an opportunity to gather ideas for improving the programs and for potential programming. We held two mentor meetings this year.
Working with Baruch College to offer the mentees maximum networking opportunities and career enhancing workshops.
Working with Murry Bergtraum HS to offer the mentees optimum guidance for college preparation and selection.
Creating a marketing promotional piece for mentoring. This project is behind schedule; however, we have determined that the marketing piece will be web-based rather than a print brochure. This will enable us to update the piece and expand the visuals as well as lower printing/distribution costs.
A major new initiative to expand the reach of the FWA’s mentoring activities to our college level students attending Baruch and various other colleges to provide ongoing and additional career and personal development support through an online community. This initiative is currently in proposal stage; as we move forward the Committee will seek funding to initiate the web design and content creation.

Accomplishments and Highlights

Kick off and closing dinners at both Baruch College and Murry Bergtraum HS.
Joint programs:
- Holiday event, lunch and West Side Story;
- Scavenger Hunt at the Museum of Natural History.
Joint Baruch and MBHS mentor meeting.

Message from the Co-chairs

	Just a friendly reminder not to forget or delay paying your FWA membership dues. In order to participate in our program you need to be a member in good standing.
	New mentors: Do you know of any FWA members or prospective members who would make a great mentor? We always have more student applications for our program then mentors. If you have someone to recommend, please let us know and please encourage them to become involved. If the person is not yet an FWA member, we will help to expedite the process. Our events do count toward the 2 required events, so between the mentor meeting and the kick-off two events are covered.
	Please let us know if you have any ideas for events/programs that you think would interest the group. Our event coordinators are busy planning the year and all suggestions are welcome. Thanks for your continued participation with the Mentoring Committee. Your involvement, interest and accomplishments with the mentees is awesome and we appreciate it very much.

The High School Mentoring Program - Murry Bergtraum High School (MBHS)

The winning Scavenger Hunt team aka the"The Dark Town Strutters's Ball: (l-r) mentee Diana Liang, mentor Ling Tsou, mentee Bermania Binet, and mentor Pat Jaquay.

The school has a high proportion of students from households below the poverty level and is predominantly minority. It is now one of only a few large high schools in Manhattan as a result of the Department of Education’s strategy of shutting large high schools and creating smaller schools. MBHS has completed its own reorganization into smaller learning communities, with the goal of more individualized learning and enabling the faculty to better know the students within their sector. One result of the smaller learning communities is our ability to select mentees from a more qualified pool of applicants who are more focused on business careers. Many of our mentees are the first in their families to complete high school and/or look forward to college. Students applying to the FWA mentoring program generally represent a higher proportion of college bound students than the school’s general population.

Sponsored SAT review course for our 9 juniors. The course is provided through an agreement between the FWA and The Princeton Review and is given exclusively to our mentees. The course is held at MBHS after school hours.
Sponsored annual college visit. This year the mentees visited Brooklyn College. All the sophomore and junior mentees are encouraged to participate.
Sponsored a seminar on business etiquette and manners, which included dinner so the mentees could put into practice what they were learning. The session also covered work and office etiquette and how to prepare/complete interviews.
Ten mentees are graduating. All 10 have been admitted to college, and to date, we expect 9 of the mentees to qualify for the FWA scholarship.

The Baruch Mentoring Program

Mentor Application

Mentoring Application Form - Baruch College

(Password Required)

Baruch is the largest undergraduate business school in the U.S. and has been nationally ranked in several areas. Many of the college’s students, and reflected in the make-up of the mentees in our program, are recent immigrants or the children of immigrants. The focus of the FWA’s mentoring program at Baruch is on career and personal development. Baruch mentees are invited to attend appropriate FWA events at no charge, as well as to participate in networking opportunities with mentors and others. In addition to our programs for the mentees, several President’s Circle FWA supporters have hosted programs for the mentees. This year Bank of Montreal hosted a career panel discussion: Shaping and Defining Your Career Path.

Mentee Pricilla Posada with her
mentor Gerri Facchine.

Series of club hour lunch programs with guest panelists and speakers: Jobs that truly complement personalities; Lessons Learned panel of 4 alumna mentees who discussed their professional development since graduation; Intergenerational Issues at Work; Making Every Message Count. Programs are open to mentees and mentors at no charge and to guests at a modest charge.
Five Baruch seniors awarded FWA-BMO scholarships; a new group of students will be selected in the fall.
Thirteen Baruch mentees graduated in May 2009; of these, to date 7 have secured full-time employment, including with two President’s Circle supporters.

Special thanks