Playing games, building models, doing beadwork ... these master's students aren't reverting back to childhood. They're making a big difference in the lives of some young kids who need them.
By Linda Terhune

If Nathan Ramsey, MBA '03, tells you he's saving his pennies, he's not kidding. He needs a lot of pennies. They come in handy when he's building something important - like, say, the Eiffel Tower.

Ramsey leaves the decision of what he'll be building up to his fifth-grade friend and building partner, Luke. Using a building set called Coinstruction®, which incorporates plastic pieces and pennies to build different models, Ramsey and Luke work one day a week to create all sorts of interesting structures. Under Luke's direction, they've built the aforementioned French landmark, as well as a castle. Now, they're working on a model of a robot.

Ramsey works with his construction partner through "Krannert 'N Kids", a program coordinated through Krannert's Management Volunteer Program (MVP). One of the major programs within MVP, Krannert 'N Kids pairs the Krannert students with children in hopes of giving the elementary school kids role models with a steady influence in their lives. Some mentors are new to the program, others are in their second year with the same child. During their weekly sessions, the grade-school children and their mentors can do whatever they dream up: talk, play games, go out to the playground.

"The program seeks to give kids positive role models who will encourage them to think about their careers and pursue a college education, as well as help them make other important decisions wisely," says Miller Elementary Principal Gail Gilbert Lange.

Once a week, Ramsey heads to Miller Elementary School in Lafayette to spend time with Luke during the hour-long lunch/recess session, spent with the other school kids and their mentors. Some days, Ramsey and Luke play strategy games. Other times, they talk about basketball. Lately, however, they've been building their models.

All their complex structures take longer than a single mentoring session to complete. "The Eiffel Tower took around six weeks," Ramsey reports. "It was about two and a half feet tall when we finished it." Neither can predict how long their robot will take, but they aren't in any hurry. At the end of each visit, Ramsey puts the model safely into storage, to be brought out again next time.

It's a special relationship for Ramsey, who has been matched with Luke since September 2001.

"It just gets to you, when you walk in the room and see a kid's face light up," he says.

Ramsey is one of three co-presidents of MVP, which was founded in 1991 by MBA student Beth (Bricker) Meyer as a way for Krannert graduate students to connect with the community. Ramsey oversees the mentoring program. Co-president Brian Bishop, MBA '03, is in charge of the annual charity ball. And co-president Brent Ruddy, MBA '03, heads up the group's community service activities, such as food drives and holiday parties for under-privileged children.

The MVP Program attracts about 100 master's students a year - nearly a third of the master's student population. It fulfills its mission of "University and community engagement through service" by coordinating volunteer opportunities ranging from an ongoing adult literacy program to one-time events such as park clean-ups. For its efforts, MVP has three times received the MBAs Make a Difference Day Award, a national competition among graduate business schools.

Making a difference

For busy graduate students, the club offers a rewarding change of pace.

Whether it's organizing food drives and working in soup kitchens or calling bingo games at a local retirement home, Krannert students and faculty say volunteer activities make them feel good. The school mentoring program gives students like Tia Cummings, MBA '04, a chance to pay back what they received as children.

The Virginia native said she was surrounded by positive role models as a child and wants to fill that need for someone else. She was involved in mentoring programs before coming to Purdue and said she looked around for such a program when she arrived on the West Lafayette Campus last fall.

As a Krannert 'N Kids volunteer, she was matched recently with Lincoln, a third grader. The mentors are matched with their partners based on general interests. Cummings, an African-American, said she thinks she may have been paired with her biracial student because she offers a positive example of minority achievement. More than that, though, she offers friendship.

"He loves to tell me about his Digimon® card collection, and he tells me about his older sister and how she made him an uncle. I show him pictures of my siblings. We also play board games like checkers and Chutes & Ladders™," Cummings says of their visits. "Lincoln smiles when he sees me, and that makes me feel good. I liked the look of gratitude he gave me when I gave him a bag of candy and a Digimon toy for Valentine's Day. It gives me a good feeling knowing that I have made this child happy."

And that feeling of contentment is a great stress-reliever for the student volunteers.

"It gives me a break from the stress of business school. I can go, hang out with Lincoln, and come back smiling," Cummings says.

Ramsey agrees: he calls volunteering "a wonderful pick-me-up."

"The MBA program is very intense. This helps me go back to the classroom and become grounded. It is very rewarding," he says.

The Krannert program provides excellent role models for students at Miller who are at risk for academic failure, substance abuse, and other problems, according to Miller Elementary Guidance Counselor Chris Hunckler.

"If anything, people tend to underestimate the role of a mentor," Hunckler says. "The one thing that sometimes makes all the difference in the world for a student is whether they have one significant person that they can connect with outside their families whom they can rely on to be there regularly for them. That person is an important role model. MVP matches the students with someone pursuing an education, and not just a bachelor's degree but a master's degree," she says.

Does the program make a difference in the kids?

"Absolutely," Hunckler says. "There's a huge improvement in their behavior and in their attendance. They miss less school overall - and they definitely don't miss the day that their mentor will be coming
to see them."

For Ramsey and Clark, the yearlong mentoring relationship has led to a fast friendship.

"It's been unbelievable to see Luke evolve over time from the very quiet guy he was at first," Ramsey says. "This year, he has come out of his shell, and when I show up he runs up to me and starts telling me about what's going on. He has become more social, and that is very rewarding."

Opening new worlds

For some Miller students, a mentor can introduce whole new worlds. This is the case for fourth-grader Chandra, who is matched with Chinese graduate student Lu Zou, MBA '03.

Zou joined MVP in January because it offered her an opportunity to get more involved in American culture and improve her communication skills.

"It is a lifelong positive experience for me," she says.

Her weekly visits with Chandra have involved conversations about life in China and at Chinese
elementary schools. They recently completed a bead-making activity with other mentor pairs, in which they made bracelets.

"When we achieve something, even a minor thing such as making a beautiful string of colorful beads, Chandra seems to be very proud of having me as her mentor," Zou says.

Language barriers are not a problem for the pair, according to Zou, although she says it is a little frustrating getting Chandra
to open up to her. She thinks that will come when she gains Chandra's trust.

"My favorite thing about being a mentor is inspiring kids
to make progress through my positive school experience, and becoming their friend," Zou says.

Corporate responsibility

Krannert administrators hope students like Zou, Cummings, and Ramsey will maintain the spirit of altruism learned in MVP throughout life. This spirit is especially important for future executives now that the international eye is on corporate responsibility, according to Chuck Johnson, director of Krannert's Professional Master's Programs.

Steve Green, Basil S. Turner Professor of Management and faculty advisor to MVP, says, "I've always tried to foster in our MBA students the idea that they will soon be fairly well-to-do members of their communities and that life will not be 'all about me.' The idea is that even though we work hard for
our lifestyle, we come from a place of privilege and should help the community."

Green, an active volunteer in his own right, has pitched in on several MVP projects, including one particularly muddy park cleanup in which he and several other Krannert administrators pulled more than 300 tires out of a ravine filled with black mud. As a member of the board of the Lafayette Crisis Center, Green matched the needs of the center with a team of management graduate students, who conducted a survey to help the center determine how to increase calls from those who might not
see themselves as "in crisis."

Beth (Bricker) Meyer, MSM '92, founded MVP during her time at Krannert, and her voice still rings with excitement when she talks about the program. She has come full circle since graduating. After a decade of executive positions in the corporate world, she took a job in June 2002 as director of a San Francisco Bay Area nonprofit. The organization, Community Impact, matches volunteers with community projects and organizations (see sidebar, p. 14).

She likes to think that the club she started during her student years at Purdue gives students a chance to "get hooked on philanthropy before they get hooked on making money," she says.

"With the economic boom of the dot-com world, people became immersed in themselves," she says. "Nonprofit and volunteer organizations helped people pull away from their own self-interest
in making money and turn their good fortune back to the community."

Both Green and Johnson see MVP as a win-win situation for all involved - for those who volunteer and for those at the receiving end of the effort.

"In this era when companies are being scrutinized for how much they are giving back to their communities, it is beneficial if they can show that the people they are bringing into their organizations have these values," says Johnson.

Meyer said membership in the Krannert club can give students those values.

"In volunteer work, you realize everyone is different and that we all have different strengths. Volunteerism helps people develop their compassion, and if you can increase your compassion for humanity in general, it will make you a better manager," she says.

Krannert administrators are all for that.

"MVP embodies what many employers and the community feel about Krannert graduates. Our students have a well-rounded set of skills and are good team players - the kind of people you want to work with," Johnson says. "The MVP is just one more way we reinforce that image in the marketplace."