MENTOR ANNOUNCES TEN NEW LEGENDS OF MENTORING
March 9, 2022
Individuals with a long-standing dedication to the movement to be honored at Amplify Mentoring Celebration on April 28
March 9, 2022 – Launched in 2015 at MENTOR’s 25th Anniversary, the Legends of Mentoring are notable individuals who have made tremendous contributions to the mentoring movement by intentionally working to elevate young people, center quality relationships, expand service initiatives, and strengthen our civic fabric.
Through their expertise, influence, and long-standing dedication, these leaders and changemakers have made extraordinary contributions to the movement to ensure that we meet the mentoring needs of all of our nation’s young people so they can strive and thrive.
As we gather on April 28 in New York City to commemorate MENTOR’s 30th Anniversary, we will recognize this latest group of legends in the movement. For more information or to purchase tickets to the Amplify Mentoring Celebration, visit our website.
Representative Karen Bass (California – 37): In November 2020, Representative Karen Bass was re-elected to her sixth term serving the 37th Congressional District. Upon arriving in Congress, she founded the bipartisan Congressional Caucus on Foster Youth, which works to improve the nation’s child welfare and foster care system. She has long been a champion for the Foster Youth Mentoring Act and for a range of legislation aimed at funding initiatives to better support children and their families.
Curley M. Dossman, Jr.: As President of the Georgia-Pacific Foundation, Curley M. Dossman, Jr. works to fund initiatives, service projects, and disaster relief efforts focused on education, environment, enrichment, and entrepreneurship. Throughout his career, his dedication to the mentoring movement has been unwavering. In addition to being the former Chairman of the Board and the former Vice Chairman of Operations of 100 Black Men of America, Dossman is, and has been, involved with a number of other community-serving organizations. In 2014, he was honored by Voices for Georgia’s Children for his leadership of an outstanding mentoring organization, and in 2015 he was recognized as Outstanding Mentor of the Year by the Southern Company during the Congressional Black Caucus.
Vartan Gregorian (in memoriam): As President of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Vartan Gregorian helped fund national and global initiatives focused on promoting peace efforts, expanding access to education, and strengthening democracy. During this time, he also helped found ServiceNation, a coalition of more than 100 organizations that united in support of national service. Their advocacy efforts led to the signing of the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act in 2009, which expanded AmeriCorps’ list of programs to include mentoring and helped establish a new service-learning program aimed at engaging low-income high school students and out-of-school youth in volunteer efforts within their communities. A leader in areas from higher education to public libraries to philanthropy, Gregorian consistently wrote and spoke about the centrality of mentoring in driving belonging, purpose, and opportunity.
Tom Keller: Early in his career, Tom Keller served as a caseworker, a supervisor and, later, a program director with Big Brothers Big Sisters. He then transitioned from the field of practice to that of research, becoming the Duncan and Cindy Campbell Professor at Portland State University. Keller has played a key role in expanding the national mentoring movement. He was one of the principal researchers involved in a seminal study on the National Quality Mentoring System and its impact on those involved in mentoring organizations; he is the founder and current director of both the Summer Institute on Youth Mentoring and the Center for Interdisciplinary Mentoring Research; and he is sits on both the National Mentoring Resource Center Research board and the board of Friends of the Children.
Willem Kooyker: A Dutch immigrant and a firm believer in the importance of mentoring, Willem Kooyker has been closely involved with MENTOR for close to three decades. After serving several terms as a board member, he was nominated to Chairman of the Board, a position which he held from 2008 to 2018. Through extensive volunteer service and philanthropic leadership, Kooyker has helped expand the mentoring field by advocating for child safety legislation, sponsoring innovative mentoring research, exploring international efforts, driving investment in the Affiliate network, and advancing MENTOR’s strategy, stability, and impact.
Representative Jim R. Langevin (Rhode Island – 02): After over two decades spent representing Rhode Island’s 2nd Congressional District, Representative Jim R. Langevin recently announced his retirement from Congress. A member of the Congressional Youth Mentoring Caucus, co-chair of the Congressional Career and Technical Education Caucus, and champion for disability inclusion, Langevin is a staunch advocate for providing young people around the country with strong networks of support and opportunities. During his time in office, he has championed mentoring and especially highlighted its positive impact on youth with disabilities.
Rev. J. Donald Monan (in memoriam): While serving as the 24th President of Boston College, Rev. J. Donald Monan helped start Greater Boston One-to-One, an organization that would later become Mass Mentoring Partnership and MENTOR’s first Affiliate. For almost three decades, Rev. Monan served on both Mass Mentoring and MENTOR’s boards, dedicating valuable time and expertise to the local and national mentoring movements. He was a key civic leader on topics ranging from education reform to corporate leadership and responsibility in Massachusetts and is largely credited with the tremendous expansion and elevation of Boston College.
The Honorable Tom Osborne: In 1991, while serving as head football coach at the University of Nebraska (and helping lead his teams to three national championships), Tom Osborne and his wife Nancy Osborne founded the TeamMates Mentoring Program. The program, which began by pairing 22 of the Cornhuskers players with 22 Lincoln middle school students, has since grown to 184 chapters with more than 10,000 matches in a five-state region. Osborne also served on the board of MENTOR from 2013-2016 and spent six years as a member of Congress, during which he led the charge on the passage of new School-Based Mentoring funding.
Renée Spencer: Renée Spencer is the leading qualitative researcher in youth mentoring and has written several seminal papers related to the experiences of mentors, youth, and families involved with mentoring programs and the importance of parent and caregiver involvement in mentoring relationships. Her research focuses on the ways supportive relationships with adults can promote positive development in youth and seeks to identify processes for promoting helpful youth mentoring relationships. In addition to being a faculty member at the Boston University School of Social Work, Spencer serves on the National Mentoring Resource Center Research Board, Big Brothers Big Sisters of America Research Advisory Council, and the Friends of the Children Research Evaluation and Fidelity Committee.
Sue Anne Wells: In addition to more than a decade of volunteer leadership on MENTOR’s Board of Directors, Sue Anne Wells serves on the Development Committees of the Siskin Children’s Institute and Women’s Fund. She is also a founding member of Tennessee’s first STEM single gender public charter school, the Chattanooga Girls Leadership Academy (where she started an innovative horse training and riding mentoring program), and an active leader on various non-profit boards. Wells has received numerous awards for her work, including the Anheuser–Busch White Eagle Service Award, the Distinguished Alumna Award at the Girls Preparatory School, the Girls Inc. UnBought, UnBossed Award, and the JCPenney Golden Rule Award. She is an education and youth development champion, advocate, strategist, and philanthropic leader.