Greeks mentor Phila. youths

New to the University this fall, the Greek system's Mentor Consortium encourages and facilitates interpersonal relationships between Greek members and West Philadelphia youths. The consortium acts as an umbrella organization over the Greek system, unifying its mentoring efforts and reducing overlap among chapters, according to Delta Upsilon brother Adam Litwin. The College and Wharton sophomore emphasized that though mentoring, like tutoring, involves a one-on-one relationship, it also attempts to foster a friendship between mentor and his student. Litwin originally created the consortium for a history seminar class project last spring, which dealt with the University's relationship with West Philadelphia. The course was team-taught by Director of the Center for Community Partnerships Ira Harkavy and History Professor Lee Benson. Litwin decided to combine his access to the Greek system with his previous mentoring experience. His goal is to "play matchmaker between Greek organizations and programs like the one Cory [Bowman, assistant director of Penn Programs for Public Service,] organizes and works with." Bowman had a group of Philadelphia high school students who wanted mentors, but he was unable to find an organized group to work with his students. Litwin chose to work through the Greek system because it allows the individual fraternities and sororities to assume responsibility for running the mentoring programs. Litwin and his fraternity have already coordinated a mentoring group of West Philadelphia High School students for the Chi Omega sorority. Though Chi Omega participates in many other forms of community service, this is the sorority's first experience with mentoring. After more programs are up and running, the consortium will step back and allow the Greek organizations to run the programs themselves. But the consortium will continue to offer mentoring consulting by providing materials, suggestions and guidance. Litwin first discovered the strengths of organized community service through Delta Upsilon's "College Now Collaboration." This program matched each member of the fraternity's pledge class with a West Philadelphia High School student. "[I feel] very optimistic that there will be positive benefits," Harkavy said. "[I expect the Consortium to] illustrate the significant impact that undergraduates can make to both society and scholarship and improvement of wider society if they focus on real world problems about which they care deeply." Still in the early stages of organization, Litwin says that there is plenty of room for improvement and change. For example, he worries that the focus on the Greek system -- intended to narrow the scope of the consortium -- may result in excluding many interested non-Greeks.