One early January morning
two years ago, Johns
Hopkins medical student
Sarah Hemminger
strode purposefully down
Orleans Street to Paul Laurence Dunbar
High School, located a stone’s throw
away from the East Baltimore campus.
Unannounced, Hemminger asked to
meet with the school’s principal to discuss
her desire to tutor 10 or so Dunbar
freshmen. Not just any students. She
wanted the "dead end kids.” Those one
step away from academic expulsion,
or otherwise troubled. The next day,
the school gave her 14 students. Two
months later, the group’s number was
up to 17.
"Most of these kids had very bad
grades, but those [with bad grades]
weren’t the only ones the school considered
giving me—all of them were
in serious need of help,” Hemminger
said.
Help is what they got, in the form of tutorial sessions that immediately paid dividends.
At the end of the first semester, 70
percent of Hemminger’s students had passed
all their courses.
Today, 18 students, including the original
17, meet with Hemminger and other tutors,
mostly medical students, as part of what is
now called the Incentive Mentoring Program
at Dunbar.
Of the 18, all of whom are juniors, seven
made honor roll last semester, and another
six passed all their classes. Even those still
having some academic trouble have displayed
marked improvement, Hemminger
said, and the fact they are all still in school
is a success in its own right.
"Many of these kids were failing, and a big
reason for that is that they weren’t going to
classes,” she said.
The Incentive Mentoring Program’s mission
is to foster the academic and social
growth of selected students at Dunbar High
School.
Volunteers tutor the students and, in turn,
the high-schoolers participate in monthly
community service projects in order to build
a sense of worth and social responsibility.
Hemminger, a doctoral candidate in the
School of Medicine’s Biomedical Engineering
Department, said that at the time
she founded the program she felt "self-absorbed”
in classes and wanted to apply
her skills and time elsewhere. She thought
that what kids like these needed was a good
measure of encouragement and personal
attention.
She started with no staff or funds, just a
will to make a difference.
"I would tell my close friends what I was
doing, and they thought I was on some kind
of drug or had lost my mind,” she said. "The
running joke in anatomy class was that the
formaldehyde is getting to Sarah.”
Eventually, she enlisted some friends and
colleagues to volunteer as tutors. Her original
plan was to just help the Dunbar students
with homework, but she soon discovered
additional enticement was needed. The first
few sessions, she admits, were rough. Some
threw things at the tutors; others didn’t
show up.
To counter, Hemminger early on began
to take the students on fun outings, including
camping trips, movies, visits to her
home and dinners out, all of which she
paid for out of pocket. She found food was
a great motivator, as several of the students
had never before been to a sit-down restaurant,
and a free meal was not something to
pass up.
"Most of them had never been out of Baltimore
before, even to the county. [Some
students] could not understand how kids in
my neighborhood could leave their bikes
out in the open, unattended, and have
them not get stolen. It never crossed my
mind they would react this way, almost
beyond my comprehension.”
In return for her generosity, Hemminger
asks the students to regularly attend the
tutorial sessions and to participate in the
volunteer activities, whether it be to spend
a day at a Maryland food bank, help clean up
a local high school or mentor middle school
students.
Hemminger and the other tutors meet
twice a week, Mondays and Thursdays, with
the program’s full group. Ideally, there will be a
tutor for every student.
Students typically
have the most difficulty
with the math and science
classes, a problem
that plays to the
strengths of the Hopkins
tutors. Through
word of mouth, other
Dunbar students have become aware of the
program, and Hemminger allows "drop-ins”
of any grade who need a little help with
their studies.
To date, roughly 60 Johns Hopkins students
have been involved with the program,
including a core of 20 tutors. Other volunteers
transport the students to activities or
work with Dunbar officials to closely monitor
the students’ progress, which includes
keeping tabs on all homework assignments
and test scores.
"We’ll find out what assignments they
didn’t turn in and let them make it up,” she
said. "Our goal is to instill in them the value
of why school and grades matter so that they
become self-motivated. We can’t hold their
hands the whole time.”
To help support her efforts, Hemminger
applied for and received an Albert Schweitzer
Fellowship, the stipend of which
helped to fund the program’s activities. She
also secured a Community Service Grant
from the Johns Hopkins Alumni Association
and funds from her own department.
Murray Sachs, director of the Biomedical
Engineering Department, said that
Hemminger’s efforts have made a profound
impact on not just the lives of these 18 students
but the department as well.
"Sarah’s program is one of the most marvelous
things that has happened here in a
long time,” Sachs said. "The spirit she has
generated here is just incredible. On top of
all this, she is an excellent grad student.”
Romina Wahab, the program’s director
of volunteering and a second-year medical
student, said that she got involved with
Hemminger’s group because she felt it would
offer a nice break from medical school and
be an enriching experience.
"I’ve stayed with it because I’m having
a real good time. It’s fun working with the
students, Sarah and the other tutors,” said
Wahab, who joined the program in September
2004. "It’s also so rewarding. You see
the progress in these kids. The volunteers
have made so much difference in their lives.
When we started, the students would come
into class all rowdy and noisy, but they have
matured so much. Now they come in and get
right to work.”
Hemminger said her short-term plan for
the program is to take this first group of
students through graduation. Long term,
Hemminger realizes she has to find someone
to eventually take over the reins, as there
will come a time she moves on.
Hers will be big shoes to fill, said Reza
Shadmehr, Hemminger’s faculty adviser.
"She sacrifices so much of her time for
them. She is a second parent to some of
these kids,” said Shadmehr, a professor of
biomedical engineering, who has known
Hemminger since her days as an undergraduate
at Johns Hopkins. "If Sarah feels
she needs to, she gets involved with finding
them clothes, books or whatever else they
need.”
Her work has not gone unnoticed, as in
January she received a Martin Luther King
Jr. Community Service Award from Johns
Hopkins in honor of her commitment.
For more information on the Incentive Mentoring
Program, or to sign up to volunteer, go to www.dunbar-imp.org.