Ian Hinze, Campus Carrier News Editor
The LifeReady Program and provost Kathy Richardson are looking to expand and broaden the scope of a relatively new mentor program at Berry, the Berry College Center for Integrity in Leadership (BCCIL).
The program, which pairs students with highly regarded leaders in the Rome community, began only last year and aims to train students in what the LifeReady webpage calls “a type of leadership seemingly in short supply” in the world today, ethical leadership. Mentors aid students in preparing for ethical dilemmas in their chosen fields and their experiences outside of college. The BCCIL is headed by provost Richardson and shaped largely by alumnus Buster Wright (C73), vice chair of the Board of Trustees.
Richardson said that the BCCIL is a program with several different aspects, some of which she hopes will be developed in the near future.
“Last academic year, we launched sort of a pilot year,” Richardson said. “The first and easiest program to develop was mentorship. When (the BCCIL) is fully developed, we hope it will have a speaker series, a program to develop a certificate that students could earn by participating in several of the activities of the center, classes designated as ethics-intensive classes … and an option where students do an immersion experience, an internship or leadership position on or off campus. If you did the courses, did the immersion leadership experience and the mentorship you would earn the certificate.”
The program has grown rapidly since its introduction.
“Fifty students were chosen last year with five mentors,” Richardson said. “This year, we chose 60, with 12 mentors. Our hope for next year is that we’ll have between 80 and 100 students (in mentorship programs).”
Some notable mentors include J.R. Davis, executive director of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Northwest Georgia, Gayland Cooper, retired superintendent of Rome City Schools, John Bennett, former Rome city manager, and Buster Wright, who Richardson said has “had the great vision and passion for the center.”
Richardson said Wright has “been very influential in shaping ideas and communicating his enthusiasm and passion for (the BCCIL) to our Board of Trustees,” and called his vision for the center “just visionary.” She said that he invests much of his own time into finding and training mentors in the community.
Currently, little funding exists for the BCCIL.
“We’re hoping to find some funding to train some faculty members who are interested in knowing how to add a component to an existing course or build a free-standing course,” Richardson said. “We have some great courses in business ethics, environmental ethics, bioethics, but (we want to) extend those and broaden those.”
Junior Maria Santos said the program has helped her address questions she never would have considered in her regular classes.
“A lot of things we didn’t even realize we’d have to deal with in the medical field, like integrity and ethics, we get to discuss it as a group,” Santos said. “We’ve become a support group to each other because we’re all in the same age group, all applying to grad school and med school … that’s been great, talking to our mentor who’s been through all of this, to see the light at the end of the tunnel.”
Junior Tyler Kaelin said that as a science major, he finds the mentorship especially exciting.
“I think some majors tend to have more ethics-based conversations,” he said. “We don’t necessarily have classes in pre-med ethics. It’s exciting to try to integrate ethical ideas into science classes. It’s not intended to be more work; it’s more in depth, viewing our classes in light of current events. It adds depth to our majors and what we want to do with our lives … (It) makes us more well-rounded individuals.”
Junior Colleen Curlee said she is excited about the expansion of the program and the opportunity to ethicize courses.