USU becomes University of Promise to help children
Utah State University is partnering with America’s Promise – The Alliance for Youth to provide children the opportunities they need to become successful adults and contributing citizens.
America’s Promise is a national service organization dedicated to fulfilling the Five Promises for the nation’s children. These promises represent what a child needs to become successful, according to http://www.americaspromise.com. They are caring adults, safe places, healthy starts, marketable skills and opportunities to serve.
Kevin Kesler, director of 4-H and Youth programs at USU, said the Five Promises complement the goals of 4-H.
“That’s what 4-H has been doing for the last hundred years. That’s why I as the director of 4-H, seeing that our goals were very similar and the fact that [4-H] is a part of the university, wanted to get Utah State involved,” he said. “One of the things that we wanted to create was a University of Promise, which means that we are striving to provide these five promises to students and others in the community.”
Jack Payne, vice president of University Extension and dean of Continuing Education, said the university will benefit from signing a commitment to become a University of Promise.
“I think it helps with our recruiting. It helps improve who we are as an institution and the type of students we want to turn out in the world,” he said.
USU is the first university in the state to become a University of Promise, although Payne said he thinks others will follow. The program will not cost the university anything, because all of its funding comes from grants, he said.
Mary Ann Carlile, a 4-H AmeriCorps promise fellow, will be coordinating the program under 4-H. She said the goal of America’s promise is that kids will “turn out to be successful people that will give back to society.”
Becoming a University of Promise means coordinating pre-existing programs the university has to help kids and putting them under this program, she said.
“It’s such a neat thing that we have the ability to affect all the kids across the state,” Carlile said.
Kesler said a meeting will be held Friday, Nov. 1 at 9 a.m. in the Animal Science Building, Room 207, to organize the University of Promise.
“This is where we will coordinate how the university will carry out its mission as a University of Promise,” he said.
The meeting will include college deans, department heads and student organizations.
There will be no direct costs to the university, because they received a grant from America’s Promise to start the program.
Students who want to be involved should go through student groups they are involved with or contact Mary Ann Carlile at 797-2838.
USU will create an online resource called a Promise Station to help people get involved in service opportunities relating to youth and give them access to research about children. According to an Extension press release, the Promise Station should be operating within the next year as “an Internet-based gathering place‚ where the Utah State University community can share information, ideas, events and other resources supporting youth in the communities surrounding their campuses.”
According to a press release, President Kermit L. Hall said, “The university has always offered many services to the youth of Utah, but this partnership with America’s Promise will help to better focus and expand our efforts to nurture and develop our young people.”
Carlile said they are putting together a Promise Team that will consist of college deans and sports representatives.
According to its Web site, America’s Promise – The Alliance for Youth was established in April 1997 as an outgrowth of the Presidents’ Summit for America’s Future, a meeting for all former, living presidents of the United States who called for citizens to make children a national priority. The founding chairman is current Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Powell said, “America’s Promise is pulling together the might of this nation to strengthen the character and competence of youth, and it’s working.”
The symbol for America’s Promise is “The little red wagon, a symbol of childhood. It could be filled with a child’s hopes and dreams or weighed down with their burdens. Millions of American children need our help to pull that wagon along. Let’s all pull together.”
“To fulfill its promise of making life better for youth, Utah State University and the State 4-H Program will promote collaborative and coordinated ventures and increase the overall impact of its children and youth focused programs and being a University of Promise is an opportunity for Utah State to bring together its resources – teaching resources, research and the energy of students – and focus those strengths upon the concerns of community and the five promises that are so important to children and youth,” the press release said.
Carlile said Penn State, which is one of USU’s peers, and the University of Minnesota are other universities that have signed commitments to be a “University of Promise.”
-royburton@cc.usu.edu