Children are never too young to start learning about the benefits of college. This is the driving message behind Elementary Partnership, a program begun in the Fall 2000 semester at NSU by Dana Eversole's public relations writing class.

When the program began in the fall of 2000, only 13 college students were involved, and the program was limited to Kathy Carter's kindergarten class at Sequoyah Elementary. The students divided into two smaller groups and visited the class on alternate weeks, first simply interacting with the children, then organizing field trips and activities.

In the fall of 2001, we are expanding the program. This year the number of students involved has gone up to thirty,and they are divided into five teams. Each team mentors a different class at Sequoyah Elementary or Cherokee Elementary.

Students spend two hours a week mentoring. There, the college students interact with the children, learning names, establishing familiarity, teaching songs and games, reading to them and teaching them the importance of university life.

"We are going to start exposing these children to NSU and NSU students and NSU student life so that as they grow up, NSU will already be a part of their plan for the future," said Kathy Carter, who had the original idea for the mentoring program. "The college students will provide the models my children desperately need, and my children will in turn remind the college students what life is really all about--living, loving and leaving a legacy."