Pivoting to Enhance Service- Learning Mentoring During a Pandemic

Media and Crime is a Sociology course taught by Professor Shelley Grant where students examine the relationship between mass media and the criminal justice system. Through a service- learning component, students impact the Arlington community by mentoring children that are identified as at-risk youth. This initiative had to shift in the spring of 2020 due to COVID 19 when agencies such as CIS had to find new and innovative ways to support students both academically and socially. This also shifted the focus of my independent study to the pivots required to provide service-learning to CIS in the Fall semester. Face-to-face mentoring was not an option, so students in Professor Grant’s course became “pen pals” with their mentees through email letter exchanges. It was a drastic change in service-delivery and one that was worth researching. With IRB approval, students were asked to complete reflections on the experience and pre and post course self-efficacy surveys. Interviews with CIS staff, set to occur this spring, will also help identify the successes and gaps associated with this type of mentoring.