I would like to introduce you all to a friend of mine from college, Jason Mitchell. This is an article written about him last year in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the primary local paper in Milwaukee, WI.
ASSIGNMENT:1. KEY TERMS (30 TOTAL)
2. QUESTIONS
- What is the central conflict in this article? Explain in one paragraph (4 sentences).
You may respond to blog with questions or comments pertaining to the article.
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Lack of workers hasn't led to internship for student
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| Gary Porter |
On the one hand, Milwaukee leaders lament a lost generation of workers undereducated for jobs requiring math and science. On the other hand, no one is offering an internship to Jason Robinson Mitchell.
Robinson Mitchell, 22, is a senior at Marquette University majoring in electrical engineering and minoring in math. He is past president of the campus chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers. He tutors and mentors students through Marquette's Educational Opportunity Program. And at age 17, he pleaded guilty to carrying marijuana meant for someone else.
That felony is a matter of public record, but something that Robinson Mitchell had kept relatively private. Then, earlier this month, the keynote speaker at a conference at Marquette bade Robinson Mitchell to stand up before more than 200 business professionals and educators to acknowledge his tainted past.
The speaker, Carl Mack, executive director of the National Society of Black Engineers, called on Robinson Mitchell to challenge the conferees to do more than just wring their hands over the mismatch between challenged young urban residents and the rising demands of employers.
"It is empty rhetoric - not just rhetoric but empty rhetoric - if you cannot deal with this one. That was my message," Mack said later. "You're telling me that we are here to talk about how do we get more students involved, and you can't help this one? You ain't got a prayer. You've got a chance in hell of helping those out there in the streets of Milwaukee and all over the country if you can't deal with this one."
Through Robinson Mitchell, Mack questioned the community's resolve to elevate young Milwaukeeans to become the caliber of employees that businesses seek.
Mack shushed those who applauded Robinson Mitchell's transformation from a juvenile delinquent to a successful college student. Mack wagged an accusing finger and noted Robinson Mitchell's lack of an internship.
"Look at this!" Mack told those gathered in the ballroom of Marquette's Alumni Memorial Union. "What more do you want from him?"
Among the attendees was Frank Cumberbatch, a Milwaukee-based development consultant, who afterward got a copy of Robinson Mitchell's résumé and says he plans to ask about internship opportunities at electrical engineering firms he knows.
"To get a kid with a checkered past who's now deciding to fly right and do something, you have to go a non-traditional way," Cumberbatch says. "You have to use your friends and your colleagues and say, 'Take a look at this one, and give him a chance.' That's how it has to happen."
Donald Sykes, president and chief executive officer of the Milwaukee Area Workforce Investment Board, says Robinson Mitchell's story impressed him, especially as Milwaukee receives more job seekers returning from prison.
"When I came out of college, we had a belief in redemption, and we worked with people, and we tried to believe in corrections and opportunities," Sykes says. "And it's almost now - in spite of the fact that we have a labor shortage - we have pushed the bar so high that it's just knocking people out of the box."
'Stretched and struggled'
Robinson Mitchell presents himself as diligent and grateful. He works hard, he says, to prove that he has been worthy of the support of his mother, of Marquette, and of others who have stood by him. He says he also wants to help other young people who need to see the hope of better possibilities.
"I just really want to open up doors and leave a path there for people to follow and come surpass me," Robinson Mitchell says.
Robinson Mitchell received a number of requests for résumés following Mack's remarks - some, he says, from companies that had previously rejected him. He can't be sure that his criminal background is what's keeping him from getting an internship. His average grade, hovering below a "B," also could play a factor, he says.
Robinson Mitchell figures he sacrificed some grade point average for the time he spent leading the National Society of Black Engineers. He says that he has "stretched and struggled" in some classes but that working hard for his grades has taught him to be a better problem-solver.
Jon Jensen, Marquette's associate dean for engineering, says Robinson Mitchell is a good example of a student who faced adversity, made a mistake, got another chance and made the most of it.
"He is such a hard worker," Jensen says. "He studies really hard, and he struggles, but he's one of these guys who's going to make it because of his own tenacity."
Michael T. Johnson, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Marquette, supervised Robinson Mitchell as a research assistant last summer and describes him as "conscientious," "professional," "confident and well-presented."
A stain on his record
Four days after he turned 17, the night of his high school prom, Milwaukee police arrested Robinson Mitchell with something less than a pound of marijuana that he says he was delivering for someone else. He won't say for whom except that it was someone he could neither refuse nor incriminate without endangering himself or his mother.
Instead, he pleaded guilty and accepted the consequences - including 18 months of probation and a stain on his record.
Robinson Mitchell says he had been involved in gang activities in his north side neighborhood beginning at age 12. He was in and out of juvenile detention and had worn out his welcome at five middle schools.
"Just being in that wrong area gets you in a lot of stuff," Robinson Mitchell says. Yet, he aspired to something better.
"I led a double life," he says. "I didn't want to be on the streets."
Through his mother, who worked full-time and maintained two duplexes, Robinson Mitchell learned the value of labor. He helped her take care of the properties and heeded her advice to keep up with his studies.
At Madison High School, Robinson Mitchell learned about Marquette's Upward Bound outreach program for low-income students. He has participated in the program's math and science curriculum the past six summers, first as a student, lately as a counselor and teacher.
Extra effort required
Kevin Ingram, former director of Upward Bound, was among those who appeared in court five years ago to urge leniency for Robinson Mitchell. He recalls vouching for Robinson Mitchell's behavior and character "and said to the judge, 'I believe that if you give this young man a second chance, he will not mess it up.'"
Ingram, now director of the Wisconsin Educational Opportunities Program, says Robinson Mitchell has not disappointed.
"He's lived up to what I have expected of him," Ingram says. "He was given a second chance, and he took full advantage of it."
Like Cumberbatch, Ingram says Milwaukee leaders must find a better way to help young people such as Robinson Mitchell succeed.
Developing a work force from a challenged population requires extra efforts by employers, recruiters, educators and civic leaders, Cumberbatch says. One-size-fits-all hiring criteria, for instance, can put even those who have risen above their circumstances at a disadvantage.
"You have to recognize that we have a set of talented young people in this city that needs a non-traditional approach to get them to success," Cumberbatch says. "And we should just acknowledge that, sit down, and come up with a strategy of how we do that. Because if we don't, we stand a great chance of losing the talented in that group who are trying."
"It's more than a moral issue," Sykes says. "It's a matter of all of our people working and the kind of payback in the community that this person generates by who he is as a model to other kids - and to the companies if they were forward-thinking, all of the payback they would get from it."
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