We need to have more mentors for young minority students

Joanne Rathe | The Boston Globe | Getty Images

Broadcast journalist Soledad O'Brien walks thorough the Office of Student Life for a press conference at UMass Boston before a speaking engagement at the school.

The lights pop on. A smiling crowd claps with anticipation. Then, I take the stage all smiles and waves. I'm not anchoring or making a speech or even winning an award. I'm doing one of the most rewarding things I've done yet — teaching a group of young women how to get to and through college so they can step onto their own stage one day, and succeed.

The girls come with impressive agendas. Most are minorities, some children of parents who did not attend college. They are from families without the background to provide guidance on things that are integral to success. One African-American young woman told me: "I was hoping to feel empowered and to maybe learn some skills and techniques about public speaking because I want to practice law and I know that public speaking is really important."

The work is important because even as U.S. high school graduation rates reach record highs, students of color and from low-income backgrounds are still lagging behind their white and wealthier peers. Mentorship has been shown to have significant positive effects on at-risk and underrepresented students, but this ongoing guidance is critical in helping them progress through post-secondary education and training programs and, ultimately, in the workforce. We need more mentors and leaders of color to help shepherd our youth as they navigate the highly competitive job market where coveted skills, access and professional networks are critical to success.

The need is out there. According to the 2017 Building a Grad Nation report, the nation has achieved an 83.2 percent high school graduation rate. Yet, at both the national and state levels, troubling graduation gaps remain between white students and their black and Latino peers. The gap is so severe that, on average, white and Asian students earn a college-level credential at a rate about 20 percentage points higher than Hispanic and black students. Even with affirmative action, blacks and Hispanics are more underrepresented at top colleges than 35 years ago.

In the workforce, people of color struggle to break through in many industries and in leadership positions. For example, white men account for 72 percent of corporate leadership at 16 of the Fortune 500 companies and only 7 percent of partners at law firms are black, Hispanic, Asian or Native American.

Among many challenges facing those trying to break that ceiling are doubts about their ability to succeed. I faced those struggles myself, early in my career. I remember walking up to a group of co-workers at my first job who were talking about the new affirmative action hire. I stood there for a beat before I realized they were talking about me!

What made it possible for me to step past instances like that is the support I got when I was in high school and college, the lessons I learned about how to make my way in academia and the professional world, about how I needed to be even better prepared than the competition so that people would take me seriously.

Employers need to look inward to remove unconscious bias and other barriers from the recruitment and hiring process. The Rockefeller Foundation and 100K Opportunities have done important work in the impact hiring space to help companies understand how to attract and retain non-traditional candidates — so-called opportunity youth, who show tremendous promise and aptitude but may not have a conventional educational or professional background. Companies also need to make a real commitment to diversity and inclusion from the top, and not one that is relegated to HR. They need to take a hard look at their leadership and board representation, and whether they are providing adequate mentorship and leadership opportunities from within — especially when it comes to young women and minorities.

The business case for diversity and inclusion is an easy one. It's not just the right thing to do in one of the most diverse countries in the world; the investment also yields strong return on investment. More than three quarters (76 percent) of at-risk young adults who had a mentor aspire to enroll in and graduate from college versus half (56 percent) of at-risk young adults who had no mentor. According to McKinsey, companies in the top quartile for diversity are 35 percent more likely to financially outperform those in the bottom quartile. Likewise, in the United States, there is a linear relationship between racial and ethnic diversity and better financial performance: for every 10 percent increase in racial and ethnic diversity on the senior executive team, earnings rise.

I urge you to work with your employer, community groups, or any resource at your disposal to help make dreams come true for these young adults. Be a mentor yourself, tell them your story of mentorship and what it did for you.

Trust me, it will not only enrich their lives but they will pay it forward by creating even more mentors. "My hopes and dreams are to graduate college, to own my own business, or to own my own dance studio," one girl told me. "So I can help out other children in my community."

Soledad O'Brien is an award-winning journalist, author and founder of Starfish Media Group and co-founder of the PowHERful Foundation. She is also the host of American Graduate Day, a public media effort to highlight individuals and organizations that are working to improve the high school graduation rate and put the nation's youth on a pathway to career success. The sixth annual American Graduate Day airs on Saturday, October 14 from 2-6pm ET (check your local listings) on PBS and public television stations across the country. Follow her on Twitter @soledadobrien.