Quote:
Originally Posted by IKE
Kathie,
You may be touching on a slightly larger issue. I have been involved with FIRST since 2002, and with Team 33 since 2005, and this is the first year I knew of something called "Senior Mentors". We are an established team so thus less likely to be looking for help, but I was suprised the first time someone corrected me for using the term incorrectly. Thanks for putting up the link, and thank you for the support to the FIRST Community.
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There you go.
It is getting better. I think FIRST is making a deeper effort. (It is also making a deeper superficial effort (whatever that means) to showcase women in FRC. If you remember at Kick-Off, we saw such notable FIRSTers as Kathie, Jenny, and Tonya Scott introducing folks from FIRST. Of course, they all wear multiple hats and being a FSM or former FSM who still carries the knowledge, is just one of them for Kathie and Jenny. Sorry for the aside.)
They're getting there. We have some awesome FIRST Senior Mentors now and we've had some awesome Senior Mentors in the past. Ask Jenny about them. Truth is - we need more Senior Mentors, not less. Texas could easily use 3. Mike Henry is doing a great job here in the 'I'm not sure what his boundaries are' part of Texas. Of course there is probably no money for needs like FIRST Senior Mentors but that doesn't mean they are not valuable and needed. The need is only going to deepen as FRC continues to expand.
To comment on the confusion - being a former FIRST Senior Mentor and never quite conveying that well to our team, I caused a lot of confusion for the students. The up side of that is that new students will come up and look at me at close range (like I'm a bug) and say, " just EXACTly what do you do, Jane?" And then we know what happens... my elevator speech. I have to work on that.
Jane
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