“When I left home and went to college, that’s when I learned what mentoring really meant. I found myself surrounded by the most incredible mentors — folks providing guidance both academically and personally. Now, at Clemson, we’re building mentors for the next generation of students and classrooms.”
Find your calling
The mission of the Call Me MISTER® (Mentors Instructing Students Toward Effective Role Models) initiative is to increase the pool of available teachers from a broader, more diverse background, particularly among South Carolina’s lowest-performing elementary schools. Student participants are largely selected from underserved, socioeconomically disadvantaged and educationally at-risk communities. It’s a program Jones built at Clemson and the embodiment of his nearly 50-year journey to invest in next-generation student-educators.
Lead with purpose
Jones started college in 1968 — a time of great social upheaval that also brought unprecedented opportunities for students like him. Now executive director of Clemson’s Call Me MISTER® educational mentoring program, Jones has taken those early experiences as part of a cohort of young Black and brown first-generation college students and turned it into a growing educational mentorship program unlike anything else in the country.
Pursue uncharted territory
Jones’ mother and father never finished high school. And even though the house Jones grew up in was located directly across the street from a private liberal arts college, no one in his family had ever actually stepped foot on a college campus until the day they arrived at the University of Massachusetts for his freshman year. He earned his college degree — the first of three — in education and found himself inspired to go even further.
“Find your calling. I found it by learning how to work with people and sorting out what was important. I had to find my calling, and I found it in education.”
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