The event gave attendees the chance to engage in conversations about issues impacting male students of color while receiving free haircuts from local licensed barbers.
The Center for Access and Success hosted the second annual iBelong Mentoring Program Barbershop Talk on Monday, Oct. 16, at the College Street Tap House. Attendees had a chance to engage in conversations about issues impacting students while receiving free haircuts from local licensed barbers.
Barbershop Talk is meant to engage the students but also encourage students to listen to one another and raise awareness within the Elon community about issues working against students, particularly those from underrepresented and historically marginalized communities.
“This event was designed to create a space where students feel empowered and secure enough to engage in honest, critical, and meaningful conversations about the issues facing students today. My goal is to better understand the needs of our students and be intentional about designing programs to address those needs,” said Travella Free, executive director of the Center for Access and Success. With the help of our mentors, we can have that professional mentorship with our first- and second-year students who have just joined the program.
The iBelong Mentoring Program is funded by North Carolina Independent Colleges and Universities (NCICU), an advocacy group for private colleges and universities in the state. The program provides funding to implement a strategy designed to increase persistence, retention and/or graduation rates of minority students on campus through programmatic efforts to mentor, coach and make forums available for the students to explore various career opportunities.
Local barbershops that participated in the event were Heads Up in Greensboro, the Greensboro campus of the Winston-Salem Barber School, Cutz Inc. Barbershop and Tapered Mental Barbershop.
Rick Morton, owner of Heads Up Barbershop in Greensboro, North Carolina, was involved in last year’s event and was excited to participate again.
“When [Free] told me that it was an organization that was helping the minorities transition into the school, I thought, ‘What a great idea.’ We have a nonprofit called Heads Up for Our Youth and we’re always doing different things for the community, so this just fits right in with what we do,” Morton said.