Stanford Students Tutor Service Workers on Campus

BSP In the Press

by Elaine Korry, National Public Radio Morning Edition (April 14, 2005)

April 14, 2005

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Profile: Stanford students are tutoring English to the Mexican immigrants on the campus janitorial staff

RENEE MONTAGNE, host:

Two worlds have come together in a rare teaching program at one of the nation's top universities elsewhere in California . Students at Stanford are reaching across a cultural divide to tutor the Mexican immigrants who've cleaned their classrooms and dorms. NPR's Elaine Korry reports.

ELAINE KORRY reporting:

The janitors arrive at the Latino Student Center , school binders in hand. They're a mixed crowd, shy young men with calloused hands and grandmothers wearing gold crosses. Some are new arrivals. Others have been in the US for years. What they share is a determination to learn English.

Unidentified Woman #1: Hello. How are you?

Unidentified Woman #2: Good, thanks.

Unidentified Woman #1: Good. All right.

Unidentified Woman #3: Hello.

Unidentified Woman #1: Well, hi. How you doing?

Unidentified Woman #3: Good. How you doing?

Unidentified Woman #1! : It's good to see you.

Unidentified Woman #3: I know.

KORRY: One by one, the janitors pair off with students, pick a spot in the crowded sitting room and look over the day's lesson.

Unidentified Woman #4: Level ones only need vocabulary sheets, and then level twos and threes need the role-play sheets.

Unidentified Woman #5: OK.

KORRY: Ebelia Ramirez(ph), who washes windows at Stanford Law School , sits beside her tutor, Niji Jane(ph). She checks a drawing of a coffee shop scene and begins naming what she sees.

Ms. EBELIA RAMIREZ (Custodial Staff): ...hamburger, french fries, ice cream, soda or--I mean, juice?

Ms. NIJI JANE (Tutor): Soda.

Ms. RAMIREZ: OK.

Ms. JANE: (Spanish spoken)

Ms. RAMIREZ: The waiter?

Ms. JANE: Mm-hmm.

KORRY: In another corner, Daniel Dijandelar(ph), a freshman, helps Teresa Emuacillo(ph) form sentences.

Mr. DANIEL DIJANDELAR (Tutor): So a sentence t! hat involves a present or a gift.

Ms. TERESA EMUACILLO (Custodial Staff): Oh, OK. Do you think it's very good to--Christmas is nice occasion for presents?

Mr. DIJANDELAR: Perfect.

Ms. EMUACILLO: OK?

KORRY: Emuacillo cleans Stanford's biggest dormitory. A widow with two grown daughters, she calls the freshmen residents her babies. Twice a week, she gives up her lunch hour to practice English.

Ms. EMUACILLO: You know, because I want to prepare. Sometimes people need me for something else, and, `Teresa!' Always they call me. I want to help it.

KORRY: Emuacillo is here because her union, the Service Employees International, convinced local janitorial companies to invest in their workers through tutoring. At companies such as Google or Hewlett-Packard, professional tutors were hired, but Stanford's program, called Habla, is run by student volunteers. One of them is 19-year-old sophomore Jessica Harris .

Ms. JESSICA HARRIS (Tutor): I think a lot of people feel like, `Oh, I want to do some! thing good. I better travel far and wide and better go to Asia and better go to Africa .' And I've always felt like you could make a big difference here, even, like at Stanford.

KORRY: Habla's president is Lauren Meyer , a 20-year-old junior.

Ms. LAUREN MEYER (President, Habla): I never expected that when I came to Stanford, some of my best friends would end up being janitors.

KORRY: Meyer got involved after watching some of her classmates treat the janitors who picked up after them like servants.

Ms. MEYER: There was such a lack of appreciation, and so I was looking for something that would kind of connect the two different groups more, because they're not two groups that would normally come together and get to know each other.

KORRY: Now, two years later, there's a waiting list of students eager to get involved.

(Soundbite of voices)

KORRY: For now, their lesson concluded, the Stanford students and janitors share a quick meal of burritos and then go their separate ways. It's hard to say who has benefited more from the encounter.

Elaine Korry , NPR News.

MONTAGNE: This is NPR News.