BOOK INSPIRES OSU STUDENTS TO MENTOR COLUMBUS PUBLIC STUDENTS

   COLUMBUS -- The story of Cedric Jennings has inspired some Ohio State University students to take its message of cultural understanding to two schools in the Columbus district.

   Cedric Jennings is a student who struggled to survive and excel in a blighted Washington, D.C., high school where gang leaders ruled and honors students hid.

   Author Ron Suskind tells the story of Cedric's journey to achieve his goal of graduation and college in A Hope in the Unseen. A staff writer for the Wall Street Journal, Suskind won the Pulitzer Prize in 1995 for his two-part series about the high-school years of Cedric Jennings.

   Suskind will visit Ohio State on Tuesday, (10/5) for a public presentation at 7 p.m. in Weigel Hall Auditorium, 1866 College Road. He is the featured author for the autumn quarter John Rudolph Book Program at the University Honors & Scholars Center. Some 250 students have read the book and will join Suskind for a private discussion of his book on Tuesday afternoon.

   As a result of the book program, Honors & Scholars Center students will mentor students at the South High School in Columbus and offer them advice on academic and cultural issues related to going to college. This program is in partnership with the Department of African American and African Studies Community Extension Center.

   Suskind will visit South High School, 1160 Ann St., at 11:30 a.m. on Tuesday (10/5) to see what Ohio State, through the Honors & Scholars Center and the African American and African Studies Community Extension Center, is doing to change the lives of students at this urban high school.

   "The biggest thing we can do is answer their questions about why doing well in school is really important," says John Klapp, an OSU student who will mentor students at South High.

   Klapp, a senior majoring in electrical engineering from Wheelersburg, says while tutoring students in algebra, it's a good time to talk about how education can open doors.

   The Honors & Scholars Center has also formed a partnership with the Columbus Africentric School and Office of Minority Affairs-Retention Services that will provide eighth-graders at CAS with mentoring and a book program focused on readings involving cross-cultural understanding.

   The Columbus Africentric School program, titled "Mentoring and Sharing Through the Power of Books: A Collaborative Program of Cultural Understanding Through Literature," involves selecting eighth-graders to read a book over winter break. Those students will then meet with OSU students for discussions and social and cultural activities.

   The two public school programs are not the first for the Honors & Scholars Center. Through the Columbus Public Schools Adopt-A-School program, OSU students have worked with Indianola Middle School students for several years.

   David Strauss, assistant director of the Honors & Scholars Center, says the programs offer all students a chance to learn from each other. "We hope that the two new outreach programs will inspire OSU students to strive for purposeful community involvement and understanding," Strauss says.

CONTACT: David Strauss, University Honors & Scholars Center, 292- 3135.