Teaching Latino students about math and life
David Coreas (CAS’07) and his fraternity, Phi Iota Alpha, have initiated a mentorship program for sixth graders in Chelsea.
As the new chapter president of the Latino fraternity Phi Iota Alpha, David Coreas (CAS’07) has been instrumental in creating a mentoring partnership with Chelsea Middle School. This semester, Boston University volunteers will tutor sixth graders in math and language arts at the school for three hours twice a week. Additionally, the tutors will have a chance to get to know their students before each tutoring session.
“This is the flagship semester,” says Coreas. “It’s amazing and groundbreaking because we are working with a government institution to help sixth graders in their academics.” Coreas began formulating the idea last year, when he was the secretary of the fraternity. Since then, he says, the fraternity has been planning and promoting the project to ensure a smooth first semester of tutoring.
“We’re tailoring it to Latino and other minority students because Chelsea is such a heavily populated area of Latinos, mainly from Central and South America,” says Coreas. He has also made a comprehensive effort to notify minority student groups across campus of the project.
Coreas, whose double majors are economics and international relations, takes the future of the program seriously. Phi Iota Alpha hopes to expand its tutoring to additional subjects, but Coreas stresses that while tutoring is an integral part of the project, it is not the only focus. “We want to help these kids realize that there’s more to life after high school, that high school shouldn’t be the end,” he says.