History

In the fall of 1989, the Minnesota legislature made matching money available to colleges and universities for the purposes of hiring directors to begin service-learning  programs connecting college students with younger peers. St. Thomas was awarded one of these grants in December and the Tutor/Mentor Program was born. Four faculty partners were recruited to integrate the newly formed program into curriculum for their classes, which included Spanish, Theology, Math, and Business. In the spring of 1990, the first 40 volunteers were placed at Humboldt Junior-Senior High School on St. Paul's West Side. 

Since then the program has continued to grow in the number of sites served as well as the number of volunteers. Currently, 350 tutors each semester work in 24 locations throughout Minneapolis and St. Paul including public schools, parochial schools and after school programs. They provide tutoring in Reading, Math, Science, English, Spanish, Social Studies, and English Language Learner (ELL).

The number of faculty partners at the University of St. Thomas, from 4 in 1990 to over 40 today in 13 different disciplines.