I was extremely pleased that Nichole was able to more fully participate in our program this year and integrate more of her ideas about holistic wellness. From the beginning I think Sarah and I both realized that we needed to focus on all aspects of well-being with our students. Coming out of the pandemic I have been acutely aware, even more than before, of how crucial it is to explicitly focus on supporting the mental health and well-being of our students. In fact, when my students who are senior in high school choose their research projects, many of them choose topics related to mental health, highlighting their own awareness of the challenges we are facing as a society. I loved working with Nichole this year to really focus on helping all our students feel prepared and engaged and, for me, the showcase photos of students after they walked across the stage were a stunning example of our success. They all looked so happy! Even though some of the material we covered was very hard to sit with, topics of racism and oppression… The community support and the work they did with Nichole helped them integrate that knowledge with room for joy and a sense of growth. I was inspired by this success to ask Nichole to intern with me this year in a pilot course I am teaching to develop the curriculum more and integrate it with my year long senior dual credit course.

- Sonja Taylor, Director of Senior Inquiry and Assistant Teaching Professor at Portland State, Mentor Program Director for Inquiry for Justice.

★★★★★