"Paying it Forward" Earns CSUSB Instructor A National Award for Mentoring

The idea of paying it forward is simple: Someone does a good deed for you, and rather than returning the favor to that person, you “pay it forward” by doing a good deed for someone else. Jose Rivera, a lecturer at Cal State San Bernardino’s communication studies department and a CSUSB alum, is paying it forward, and his effort to mentor students earned him the 2014 Young Professional Mentor award from the University of Alabama’s Plank Center for Leadership in Public Relations. Rivera will be one of six honored at the 2014 Milestones in Mentoring Awards Banquet in Chicago on Oct. 30. The Young Professional Mentor Award “honors young professionals who are up-and-coming leaders and are already paying it forward,” according to the center’s website. For Rivera, it wasn’t until he was 27 that he experienced people paying it forward into his life, at least academically. The first in his family to attend college and complete his degree, he credits his professors at CSUSB – Astrid Sheil, Donna Gotch and Kensil “Brad” Owen – as helping him along the way. “I came back to college as a 27-year-old,” Rivera said. “I always felt I had the potential. I always understood the importance of an education. But I didn’t have anyone around me to put me on the right path.” That path included being steered to the right classes to take to qualify for college as well as the process of filling out an admissions application and financial aid forms to help pay for that education. The application process, with its forms and deadlines, can be daunting to any student – let alone for someone coming from a background where college is not part of the family tradition. Just like Rivera, many of the students he teaches are the first in their families to attend college. “I’m actually dealing with students who also have the same experience I did,” he said. “So I’m able to affect their lives and have them not wait 10 to 15 years before they actually start succeeding. “Honestly, a lot of them, I’m amazed at the fact that they actually got here,” said Rivera, who sometimes wonders how much further along he would be had someone been around to guide him. “And, to me, how much more can they do with just a little bit of guidance?” While there is guidance in the classroom with the subject matter, there is also the guidance he provides to students to prepare them after graduating from CSUSB. Rivera said he wants them to see that there are more opportunities available to them that they may never have thought possible. He steers them down that path by letting them know of internships that are available, and helping them along the process of preparing resumés and cover letters to be considered for those opportunities. Jacqueline Vargas, a senior communication studies student, worked with Rivera since her freshman year at Cal State San Bernardino. While currently on an internship with the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Washington, D.C., she will be introducing Rivera at the Plank Center’s awards banquet in Chicago. The fact that she is in the nation’s capital at all is a credit to Rivera’s mentoring, Vargas said. Coming from Barstow, she’s the first in her family to attend college. When she arrived at CSUSB, her goal was to graduate and find a job, she said. Rivera, she said, made her and her classmates comfortable in his class, encouraging them not just in the course work, but also letting them know he was available to them if they wanted advice on life after college. Vargas took him up on the offer, and before long, they were discussing internships as a way to gain practical experience that together with her academic studies, would make her degree much more valuable. “He exposed me to many opportunities that I didn’t know existed,” she said. First came an internship at the National Orange Show in San Bernardino; it was the first time she had ever put together a resumé and a cover letter. Eventually, that led to the USDA internship in Washington, D.C., which she obtained through the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities. “I’ve been here since February (2014),” Vargas said. “I would not be here if it weren’t for him (Rivera). I wouldn’t have found out about HACU or this internship. I would have gone through school, graduate and hopefully I would find a job With the practical experience gained through her internships, especially with the USDA, Vargas said she wants to work in federal government after graduating in June, and hopefully in Washington. Coming from Barstow, she said, that wasn’t something she ever envisioned. “I try to get them to see the world, that it’s bigger than they think it is,” Rivera said. “And I also enjoy seeing someone get out there, and the moment when the world opens up. When you’re there to see it, it’s quite something to see and experience.” He also encourages students to make sure to pay it forward, to encourage and help someone down the path of success when they get a chance. “Every time they want to thank me … my response is, ‘Just remember all the things that I’m teaching you. If you want to thank me, you pay it back by paying it forward.’”