By E. Wendratama

College Bound Dorchester’s College Connections program has received a Community Partnership Award from Mutual of America for its work in guiding the neighborhood’s high school dropouts toward college.

College Connections offers high school dropouts aged 16 to 27 courses in English, Social Studies, Science, Humanities and Math. The program is entirely free, and experts on staff assist individuals outside these core areas.

“We focus on students who are struggling, having a hard time, who have dropped out of high school, students that other college-focused programs don’t really work with,” said Mark Culliton, College Bound’s CEO.

“Our students are wearing a veil of disruption … doing bad things, being involved in gangs or violence. They’re wearing that cloak of negative behavior. But we don’t believe that’s who they are. We help them to take that cloak off, to allow who they really are to come through, to get into and succeed in college.”

The program currently enrolls 380 students, and recruit students through neighborhood associations and from word of mouth through current and former students.

Mutual of America, an insurance company, has been awarding non-profit organizations since 1996. Ted Herman, vice chairman of Mutual of America, presented the award to Culliton on April 4 for making meaningful contributions to the community.

“Our independent committee applauds the College Connections program for addressing the unique needs of students who have left high school prior to graduating,” he said.  The award comes with a $25,000 grant.

Since the program’s start four years ago, 88 students have received their GED and 56 students have advanced to college. Three-quarters of these enrolled at Bunker Hill Community College, a College Bound partner. Recognizing that financing for college can be a significant barrier, College Bound also partners with UAspire, an organization that provides loans to students.

College Bound has four facilities throughout Dorchester and operates out of an administrative office on SamosetStreet in Shawmut. Culliton said programs like this can help to turn an entire community. “A neighborhood stays bad because their young people stay there,” he said. “They create a pattern of negativity. To make Dorchester a better place, the young people need to go to college and leave this place. This is true in any neighborhood. That’s what we’re doing, giving them hope and opportunity.”

He said that in a bad neighborhood, the people who control the streets and make them a scary place are predominantly teens and young adults who have dropped out of high school.

“So we come and work with them, we’re going to show them a different path,” he said.

Alberto Rodriguez, 19, is a typical student in the program. He dropped out of high school, and before joining the College Bound he said he was “just on the streets.”

Two years ago, his girlfriend asked him to join the program.

“At first I didn’t take the class seriously,because I took it so I could date the girl,”he said. “It was on-and-off, it took me a while, but eventually I got it. Now I’m serious about it, and I know that I want to go to college and get a job.”

He spends every weekday in College Bound’s Little House in Savin Hill from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Jermaine Hamilton finished the College Connections program three years ago and is currently a Brandeis University student.

“I was a former drug dealer, and I went to College Bound for a second chance,” he said. “Kamau [Parker] was my educator, and I could relate to his troubled past and was inspired by his experience.”

Among the program’s educators are those who’ve made it off the streets and who have the experience to help students like Hamilton, said Parker, who has been working for College Bound for six years.

Parker said he’s happy with how Rodriguez has participated in the program.

“When Alberto joined us, he was not Alberto now,” he said. “He didn’t come here every day, didn’t follow instruction. But we just pushed him to keep coming. And at some point, something clicks, and he could figure it out by himself. That’s what we do to our students.”

Parker also said it’s important for the staff to have the same vested interests as the students do. “We’re looking for staff who come from the same community. It gives us a different piece of leverage to stand on when we talk to the students. Trust is a very important thing. The students need to trust us,” he said.

Culliton said College Connections succeeds in guiding 26 to 28 percent of the students through the program and on to college.

“It’s a low percentage compared to our other programs that have 50 to 80 percent. But without any programs, students who go to college are between 6 to 11 percent,” he said.

He said this year’s budget is $1.8 million, with $300,000 coming from government sources, and the rest coming from the private sector.

College Connections plans to enroll 600 students and increase its budget to  $2.6 million by 2017, said Culliton. “We hope 60 percent of the budget would be from government,” he added.

By Engelbertus Wendratama

In the third of a series of Emerson College panels on American’s “gun violence culture,”  panelists shared different interpretations of the Second Amendment, but agreed that politicians and not the courts should formulate gun control laws.

One of the four panelists, Mark Tushnet, a constitutional law professor at Harvard Law School, said he believes in the concept of “thin Constitution,” which relies on the people and their representatives to formulate gun regulations.

“Let the process be done in the political way, with the Court be in the end of the process,” he said at the college’s Bill Bordy Theater Tuesday. Tushnet added, the political way is also preferred by gun-rights advocacy groups, including NRA, in its efforts to fight virtually any limitations on gun rights.

The discussion was titled “The Second Amendment: What is it? What is it not?” and it started by showing the words of the Second Amendment, which reads simply, “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

Ted Canova, the moderator and executive director of WGBH news, noted that when it was written in 1791, semi-automatic weapons did not exist. “What they meant by arms were muskets, and they’re completely different from weapons we see today.”

He then asked the two panelists from gun-rights groups about their view on this very different context today.

Karen MacNutt, a consulting attorney for gun-rights organizations, said she believes the same right is still applicable, since it’s only a matter of technology.

“The musket was an assault weapon of that day,” she said, noting that knives, the bow and arrow, and other traditional weapons existed when the Bill of Rights was written.

Brent Carlton, president of Comm2A, said that semi-automatic weapon has been around since 1890, and it’s not too different from what we have now.

“Only 15 percent of today’s weapons are semi-automatic, which are typically used for self-defense, and this type is very different from the fully automatic one,” he said. “People also talk about how guns killed innocent people, but they don’t discuss how many times firearms stopped criminals.”

His group, Commonwealth Second Amendment,  filed suit last month in US District Court in Boston against four Massachusetts police chiefs alleging that they violated six citizens Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.

Another panelist was Kent Greenfield, a constitutional law professor at Boston College. He said cultural background plays big part in the gun debate. “It depends on how one’s culture views guns and interprets the Second Amendment,” he said. “Research shows that there’s a link between gun ownership and cultural and political viewpoint.”

Tushnet agreed that there are basically two groups with different social visions. “One group sees gun possession as liberty, and the second sees it as an aggressive action. In theory, we just need to find the balance of interests,” he said.

In the aftermath of the Newtown shootings,  President Barack Obama continues to push Congress to act on gun control bills that he says would reduce gun violence. These include efforts to require background checks and limit the number of rounds in the magazines of semi-automatic weapons.

On Thursday, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy of Connecticut signed a gun control bill considered as one of the toughest gun laws in the country. It includes background checks for private gun sales and a ban on sales of high-capacity magazines. The bill was applauded by the family members of the Newtown shooting.

By Engelbertus Wendratama

In the third of a series of Emerson College panels on American’s “gun violence culture,”  panelists shared different interpretations of the Second Amendment, but agreed that politicians and not the courts should formulate gun control laws.

One of the four panelists, Mark Tushnet, a constitutional law professor at Harvard Law School, said he believes in the concept of “thin Constitution,” which relies on the people and their representatives to formulate gun regulations.

“Let the process be done in the political way, with the Court be in the end of the process,” he said at the college’s Bill Bordy Theater Tuesday. Tushnet added, the political way is also preferred by gun-rights advocacy groups, including NRA, in its efforts to fight virtually any limitations on gun rights.

The discussion was titled “The Second Amendment: What is it? What is it not?” and it started by showing the words of the Second Amendment, which reads simply, “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

Ted Canova, the moderator and executive director of WGBH news, noted that when it was written in 1791, semi-automatic weapons did not exist. “What they meant by arms were muskets, and they’re completely different from weapons we see today.”

He then asked the two panelists from gun-rights groups about their view on this very different context today.

Karen MacNutt, a consulting attorney for gun-rights organizations, said she believes the same right is still applicable, since it’s only a matter of technology.

“The musket was an assault weapon of that day,” she said, noting that knives, the bow and arrow, and other traditional weapons existed when the Bill of Rights was written.

Brent Carlton, president of Comm2A, said that semi-automatic weapon has been around since 1890, and it’s not too different from what we have now.

“Only 15 percent of today’s weapons are semi-automatic, which are typically used for self-defense, and this type is very different from the fully automatic one,” he said. “People also talk about how guns killed innocent people, but they don’t discuss how many times firearms stopped criminals.”

His group, Commonwealth Second Amendment,  filed suit last month in US District Court in Boston against four Massachusetts police chiefs alleging that they violated six citizens Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.

Another panelist was Kent Greenfield, a constitutional law professor at Boston College. He said cultural background plays big part in the gun debate. “It depends on how one’s culture views guns and interprets the Second Amendment,” he said. “Research shows that there’s a link between gun ownership and cultural and political viewpoint.”

Tushnet agreed that there are basically two groups with different social visions. “One group sees gun possession as liberty, and the second sees it as an aggressive action. In theory, we just need to find the balance of interests,” he said.

In the aftermath of the Newtown shootings,  President Barack Obama continues to push Congress to act on gun control bills that he says would reduce gun violence. These include efforts to require background checks and limit the number of rounds in the magazines of semi-automatic weapons.

On Thursday, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy of Connecticut signed a gun control bill considered as one of the toughest gun laws in the country. It includes background checks for private gun sales and a ban on sales of high-capacity magazines. The bill was applauded by the family members of the Newtown shooting.