FASE program celebrates 10 years of work

For 10 years now, the Faculty and Staff for Student Excellence program has provided mentors to first-generation college students to ensure their success and raise retention rates. In celebration of that milestone, FASE brought acclaimed neurosurgeon Dr. Benjamin Carson to speak at their annual banquet.\nCarson, a pediatric neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins Medical Center in Maryland, made history by being the first person to successfully separate twins joined at the head. A regular featured speaker, Carson said he is glad to add speeches into his busy medical schedule. He said he did 11 operations in the days prior to his arrival in Bloomington.\n"People who are not busy never have time to do anything," he said. "They spend all day doing nothing."\nCarson also said he felt privileged that although he is not an entertainer, people know his work.\n"It's nice that people know an African American that's not an athlete or an entertainer," he said. "That means there's hope."\nCarson captivated the dinner guests with his rags to riches story. His mother was one of 20 children, divorced and mildly illiterate, but she forced her sons to do book reports to get them away from the TV and off the streets. Her sons all graduated from college, and she went back to school, received her bachelor's degree and now has an honorary doctoral degree.\nIntroducing Dr. Carson at the banquet was Dr. Erica Hart-Sutton, a former FASE student who is now a surgery resident at Johns Hopkins Medical Center. Hart-Sutton said FASE has had an immeasurable impact on her life.\n"It's almost overwhelming because everyday I feel support from the mentors at IU," she said. "The skills I attained here help me everyday."\nHart-Sutton also had kind words for FASE's director, June Cargile.\n"She is a model of how to conduct a program with skill and grace," she said.\nCargile said the program's name has special significance. Cargile said the spelling of the acronym, which stands for Faculty and Staff for Student Excellence, served another purpose.\n"It was also a play on words, because the freshman year is a 'phase' in their life," she said.\nCargile said FASE has a 90 percent freshman retention rate, better than the University as a whole.\nBill Cook, founder of Cook Corporation, a local medical instrument manufacturer, has been a patron of FASE since his days as an IU trustee. Every year Cook helps to sponsor the banquet, and also gives every graduating FASE student a commemorative gold watch.\nCargile said Cook's support is essential to FASE's success.\n"While a trustee, whatever it was he learned about FASE, it attracted him to the mentoring program," she said. "We are so grateful to have him host this banquet every year."\nFASE's strength comes in the form of its mentors, faculty and staff who volunteer to guide one or two students throughout their careers at IU. Cargile said she believes it helps make the University smaller. \n"It's the mentors being there to give support that really makes the difference," she said.\n-- Contact senior writer George Lyle IV at glyle@indiana.edu.