Jaela Landowski, Contributing Photographer

The Black Men’s Union recently revived its Bouchet Mentorship Program, a program that connects members of the BMU with a local middle school to provide support to their students. 

The revival was set up by Norvin West ’25, the former vice president of the BMU and Alejandro Rojas ’26, a current co-president of the BMU, was its primary leader. Every Friday, members of the BMU commute to Conte West Hills Magnet School, New Haven’s longest-running magnet school, to mentor eighth graders. The mentors offer not only tutoring and academic support but also life advice and high school application help.

“The Bouchet Mentorship Program is a program that we revived in the Yale Black Men’s Union,” Rojas said. “We had a relationship with Conte West middle school, which is about a 15-minute walk from Old Campus, and over COVID and over a few years, the program died. And so it was really the efforts of Norvin West, who, class of ’25, helped with the initial rekindling of the relationship.” 

Rojas had the chance to oversee its recent development. He attributes its revival and growing success to West Rojas explaining it was West’s personal project, his goal being to get the program back on its feet. It took a year to result in what it is now. 

He added that the relationship between Yale and Conte West took time to establish itself and lightly touched on the efforts it took to implement the program into the middle schoolers’ schedules.

The BMU now has a routine schedule for meeting with the Conte West students. They travel to the middle school either by foot or through one of the Dwight Hall cars. Rojas explains this as a time to bond with fellow mentors and to further establish community.

“In the beginning of the year, we walk to the school which has been a pretty endearing experience. It’s not super far, but it’s kind of a nice break from the day where we’re like, ‘All right, how are you guys doing?’ You know, you like checking on each other,” Rojas said. “During the winter, we will rent Dwight Hall cars, and that’s another thing I want to mention. Dwight Hall has been probably one of the most encouraging forces in our program. They’ve been so accommodating and willing to give resources to this program.”

The Bouchet Mentorship Program not only offers academic support and tutoring but also engages with the students outside of the classroom.

They attend their mentee’s sports games, for example, and organize trips to museums. Jalen Bradley ’27, publicist of the BMU, discussed a trip that Conte West took the previous year. 

“We had the idea to combine an event for first years last year and the middle schoolers at Conte to come over to the New Museum. We went together, and it was a good experience just to have camaraderie. Then afterwards, we went to Dwight Hall,” Bradley explained. 

 Rojas also discussed other events the BMU has in store to further their connection with the school and its students.

Like Bradley, Rojas talked about the planned museum visits for this year. He also touched on another unique opportunity in which mentors talk to mentees about their path to Yale. 

“We have something called the snapshot series where different members of the Bouchet Mentorship group will go up and talk about their journey to Yale and how what they do in a classroom connects to what they hope to do or what they aspire to do in future,” Rojas stated. 

Similar to the museum visits, the snapshot series connects two often separated communities, the Yale and the New Haven community, giving youth in the surrounding area the chance to utilize resources they wouldn’t typically have. 

Bradley similarly stressed the importance of interacting with not just the Yale community but with the New Haven area, prioritizing on-campus and off-campus involvement.

“The BMU doesn’t want to be an organization that solely focuses on on-campus matters. It’s easy to be a Yale student, no matter what race you are, and only care about your life here because we have so much going on, but we are black men in a historically black city,” Bradley said. 

Rojas added that it is important for them to try to provide service in the lives of their mentees and be some type of help, “no matter how big or small in our community.”

Nolyn Mjema ’26, the BMU’s current vice president, expressed his thoughts on why this mentorship program is essential to continue.

“This program is vital for these kids. I didn’t have Black mentors growing up, so I hope to be that for them. The program kicks off a week after their school year begins, and the planning involves coordinating with counselors and teachers to handle logistics and ensure the students have their permission forms signed,” Mjema stated.

Conte West Hills Magnet School is located at 511 Chapel St.