Cities Mentor Project -

DePaul Chapter

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  • Cities Mentor Project is a research-based mentoring program dedicated to supporting Chicago Public School students. We make a long-term commitment to youth, supporting them from elementary school all the way through their first year in college.

    Cities Mentor Project was developed with a grant from the U.S. Department of Education and was originally proposed as a one-year pilot, but we had a very active community advisory board with more than 100 community members with ideas of their own.  The community advisory board was adamant that we not leave when the funding was over.  So, Cities Mentor Project (beyond the research) was born. Although we continue to bring the most rigorous research methods to evaluating and improving Cities Mentor Project, the project has developed a mission and vision of its own..

  • Our mission is to eliminate inequality through education. We aim to educate both university and public-school students. Our vision is that every public-school student will be able to attend college and that every university student will learn about inequality and their capacity to reduce it.

  • DePaul University, Northwestern University, University of Illinois Chicago, and Loyola University

Leadership Staff

  • Jeffery Hodges

    Cities Program Director

  • Jayla Jones

    Director of Communications

  • Aliyah White

    Research Director

Site Directors

  • Edgar Gandera

    Joplin Site Director

  • Diego Thompson

    Cook Site Director

Cities Project Partnership Coordinators

  • Maya Nesti

  • Sydney Whittley

Primary Community Partners: Chicago Public Schools, Cook Boys and Girls Club, St. Sabina Church, YOUmedia at Thurgood Marshall Library 

Primary University Collaborators: Edith Chen, Emma Adam, and Greg Miller at Northwestern University, Jocelyn Carter at DePaul University, Sophia Duffy at Dominican University, Noni Gaylord-Harden, Julia Pryce, and Grayson Holmbeck at Loyola University, David DuBois and Marc Atkins at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Kate Keenan at the University of Chicago 

Primary External Funders: Institute of Education Sciences, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute

 Note: Co-authors who were students at the time of manuscript preparation are indicated with a “+”

Cities Mentor Project -
Publications and Background Papers

Download The Cities Mentor Project Publication List