Youth initiated mentoring (YIM) is an innovative approach to mentoring being implemented by the National Guard Youth ChalleNGe Program in which youth identify and select their mentors. There is great interest in this approach; however, there has been little study of YIM or its implementation in ChalleNGe. Retrospective in-depth qualitative interviews with former ChalleNGe participants (n = 30) were conducted to gain a descriptive understanding of the mentor selection process, the role these relationships played in participants’ experiences of the ChalleNGe program and in their lives more generally, and the nature and strength of these connections. Findings indicate that youth were able to successfully enlist the participation of mentors and YIM yielded enduring and emotionally supportive relationships. That the adults came from within their communities was viewed by these participants as having expedited the development of feelings of trust and contributed to the relevancy and meaningfulness of the guidance and advice offered.

Abelism, like the many other 'isms, ' pervades the rules and norms within the U.S. higher education system. Through a first person narrative, this article explores one person's perspective and experience with the accommodation process -first, as a person without a dis/ability serving as an Americans with Dis/abilities coordinator and then as a faculty member with a dis/ability. It also documents the miraculous ability to institute telework accommodations within weeks when people without dis/abilities needed it due to COVID-19 and consequently exposes one form of ableism in the U.S. post-secondary educational system. The article concludes with a call to anti-ableism and intersectional activism to expand higher education.

There is a wealth of literature on the integration of university students increasing retention and ultimate completion, yet much less is known about the connections or disconnections that exist for community college students. Therefore, I interviewed financially eligible Pell Grant community college students (n ¼ 62) about their connections to their institutions, and I subsequently conducted a thematic analysis of the data. Students' experiences of integration ranged from feeling they created a family to perceiving unfair treatment. Overwhelmingly, students felt connected to their community college. However, some students who were not meeting satisfactory academic progress described a disconnection to their community college. The results indicate a need to reevaluate the satisfactory academic progress criteria and develop an integration model specific for low-income community college students.

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