ITHACA, N.Y. -- Alicia S. Torrey has been named director of the newly created Cornell Alumni-Student Mentoring Program in Cornell University's Office of the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education.

The Cornell Alumni-Student Mentoring Program (CASMP) is sponsored and funded by the Provost's Office, in conjunction with the offices of Undergraduate Admissions, Financial Aid, Alumni Affairs, Minority Educational Affairs and Vice President for Student and Academic Services.

The new program was created to improve Cornell's ability both to attract and retain underrepresented students by providing an alumna or alumnus mentor for each enrolling underrepresented minority student who wants to participate in the program. The program assumes that such close and continuous connections with alumni role models will help in the recruitment, retention and success of underrepresented minority students. The new initiative is indebted to an earlier program, CAMP (Cornell Alumni Mentor Program), which was organized by committed and creative New York City-based African-American alumni of Cornell and which ran from the late 1980s to the mid 1990s.

Torrey, a Cornell alumna, recently left her position as Cornell's director of minority alumni programs, where, for the past 12 years, her contributions to Alumni Affairs and Development have been significant and far-reaching. In 1991 she became Cornell's first director of minority alumni programs, and during her tenure, she provided an in-depth understanding of Cornell and its alumni. Her dedication, creativity and patience helped to create and build a program that is considered a model among Cornell's peer institutions and prompted an impressive growth in minority alumni serving in university leadership positions and in the overall number of minority alumni participating in Cornell activities. During the past two years, Torrey has worked closely with the Alumni Affairs Steering Committee of the Cornell Board of Trustees to focus additional attention on increasing the number of minority alumni participating in alumni programs and, in particular, serving in leadership positions. This initiative will continue in the coming years through the efforts of the Minority Alumni Initiatives Implementation Committee, which consists of a group of 20 trustees, alumni and student leaders.

Torrey is a graduate of Cornell's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, having received her bachelor of science degree in 1984.

In her new position as director of CASMP, Torrey will oversee the creation of a pool of mentors from thousands of African-American, Latino and Native American alumni who will be matched with under-represented minority students the summer before the new students arrive on campus. Each student and mentor pair will first meet, if possible, in the student's hometown, where they may talk about that year's new-student reading project along with general information about the first year and the student's college. Each mentor and student pair will then meet at least once a semester until graduation, either on campus or at the student's home during breaks, in addition to other communication they maintain.

The mentoring program will be introduced in phases. Beginning in academic year 2004-05, approximately one third of the potential student participants will be matched with alumni mentors. In academic year 2005-06, the goal will be to add additional students to reach two-thirds of first year students; and in academic year 2006-07, the goal will be to offer mentoring to all entering underrepresented minority students.