Nancy Baker is the executive director of the Work Ethic Program and has lived in Evanston for about 35 years. She has been involved with the WE Program, which helps high school students find well-paying careers that do not require a four-year college degree, since its inception in 2016.
Q: What to highlight about the WE program?
A: I just think it’s a program that represents an important change in the way the United States is starting to look at successful careers for young people. Previous outlooks of a four-year college or university is absolutely the only successful path is now being re-thought and with more consideration to the students and the diversity of interests that young people have and truly the evolution of different industries toward more of the apprenticeship and certification routes for many high-paying in-demand careers.
The WE program is really taking a group of young people with a well-stated passion and helping them navigate a course that will lead them to an in-demand life-long career that will pay well and not land them with lots of debt, and really brings them fully in the job market with marketable skills early in their twenties.
Q: Why is this issue so close to your heart?
A: I’ve spent 15 years in the nonprofit world, helping students gain college access. Along the way, I’ve heard from several of them that they weren’t truly sure a four-year college was the right path for them, but they didn’t really know what other alternatives there were and certainly the alternative paths had been stigmatized either by their community culture or their family conversations.
As I helped all of these students with their college career paths, I started to get to know more about this diversity of outlooks and what they wanted to do. I feel that when you consider that less than half of all students in the United States who pursue a college career will ever actually achieve a four-year degree…it just makes a lot of sense to not continuously tell all 17-year-olds there is only one choice.
Q: How has the program been doing so far?
A: Our program is growing. We’re reaching out to more and more people, even outside of the Evanston community. We are getting interest in the program. We feel like we’re helping more students even through a general awareness of the options, and we’ve expanded our mission a bit to not only take students in during their junior year, but also students who are seniors who are facing graduation in May or June and have absolutely no idea what great options there are starting in July. We have started to admit seniors, as well, which has proven to be a nice group of kids who are very focused and dedicated because they do see that their graduation is coming up quickly.
Q: What would you say makes the WE Program stand out?
A: One of the cornerstones that makes our program so great is that every student receives a career-specific mentor. There is no shortage of people who want to help youth in the Evanston community. Mentors are fabulous in any organization. We’re especially proud of ours though, because they’re not just sort of a sympathetic ear for a student who is just going through adolescence.
It’s someone who is very specifically addressing the professional potential of the student and giving them career guidance along the way, whether it’s which kind of post-secondary degree or how to act when you show up to work every day; how to get along with others; how to be an intellectually curious person in the workforce…those kinds of things. The mentoring is something we’re especially proud of and it is a key component of our program.
Q: What other types of nonprofit work have you done previously?
A: I worked with LINK Unlimited Scholars, which is the oldest African American scholarship program in the United States and put together all of their college programming. I also worked with Chicago Scholars for several years and helped them with their curriculum.
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Q: What do you enjoy about the Evanston community in particular?
A: Evanston is really like no other community. I think one of the reasons it’s great to be working in a nonprofit is that there is just a wealth of people who want to see change for the better and recognize that many people have a voice that needs to be heard, and certainly youths are valued in Evanston in a way that I don’t always see happening everywhere. I was a high school teacher for a time outside of the Evanston community and I just feel that Evanston teens are valued by the community and there is no shortage of people who are willing to come forward and help any way they can.
Q: Have you gotten to travel anywhere exciting or is there anywhere you would like to go?
A: I would like to go to South Africa someday. I’ve heard that it’s an incredible amalgam of different cultures and that it’s creative cultures, art, cuisine, music and is sort of representative of centuries of different people settling there.
Q: Do you have any other hobbies outside of the work you do?
A: I am also a storyteller with an organization that is in northern Michigan and I travel up there several times a year to tell stories.
Kyra Senese is a freelancer.