VCU news

By Loan Nguyen

About 6,000 minors participate in programs and services on the Virginia Commonwealth University campus each year, and the benefits are significant to everyone involved.

For youths, the opportunity to explore, learn and play on campus helps them envision attending college one day. They make important connections and gain familiarity navigating campus, which can alleviate anxieties that many students feel early in their college years.

VCU also benefits from having kids on campus, in part because they help broaden the diversity of experiences available on campus. Students who think they might want to work with children after college have the opportunity to do so through programs such as the VCUarts Summer Pre-College Program, the Creative Arts Day Camp, the Richmond Debate Institute Summer Camp at VCU and more. These programs allow students to discover a passion for working with youths that they might not have been able to explore otherwise.

“We’re proud of our vibrant campuses that provide a safe and exciting environment for learning, living and working,” said Karol Gray, senior vice president and chief financial officer. “We especially welcome youth to our campuses and take specific safety measures to help ensure they have the best possible experience while they visit VCU.”

To promote safe and robust experiences on campus, and in recognition of April as National Child Abuse Prevention Month, Gray’s office approved a new database that enhances compliance management of university programs and activities for minors. The initiative will both increase awareness of programs and allow staff to better track progress toward compliance, potentially saving time and university resources.

“The minors who come to our campus could someday become VCU students – if the campus opportunities are supportive, engaging, and the children see themselves as one day becoming an integral part of our campus community,” said Cleopatra Magwaro, associate vice president of Equity and Access Services.

This spring, Equity and Access Services welcomed Charles Johnson as a full-time employee dedicated to implementing a revised Safety and Protection of Minors on Campus policy, which should go into effect later this year. Johnson previously was a training and compliance manager at VCU’s Mary and Frances Youth Center. He has more than 15 years of experience as a youth practitioner and helped implement a Youth Program Quality Intervention for Richmond to improve out-of-school-time programs.

VCU’s policy was established in 2016 and last revised in 2021 during the pandemic, which saw more minors participating in online programming. Johnson said this spotlighted how policies protecting minors must adapt to meet the changing cultural landscape.

“The Protection of Minors Office within EAS goes beyond compliance,” he said. “We are also here as a resource in order to help promote youth programs at VCU in general, and to help tell the story of youth programs. We go out to departments and talk about what youth programming might look like for them. We hope that by identifying and sharing what programs are happening and working with other university partners, the university will ultimately be able to determine what kind of impact they are having on youth, youth program providers, students and the community.”

A work group consisting of VCU faculty, staff and students is drafting policy updates, including requirements for all programming involving minors to register with EAS and use the new database. The centralized system will allow programs to manage their information and have it automatically shared with Johnson.

“I think [having the database] will also enable me to go out and do the more human-centered activities like having conversations with departments about how they go about offering youth programs, helping to build youth programs, connecting the programs to community partners, and all of the other work of being engaged with the community,” Johnson said.

VCU also recently announced its participation in the National Partnership for Student Success Higher Education Coalition, which urges universities to use Federal Work-Study or other funds to create or fill positions that help P-12 students make up for lost learning time due to the pandemic.

Through such partnerships with the U.S. Department of Education and regional youth program providers, VCU demonstrates its commitment to nurturing future college students, Magwaro said.

“I am thrilled that we are building a strong compliance framework for this important work,” she said, “and I also recognize that it will take all of us to make sure the children we engage with are safe and have opportunities to enjoy fun, innovative and robust programs and activities.”

If you operate a program at VCU that is geared toward minors or open to their attendance, please register your program with Equity and Access Services at equity.vcu.edu/protection-of-minors/.