Someone who’s gone before me
by Kate Frentzel
Crossing the threshold from college student to full-fledged adult in the world can feel overwhelming. In the flood of coursework, activities, grad school applications, and hunting for jobs and internships, itâs easy to lose track of what gives your life meaning and purpose. Sometimes, it helps to have a guide.

Left to right: Alyssa Ritter â11, Phil Iversen â87, and Rachel Brummel staff Lutherâs VIA Mentoring Program.
For the past few years, interested Luther students who want just such a guide can find one through Lutherâs Vocation-Inspired Alumni (VIA) Mentoring Program. The program, co-directed by associate professor Rachel Brummel and associate director of alumni relations Alyssa Ritter â11, with support from associate professor Phil Iversen â87, pairs current Luther students with Luther alumni mentors who help those students think about their values, strengths, and ways they find meaning in life.
Mentors are trained not to focus only on careers, but also to explore with students bigger questions like who am I and how do I want to engage in the world? Where do I want to spend my time? How will I balance my values with my work? How will I build a meaningful and fulfilling life after Luther, and how might I start to cultivate those pieces now?
The program has led to a lot of deep conversation and soul searching, some connections that will likely be lifelong, and provide meaningful benefits for both mentees and mentors.
Expanding student support
Lutherâs VIA Mentoring Program has grown from 12 mentor/mentee pairs in 2019â20, to 30 pairs in 2020â21, to 50 pairs this year. Mentors so far have been drawn primarily from the Alumni Council, the Black Alumni Association, and the Latinx Alumni Group. While itâs now entirely self-sufficient, the program was funded in part in its initial years by a grant from CIC-NetVUE, the Council for Independent Collegeâs Network for Vocation in Undergraduate Education, whose goal with the program is to embed a sense of vocation in liberal arts schools.
Mentors arenât meant or expected to be experts. Rather, Ritter says, âItâs a great way to expand whoâs in a studentâs circle, whoâs in their corner, whoâs rooting for them along the way.â

Lisa Small Steinbauer â88 (left) mentored Odalis Gonzalez â21.
Last year, Lisa Small Steinbauer â88, director of communications at Ridgeview Medical Center and president of the Alumni Council, mentored Odalis Gonzalez â21. Although they come from very different backgrounds, Small Steinbauer says, âWhat I got out of it was pure joyâa sense of pride in having the opportunity to be a resource for Odalis and be part of her journey as she neared the end of her amazing time at Luther. Iâm not her parent, Iâm not her boss, Iâm not her professor or roommate, but Iâm someone with whom she had a shared Luther College experience, and I could be a sounding board for her. I could listen to her. She could share with me what she was feeling great about and where she was having challenges or struggles.â
Creating space to explore together
Students are nominated by faculty, staff, or fellow students, or they can self-nominate. Ultimately, the VIA Mentoring co-directors want to choose students who, Brummel says, âwill most benefit and be most engagedâstudents for whom this could really move the needle, students who will benefit from exploration and conversation with an alum.â

Loretta Dooley Wetzel â80 (right) mentors Kelao Charmaine Neumbo â22.
Kelao Charmaine Neumbo â22 fit this bill exactly. âWhen I found out the VIA Mentoring Program was active and something I could be a part of, I was ecstatic,â she says. âIt was an opportunity to gain not just advice but also guidance from someone who has lived before me and had similar experiences and similar hurdles theyâve had to face, which is always helpful when youâre younger and facing major decisions in your life.â
Neumbo was matched with Loretta Dooley Wetzel â80, CEO and president of the Wetzel Group in Chicago and co-president, with Perran G. Wetzel IV â79, of the Black Alumni Association. It was clear from the beginning that the match was strong. âWhen Loretta and I connected at first, it felt like I knew her already,â Neumbo says. âIâm just smiling ear to ear thinking about our conversations. Theyâve always been interesting, always exciting, and I never wanted to put the phone down.â
At the beginning, Wetzel says, âThe only expectation I set was to add value. I wanted to go with the flow and serve. What blossomed was a beautiful lifelong relationship!â
One of the ways that Neumbo, a neuroscience and global health double major, felt especially supported by Wetzel was as she was preparing to intern at Mayo Clinic during Lutherâs Rochester Semester. Going into it, Neumbo, who struggles with imposter syndrome, felt intimidated. She says, âLoretta was really monumentual in giving me advice that I deserve to be there. She instilled the notionâor the truthâthat I belong at the table. Being an immigrant, being Black, and being a woman, and her also being Black and being a woman, weâre often places where you question whether you should be. She really drove into me that I deserve to be there.â
As Neumbo prepares to lead the student body as Student Senate president this year, she carries with her some of the best advice Loretta shared with her: you need to create space for others to contribute.
âI really carry that with me and think it to myself under my breath sometimes,â Neumbo says. âIt doesnât sound so impactful when you hear it the first time, but when I internalized that, I realized that when youâre in spaces where youâre able to make changeâwhich are spaces I want to be in and often find myself inâyou canât make those changes yourself. You need to create platforms and space for others to contribute and take partâthatâs how you make change.â
An alumni chain
Sam Simataa â13 was paired with Nyathi Motlojoa â23. They had a lot in common from the start. Both men are from southern Africa and both played tennis at Luther. They spent time bonding over these things, often over WhatsApp but also in real life. Although thereâs no expectation that mentors meet their mentees in person, Simataa, a software test engineer in Rochester, Minn., made a point of attending a couple of Motlojoaâs tennis matches, and once the duo even went snowboarding in La Crosse, Wis. Simataa picked up his mentee on campus, then drove an hour to Mount La Crosse, where COVID restrictions meant that they had to wait in line outdoors for two hours before getting into the rental building.
Simataa says, âWe were laughing afterward because it was like, Wow, was that really two hours? We were talking the whole time.â

Sam Simataa â13 (left) mentors Nyathi Motlojoa â22.
While bonding over tennis, the international-student experience, and their home countries was natural and easy, the pair also dug deeper, talking about possible futures.
âThis relationship helped me see what life is like for someone whoâs from the same region of the world as I am living in the United States,â Motlojoa says. âIt is, in a way, a glance into what the future holds or what the future could be like for me.â
In a neat kind of alumni chain, with mentors going forward and backward, Simataa actually had a similar experience when he engaged in monthly check-ins with other VIA mentors, where they shared their experiences and offered tips and support to one another.
âJust as Nyathi is kind of living a life very similar to what I thought my Luther experience was,â he says, âI got to meet some people who I thought I lived their Luther experience. So it was interesting to hear from them and what they did in life, and I learned a few things that I can add to my life too.â
Small Steinbauer also found the mentor group check-ins invaluable. âI wasnât expecting to meet and start to build at least virtual relationships with a whole other set of Luther alums who I never would have met,â she says. âLogging in and seeing people from different parts of the world and knowing that the Luther experienceâwhether it was great, good, indifferent, whateverâwas the common denominator was really cool. That was another unexpected, unintended benefit.â
Growing together
While the VIA Mentoring Program is designed to support students, mentors also benefit. Simataa, who graduated from Luther eight years ago, says, âOnce you start working, you love the non-homework life, and you can kind of do things on your own terms. But having a mentee taught me about accountability and consistency again. In work, thatâs required, but in my outside life, I needed to make sure I was available and accountable to my mentee. You want to support them but not direct everything they do, so striking that balance of being open and honest but also being supportive and understandingâthatâs something I kept balancing and learning about myself and our relationship.â
Marlon Henriquez â15, an instructional coach at Pilsen Community Academy in Chicago, mentored Jon Rivera â21. They share similar backgrounds as first-generation Hispanic college students, and Rivera grew up in Chicago, where Henriquez now lives. While these things offered great points of connection at first, Henriquez says, âEventually, our conversations really focused on career aspirations for both of us.â

Marlon Henriquez â15 (right) mentored Jon Rivera â21.
Henriquez and Rivera met twice in the past year, once at Decorahâs Landing Market, where they talked for hours, and another time for ice cream at the Sugar Bowl. âAlthough I was supposed to be the âmentor,â I got just as much as Jon did out of this experience, if not more. Jon asked so many good questions about my own career aspirations that helped me affirm my goals,â Henriquez says. âWe have truly become support systems for each other.â
To learn more about the VIA Mentoring Program, contact Alyssa Ritter, alyssa.ritter@luther.edu, or Rachel Brummel, brumra02@luther.edu, or read a reflection Ritter and Brummel wrote for Luther’s Ideas and Creations blog.