Leading up to the USMA Women’s Conference in 2006, a small group of West Point Women initiated the development of a mentor program for cadets and graduates. Originally conceived as a way for cadets to seek the insights and experiences of “those of an earlier day,” the program now offers to connect all West Point Women.

West-Point.org is playing an integral role in transforming this mentoring program from a excel spreadsheet, into a searchable database of women graduates allowing each participant to seek a mentor or a connection on their own using limited search criteria.

The Ward Book is an online history of West Point graduates that began with John Ward ’64 who meticulously gathers the history of his class throughout the years and publishes a bound version at each 5-year mark. This has become a valuable asset in keeping the class connected and preserving the living histories of its graduates. West-Point.ORG has expanded the idea to all USMA classes and put it online.

With the Ward Book as the foundation of this mentoring tool, WP.org Chief Technology Officer and Programming Guru, Warren Hearnes ’89 is making this mentoring database a reality.

This mentoring database will be rolled out in three phases during the first quarter of 2007. The first phase involves the individual input of personal and professional information of our women graduates. The second phase will be the enabling of search capability, and the third will be the activation of cadet logins into the site.

 All the data contained in the Ward Book and the WPW mentoring database is password protected. To begin to enter one’s information, go to http://www.west-point.org/usmawomen/directory using the Internet Explorer 6 or 7 browser. Other browsers such as Mozilla’s Thunderbird do not render all the information properly.

The initial page provides an overview of the Ward Book and instructions for creating unique login credentials. Once login credentials are obtained, graduates may enter their own personal and professional information as well as areas in which they are willing to assist others known as Mentor Areas. These “Mentor Areas” are available through the menu tree on the left-hand side the window.

Selecting “Mentor Areas” brings up the Mentor Categories screen. From this page, select “Create New Entry” in the center of the page. The category field contains a pull down menu of various areas in which one can chose to provide insights and experiences to others. Each category selection is added to the individual database record by selecting “Commit Add” in the center of the page. There is no limit to the number of areas which one can select.

In the first quarter of 2007, a search feature will be added to the database allowing graduates and cadets the opportunity to search for individuals who are willing to assist in various areas.
All graduates are encouraged to document their individual histories by participating in this incredible and important effort.