Christopher Newport University (CNU) has become known as a landmark of Newport News, constantly growing and improving. One of its interior programs, Community Captains, is expanding the university’s outreach and availability to local students preparing to enter the world after high school. The two-year college preparatory program helps to ready students for positive futures following high school graduation.
In 2019, the program welcomed its first cohort of students. As of autumn 2024, “this was the first year the program was at full capacity,” says Brandon Jones, MPA, M.S.Ed., director of Community Captains and Program Outreach. “We’re a little under 400 students we’ve seen total in all the cohorts.”
CNU’s Community Captains program isn’t necessarily a one-way ticket to the university, or necessarily any college. While many students follow this path to their undergraduate careers, many others move on to the workforce, trade school, and/or the military. Though each student’s goal is different, all eligible students are identified as sophomores in Newport News Public Schools who meet certain academic and other criteria.
Community Captains offers early admission to CNU, provides a free for-credit college course and matches NNPS students with CNU student mentors. On monthly program days, high school students learn valuable skills necessary for life ahead through project-based learning.
Jones began working with Community Captains in January 2021. Having worked in public school systems, including Newport News, he found himself returning to CNU after his graduation from the school in 2000.
Jones clarifies that Community Captains is not a CNU recruitment program. “This is a program for Newport News Public Schools and we, in partnership, are agreeing with NNPS to prepare their students for what we would like to consider their ‘next,’ whatever it is. If their next is CNU, wonderful, but if it’s not, the things we embed in the program are things we feel confident will help them in their decisions.”
“I think this program is also an opportunity for local students to see themselves here,” says Betsy Robinson, who for 10 years was in admissions before becoming assistant director of the program. Robinson remembers that the program began partially through other admissions staff, expressing her interest back then to the director of operations and becoming a volunteer.
“Coming to CNU, there’s a very small percentage of students from Newport News or even Hampton who come here, and I really feel it’s such a jewel in the middle of the city. And this program has opened up a portal for local students to come and take advantage of [it],” Robinson says.
“We can tell you about all the work we do, but it’s really the students who can show everything and the amazing things they do,” says Vicky Schenk, program support for the program. After moving to Hampton Roads with her family as a military spouse, she soon found her niche at CNU and began working with Community Captains in January 2023. She also emphasizes, “We are putting a positive impact on our Community Captains because of our high school students.”
“Every cohort experience is unique now because we get feedback after those program days and change in real time,” Jones says. “We continue to grow based on input from our students.”
Chris Mojica, a CNU Community Captain senior, will graduate in May 2025 alongside his fellow members of the very first Community Captains cohort. “As a freshman, I decided to pitch Community Captains to be my service site for Bonner [Service Scholars], and that was accepted,” he says. “So, for the past 3½ years now, I’ve been working with [Jones, Robinson and Schenk] to just make the program better, make it something that every kid in Newport News could really benefit from. I think there’s just so much more value in the program than just the CNU part of it.”
“I used to think college and being around a new environment would be scary and this program has made it so easy and comfortable, it’s amazing,” says Sydni Harsley, a CNU Community Captain freshman. “I like to give back to the cohorts that are still in high school because I want them to experience what I’m experiencing.”
Jones “commutes from Tampa,” where his family resides. He, Robinson and Schenk are all devoted parents outside of their dedication to helping other students succeed.
“It gives everybody the opportunity to become more of themselves and to find things they’re passionate [about] in the program and focus on that,” Mojica says about Community Captains. He adds, “I don’t know if Mr. Jones and his team even realize how impactful they are in the individual lives of the students, with helping us through our day-to-day.”
