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So one thing that I'm looking forward to is the wellness corner.
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So it's basically a space on the app where students can come and just decompress
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and talk about something that they've been dealing with.
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Like I mentioned, the burden of anxiety, stress, and burnout in the student population
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is the highest among any demographic.
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And so the wellness corner will allow students to come and talk about a lot of the things
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and then point them in the direction on campus to give them resources
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to help them navigate this aspect of their journey.
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We know that a lot of universities have student counseling and have resources for students
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that will help them navigate the emotional toll that naturally being in this type of environment takes.
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And so the wellness corner allows them to vocalize that.
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The long-term goal is to build community, and students feel the most supported
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when they know that they're not the only ones dealing with the weight of going through this experience.
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Well, we both know you cannot progress academically or professionally if you are not mentally well.
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So I love that you said that.
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The wellness corner, I almost feel like you should make it mandatory for them to go
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a certain number of times a week in order to keep the app or incentivize it in some way where you can.
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Because so often we make wellness an option, right?
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Like, oh, if you're not feeling well, go here.
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It should be like, go here because you are human and you're naturally not going to feel well sometimes.
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So I love that you've mentioned the wellness corner.
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I could see that being my favorite feature, too, as a student of counseling and psychology.
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Oh, thank you for saying that.
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And life.
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Welcome to the Scholars Equity Network podcast.
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This is where we discuss the organization's work to fulfill their mission of providing opportunities
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to scholars from underserved communities and the communities that they call home.
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This work will well position them to pay it forward personally, professionally, and financially.
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The Scholars Equity Network was founded by the alumni of the Gates Millennium Scholars Program.
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I am Aaron Stallworth, your host for today's pod, and a longtime educator,
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working in the K-12 space for 15 years before joining the Gates Millennium Scholars Program leadership team in 2016.
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I'm based in Washington, D.C., and the podcast guests are based around the country, possibly around the world.
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Thank you for listening. Let's get into it.
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Hello, Scholars Equity Network podcast listeners.
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Welcome to our podcast with a very special guest, another member of the Pay It Forward Accelerator, Dr. Crystal Horrell.
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Dr. Horrell, welcome.
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Hi, Aaron. Thanks so much for having me.
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You are a member of the 2013 Gates Millennium Scholars class.
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Oh, yeah.
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And you decided to apply for the Pay It Forward Accelerator back in, I think it was August, July or August of last year, 2025.
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But before I go into your application and what you're doing as a changemaker,
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I want to remind folks of what the Pay It Forward Accelerator is, the program from Scholars Equity Network.
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The way it works, it is a community-driven, solutions, network-powered funding program.
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Our Pay It Forward Accelerator program puts resources directly into the hands of leaders who know exactly what their communities need.
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Here's how it works.
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Passionate changemakers apply with specific projects they want to lead.
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We review the applications, shortlist the strongest proposals, and let the community vote by donating.
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Every dollar donated equals one vote.
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The top projects with the most votes get funded.
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We're investing in leaders who've already proven they deliver when given opportunity,
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and we're letting communities decide which solutions matter most.
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So, once again, very excited to welcome Crystal to the podcast.
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She is one of our Pay It Forward changemakers who is a member of the Pay It Forward Accelerator from Scholars Equity Network.
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So, once again, welcome, Crystal.
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Thank you.
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So, we're going to hop right into it, Crystal.
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Give me one sentence.
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If you need more than one sentence, that's fine.
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But in one sentence, your Pay It Forward changemaker project is the Mentra app.
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Yes.
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Tell us about your app, please.
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Yeah.
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So, Mentra is a student navigation platform.
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And so, I've been working as an academic success coach for the past 11 years, coaching students through academic success, getting scholarships, getting into competitive institutions, even thriving while they're there.
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And I can only coach so many students one-on-one or one-to-many.
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And so, what this app does is it creates a personalized academic success coach for students on their phone so that they're able to receive guidance no matter where they are on their academic journey.
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During my doctoral research, I found out that the burden of stress and burnout among college students was astronomically high.
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And so, I wanted to create something to reduce that burden of stress and burnout among college students, and that's what Mentra does.
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That's what Mentra is going to do, and those are our intentions with this app.
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This is an outstanding project you're working on.
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Thank you.
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How would you say your experience as a first-generation student shaped the priorities of Mentra?
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Well, that experience is exactly why Mentra is being born, because as a first-gen, low-income student, I had no idea what I was doing.
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Through Gates, thankfully, I had the funding to go to school, but funding is one half of it.
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And I found out during my first year, taking 18 credit hours, double minor, trying to do track, ROTC.
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I had so many panic attacks my first year of college, and I had no idea what I was doing.
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It wasn't until I got a mentor who sat down with me and was like, okay, first of all, you're taking way too many credits.
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Second of all, you don't have to double minor.
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You can take electives, and I was like, what are electives?
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That's something that Mentra can help.
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It can send notifications or help students understand these different terms that exist in the college setting that does not exist in the high school setting, like electives, like how many credit hours.
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Like, even the fact that college students change their major over the course of like five times, I think it's the average, I didn't know this.
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And so these are just different things that I learned as a first-gen college student that I was mentoring students or that I have been mentoring students about since becoming an academic success coach.
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And I thought we could put this in some type of platform where they already have these resources.
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I get very passionate about this subject because of everything I experienced.
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So I could go on for days about this, but I'll pause there.
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Yeah, I mean, I'd imagine like a lot of what Mentra is going to do may exist in the back of some student handbook somewhere, or it's definitely in the backs of minds of deans of students and instructors.
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But that information very rarely gets, you know, directly into the hands of students.
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And we know what's in the hands of students.
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That's their phones or those things.
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Let's bring it to them.
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It's an innovation that is well needed.
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You're a Gates Millennium Scholar, and as you know, all alumni of the Gates Millennium Scholars Program are now members of the Scholars Equity Network.
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Tell me, how has the Scholars Equity Network Pay It Forward Accelerator played a role in bringing Mentra to life?
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Oh man, it was the biggest game changer for us because I'm working with a team of developers.
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I have never built an app a day of my life.
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I don't even know where to begin.
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The only thing I have is division, right?
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I have the intentions behind the app.
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But I need a team of people to help me bring this app to life.
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And it was during my doctoral program where I started working with the research committee that I really recognized the power and collaboration and community and how you need a team.
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Because I think, like, for me being, like I said, a first-gen, I always thought I had to do everything on my own.
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But it wasn't until I started working with other people that I realized that my growth was exponential when I got people on my team who knew exactly what they were doing.
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And so, Mentra and everything that's being birthed through Mentra was because of this grant that I received through the Scholars Equity Network Changemaker Advancement and everything that they're doing there.
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Because it provided me the resources to bring on a team who is now working, you know, communicating with me and we're collaborating.
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Like, it's a whole experience that is very new to me.
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But I'm developing my voice in the process.
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I'm developing my vision.
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I'm developing my vision for what I want to accomplish in order to work with the team.
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You have to be so clear on what it is that you want to accomplish to where there is no, you know, room for misunderstanding.
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So I'm just learning all these valuable skills through this experience that I didn't realize would, you know, need to be developed because I've never done it before.
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But I'm learning a lot.
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And now we're designing the interface.
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So there's a lot happening that I'm just excited to see that I couldn't have done on my own.
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AI plays a big role in everything.
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Yes.
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In so many ways, in all ways.
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I'm glad to hear that you are working with a team of humans, I'd imagine.
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Yes.
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And I know the humans can access the AI.
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But as your vision comes to life and these core features of the product or of the app come about, tell us a little bit about those core features.
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How does AI help you to build those out in addition to that human-to-human interaction and transmission of your vision?
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So, basically, I'm a research scientist, a behavioral scientist.
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That's what my background is in.
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So everything that I do and all the research I've ever conducted was built on some type of framework, right?
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You have different frameworks.
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You have different models.
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It's the basis of what it is that you're building.
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So you're just not building on sand.
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And so the framework that was developed for Mentra is this framework that I created.
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And it's the 3A, so AAA.
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It's Advancement.
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It's Access, which is access to colleges and being able to, you know, write what it is that you need to write in order to get into these schools and the proper application format.
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So Access.
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The second A is Affordability.
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So scholarships, being able to apply for those.
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There's so many different aspects to applying for scholarships that a lot of students just don't know about.
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Like, I had to write nine essays for the Gates Scholarship in 2013.
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Like, that was a lot.
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And I had educators.
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I had my high school principal, she had helped another student with her scholarship essays.
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Just because there's a story, you have to tell your story.
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And I didn't know how to do that.
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I didn't know how to put into words everything I had experienced growing up.
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You know, public housing, losing a parent, being one of ten.
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Like, I just knew what I lived.
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I didn't know how to communicate why that experience would keep me from, you know, getting access into the school that I wanted to get access to.
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So there was help there.
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And then the last A is Advancement.
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So once you're in college, how well are you doing inside of these institutions?
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Do you want to go to grad school?
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Do you know about grad school?
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There's different, you know, aspects when it comes to advancing in academia that, again, you need a mentor.
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You need guidance.
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So with that framework, the Access, Affordability, and Advancement mantra helps navigate students through those various stages.
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And so, like, the first interface would, again, be asking the student, because I coach students from high school to college to grad school.
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So with this app, it'll be able to assess where the student is.
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And, of course, the more information they give the app and the more they communicate with the app, the easier, the better it will be able to help them as they advance through their academic career or academic journey.
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So it's that framework.
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Like I said, this is a framework that was created out of research.
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So it definitely has to be tested.
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And this app will allow me to test this framework in real time and to get direct feedback from the people who are supposed to be impacted by it.
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And so we'll be able to, again, create a tighter framework based on students using the app, getting the support they need, and then building on that, which is hopefully creating policy to help young adults who are in these transitional phases in life,
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because they have some of the worst mental health outcomes I've seen across the population, but they have the least amount of resources to help them.
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And when I saw that in the data and in the research I was doing in school, I was just, like, taken aback because I struggled so much.
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And some type of policy, some type of something would have helped bring the shed light on the amount of students that are suffering in silence.
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Those transition phases, especially from high school to college, even if you're from means, if your family is of means, they're probably working as hard as they can to have gotten to that point where they're of means.
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So let alone the fact that many of the students that will benefit in a great way from this app would be first generation or come from under-resourced communities.
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I think this is an app that any and everyone could benefit from.
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But specifically for different students that have different identities and different needs, does it cater to specifically to those needs?
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I think you kind of answered this, but touch on that a little bit more on how it touches those specific needs.
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Yeah, so because it's personalized guidance, because we have this technology now to provide that through AI, it will address the needs of the students based off of where they are.
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So it's a framework, yes, but it's also personalized in the fact that it doesn't just say, if you're a college student, it won't give you advice based off of a high school student's identity.
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It gives you guidance based off of where you are right now and the guidance that you need for where you are right now.
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So it's basically, again, everything that you would see from an academic success coach in digital form.
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And of course, this is a new technology, so I know there's a lot of discord around AI and everything that's coming out.
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But I believe that technology, just like anything that we create, it's a tool.
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And we could either allow the technology to use us, or we can wise up and allow ourselves to advance because of the technology that's available to us.
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And I remember during my last graduate program, so when I was at Yale, I didn't know how to write a dissertation.
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I didn't know how to navigate the space of forming a committee.
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How do I communicate with my committee then to coordinate schedules for meetings?
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These are things that we were expected to learn on our own as grad students.
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And even though I was getting help from mentors and I was getting help from, I had a dissertation coach.
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She helped me out during that process.
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I still didn't know a lot about the process, so I went to AI.
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And I told AI, I was like, hey, I'm a second year grad student.
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I'm looking to graduate during this time.
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How do I structure my committee meetings so that I can effectively communicate with my committee when we need to be meeting?
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And is my language professional enough?
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Because, of course, there's a way that you speak in these settings.
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And so AI was able to help me navigate that space.
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And I truly believe that if I did not have access to that tool, I would still be in my doctoral program right now.
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But I was able to graduate in four years, finish my dissertation in two, because I had help.
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I had support.
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I had guidance.
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And unfortunately, a lot of students don't recognize that this tool is available to them.
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They don't even recognize the resources they have on campus.
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There's a stats lab that you have access to, so you don't have to try to suffer through getting your data collected.
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There are so many students who are like, I just don't want to.
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Because even now, I look back on that time in my life.
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And I'm like, to be honest, the doctorate was the best time of my academic journey, hands down, because I had access to guidance.
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And it could have been a lot worse.
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But it was actually bittersweet graduating, because I had so much fun doing research that I loved.
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I was doing research on young adult mental health and wellness.
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I loved that.
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I loved everything I was doing.
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It was an expression of what I was figuring out on my own path.
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And when I discovered AI, and I was like, oh, like, obviously, it won't write your dissertation.
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Like, try to go to AI and be like, could you write this?
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It will fail you.
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So I had to collect my own.
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Yes.
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But, like, you don't have to use it to write anything for you or to cheat the system.
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You can use it to guide you.
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And so that's what Mentra is providing is a guidance system.
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It's personalized based off of where you are.
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I love that Mentra is bringing, you know, the power of AI to the user, which is that student who is in transition and needs it.
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Yeah.
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Whether they're first year, whether they're first gen, whether they're of means or not of means, there's a need for this.
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Yes.
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And I'll say, you know, every time I use AI, it learns a little bit more.
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Yes.
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In our 20 minutes or so of talking, AI has learned so much about so many things short of this conversation.
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If this conversation went into AI, it would tell us quite a bit about you and I.
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Yes.
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So, do you believe that your app will be, that Mentra will be, you know, kind of culturally sensitive and responsive to different cultures, races, gender, sexualities and those sorts of things as it provides this advice and help and guidance?
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That is definitely the intention behind it.
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There are, like I said, there are several limitations to AI that we're still navigating as, like, humanity as a whole.
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But the intention behind this app is to be sensitive to every aspect of the human being because it's human centered.
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It's technology that is human centered and everything that you input into this technology, as you mentioned, it provides greater feedback based off of how you interact with it.
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And this was something I actually asked AI myself, I was just like, are you telling me what I want to hear?
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I just feel like at some point, you got to be honest.
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Did you ask AI?
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I did. I did. I asked, I was like, are you just telling me what I want to hear? Are you actively helping me navigate this part of my life? Because I use it as a life coach.
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I know it sounds crazy, but like, it gets me where I need to go.
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And basically, it was just like, what you're doing is providing the information.
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The only thing I'm doing for you is forming connections at a quicker rate so that you can see exactly where you are.
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I think it says something along the lines like you have lived this, you have collected the information and lived experience.
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I'm helping you distill the information from that.
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And I was like, say less.
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I mean, there's so much research about the populations that could make great use of this app.
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Do you find a need at all to do focus groups or anything like that?
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Or are you able just to turn to the current or pre-existing research to guide the development of Mentra?
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Yeah, so it's a combination of both.
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I've been working with a business consultant in the process because, like I said, there's a lot of limitations to my own awareness that I just don't know.
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And this consultant, he ran for mayor of Atlanta, and he's been in these spaces and the health spaces.
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I believe it's called Health AI. I could be wrong.
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But basically, it's the same thing that we're developing, like helping students succeed emotionally and academically.
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He's been in this space for years, I think over 20 decades or 20 years, two decades.
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And so I'm just trying to learn from people who already know what they're doing.
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And so what I've recognized is that he has encouraged me to start focus groups because I'm able to see real time how students are interacting with the app and make adjustments based off of that.
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Because I think a lot of times, and I've seen this in research before when I was in school, we'll do research and we'll go into these communities.
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And then we'll just forget about the fact that these people have lived in these communities mostly all their lives.
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And we're trying to tell them what's best for them based off of what we think we know.
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But anyone who is a researcher who has made significant impact know that community-based wellness programs, it was exactly what Mentra is, is community-based.
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It grows because of the dialogue between the researcher and the community who is living in these environments.
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So it's going to be a combination of both, of course, but I feel like we are going to lean more heavily on the direct feedback we're getting from the students who are impacted or using this app.
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From a cybersecurity and safety standpoint, what safeguards are being put in place for student data, privacy, consent for the general population or vulnerable populations that use the app?
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That is a priority for us to safeguard our students because it's one thing to create an app that's supposed to help them, but it's another thing to create something that actually harms the population that you wish to support.
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And so everything in me, obviously, as an entrepreneur and a researcher, it's all about protecting our vulnerable populations.
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Do you see yourself or see the app partnering with different campuses, advisors, counseling centers, student groups, rollouts, people like me, once it is developed?
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Oh, absolutely. Honestly, a part of the development plan is making connections with administrators, with organizations who actually have scholarships.
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Because what I realized is that a lot of scholarship foundations have the money, but they don't have the mentoring part of it.
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And so this would be the perfect partner for those foundations that focus on giving students the access financially to these institutions.
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So that's something that we are working on communicating, not just when the app is developed, but actively right now because of the population that we wish to serve, which are first-gen, low-income students.
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I'm having a hard time, and maybe this is something that I'm just going to have to, again, see how it goes when I get there.
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But I'm having a hard time trying to charge students, low-income first-gen students, when they are already financially restricted or limited, like having to charge them to use this app.
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So my workaround for that is actually going to the organizations and the places that work with these students directly who have the resources to provide access to this app, because it's going to support them.
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And we know that there's enough research to show that mentorship and this type of guidance actually reduces the rate of burnout, and it increases retention rates for universities.
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Back in my day, the late 90s, my college days, that is, you know, the term user-friendly or plug-and-play was used to say something was easy to learn.
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Do you feel mentor will need any sort of training, or is it pretty intuitive? Will it be a pretty intuitive app?
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Oh, yeah. That's something that we're building to the interface is an intuitive layout so that students can basically click basically from one screen, like, where are you now?
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What are some main goals with a checklist? So, like, the whole goal of this is to feel intuitive and user-friendly because, like I said, it's one thing to create it. It's another thing to create something that's actually effective.
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And so I've found that the most effective apps that I've ever used have had this intuitive interface and was also based off of gamification in some type of way.
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So it's very much like all of that is user-friendly. All of that is intuitive. And that's something that we're building into the design right now.
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Well, as you can hear, I'm a fan. I can't wait to have this app. I can't wait to share the app.
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But what challenges have you encountered so far and what barriers do you see or road bumps or speed bumps that you see yourself encountering between now and the launch of the app and when it does get to me and to the students that I want to share with?
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Yeah, so this is a great question and something that has come up in the business consulting that I'm getting from Dr. Helmet Love.
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It's basically at every level, the founder is going to be the biggest bottleneck. And like I mentioned before, this is a new venture for me.
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My business background is in one-on-one coaching and getting clients that way. I've never built technology out like this, and I've never been a part of a team where they have done this before.
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And so my biggest challenge right now is releasing control in that aspect because I have a vision for how I want this app to look, how I want it to feel to the student, when I want it to be launched. And that was months ago.
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So, as you can see, I'm really having to let go of my expectations as a founder and to give myself the room to be flexible and to flow with the process of working with the team.
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And like I said, this is something I've never had to do before, because anything I've ever wanted to bring to life, I would spend weeks sitting down by myself and just doing it.
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But this is a skill that I don't have yet. And so I'm having to work with another team. And there's a lot. There's a lot internally that I've had to work through.
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There's a lot externally that I've had to work through. And the more that I can get out of my own way and allow this project to be birthed in the time that it's going to be birthed, it will be more effective to the people that it's meant to serve, instead of me rushing through the process and just delivering them something that does not work.
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And that's something that I'm always thinking about, because that's the point of it, is to get students the support they need.
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It is remarkable that you have this vision. Scholars Equity Network, for one, believed in the vision. I know many others do. I know your team does.
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So I guess your job is kind of to continue to guide the vision. And definitely don't rush it, as you said.
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But I want to so bad.
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I know. Tell me one feature that you know Mentor will have when it launches that you just can't wait for folks to be able to have access to.
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So one thing that I'm looking forward to is the Wellness Corner. So it's basically a space on the app where students can come and just decompress and talk about something that they've been dealing with.
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Like I mentioned, the burden of anxiety, stress and burnout in the student population is the highest among any demographic.
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And so the Wellness Corner will allow students to come and talk about a lot of the things and then point them in the direction on campus to give them resources to help them navigate this aspect of their journey.
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We know that a lot of universities have student counseling and have resources for students that will help them navigate the emotional toll that naturally being in this type of environment takes.
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And so the Wellness Corner allows them to vocalize that. The long term goal is to build community and students feel the most supported when they know that they're not the only ones dealing with the weight of going through this experience.
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Well, we both know you cannot progress academically or professionally if you are not mentally well. So I love that you said that. The Wellness Corner, I almost feel like you should make it mandatory for them to go a certain number of times a week in order to keep the app or incentivize it in some way.
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Because so often we make wellness an option, right? Like, oh, if you're not feeling well, go here. It should be like, go here because you are human and you're naturally not going to feel well sometimes.
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So I love that you've mentioned the Wellness Corner. I could see that being my favorite feature, too, as a student of counseling and psychology and life.
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Crystal, tell the listeners of the Scholars Equity Network podcast where they can learn more about Mentra, about the work you're doing, your socials, you know, all those things.
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Yeah, so the best way to find me is on my official website. It's crystaltherell.com. So it's my full name plus my middle initial.
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And I have links to all of my social media accounts. TikTok is new, but it's growing quite quickly.
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I've been talking about the scholarship coaching that I do for students and talking about a few other things and just talking about the journey of becoming truthfully, because that's what it is.
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Like, students go to college because they have a vision for their life. And I know a lot of students, you know, a lot of people are questioning whether they need college or whether it's important.
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And I get those questions from students. Do I need to go to college to be successful? And I always tell them, no, but you need to be educated.
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And college is a great way to get educated on what it is that you care about. It's a tool. You're not your degree. Your degree is a tool.
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On my website, I provide a lot of resources where I dive deeper into those subjects because it's a blog as well. And so students can find me there. My socials are there.
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Crystal, Dr. Harrell, thank you for sharing your story. This is part one of a number of conversations I would love for us to have to share more about Mentra and its progress.
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Thank you for having me on this platform. And thank you for what it is that you guys are building through the Changemaker platform, because this gives scholars the opportunity to really express what's within them.
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Thank you for being a part of the Scholars Equity Network Pay It Forward Accelerator. Your journey from Gates Millennium Scholar to Changemaker really embodies what this community is all about.
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And to our listeners, thank you for joining us for another episode of the Scholars Equity Network podcast.
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If you enjoyed this conversation, like I did, be sure to share it with fellow scholars, mentors, or future leaders who believe in creating opportunities for others.
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Until next time, remember, when scholars rise, communities rise with them.
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Take care, folks.
