Members of Lander University's first Call Me MISTER class were recently introduced during a reception at Lander's Cambridge Hall. The mission of the program, an acronym for Mentors Instructing Students Toward Effective Role Models, is to increase the pool of available teachers from a broader, more diverse background. Student participants are largely selected from underserved, socioeconomically disadvantaged and educationally at-risk communities in hopes of improving the quality of instruction in the state's lowest-performing elementary schools. From left to right are Call Me MISTER students James Belton, of Camden; Marvaye Payton, of Abbeville; William Smith, of Greenwood; Richard Saddler, of Newberry; and David Walters, of Anderson.