Several elected officials — including State Sen. Rosemary McAuliffe, D-Bothell — will join the close to 900 fifth-graders from Skagit and Whatcom counties who will visit Western Washington University Oct. 26 to see firsthand what a university campus is like.

The tour kicks off the second year of Compass 2 Campus, a proactive effort that sends trained WWU student mentors into schools in order to get more kids to see themselves as future college students.

Modeled after a successful program in Wisconsin, Compass 2 Campus aims to get more kids thinking early about college with the help of mentors and role models to show them the importance of higher education. The tour is just the beginning of a long-term relationship between the youngsters and WWU mentors. The students who toured the WWU campus last year as fifth-graders now work with Western student mentors in their sixth-grade classrooms. And they will continue to see WWU students as Compass 2 Campus grows each year, eventually serving thousands of students in the fifth- through 12th grades.