This summer, Dartmouth's SEAD program is launching its fifth successful year in matching up high school students with college mentors -- and providing those students with a support system for the future.
The annual Summer Enrichment At Dartmouth program offers a unique experience for underprivileged high school students to spend three weeks on campus and forge both social ties and academic skills.
"What we are doing is giving them some more tools," Tucker Foundation Dean Stuart Lord said in 2001, SEAD's inaugural year.
This year, 25 high school students are in attendance from July 2 to 23. Students hail from across the United States, representing a diverse array of social environments, from urban to rural, and regions, from South Carolina to nearby Enfield, New Hampshire.
But their one commonality is that they come from under-funded high schools wherein they have had little opportunity to develop the academic skills necessary to fulfill their potentials.
Last year, approximately 350 sophomores took part in the summer program, participating in leadership roles such as mentors and academic coaches, or in more casual situations, such as providing meals for the students.
This year, nearly every sorority, fraternity and affinity house on campus has donated either a lunch or a dinner.
Members deliver lunches to the students in their dorm and spend the afternoon with them, whereas dinners allow SEAD students to visit the Greek or affinity houses for a sit-down dinner among members.
A residential staff, consisting of mostly Dartmouth juniors and seniors, lives with the SEAD students in French residence hall, working with them in classes and running or supervising other activities. Campus groups such as SHEBA and the Summerphonics will also be hosting workshops for the students.
Dartmouth students working with SEAD applied in the spring and went through a rigorous selection process before passing mentor training. Academic coaches visit SEAD students in their study hall periods and aid their study skills, sometimes taking them to favorite on-campus study spots away from their residence.
Mentors provide a stable, reliable source of support and play both friendship and leadership roles for students.
"[SEAD participants] are also academically challenged and supported, which I think is important because some of the students are sort of pushed aside in the classroom," said Student Director Anne Delehanty '06.
Students take three classes a day but are enrolled in only two subjects, so each day they take two classes of one subject.
This summer, SEAD students are studying environmental sciences and humanities.
The program recently received a grant to visit a marine bio-research lab run by Cornell University and the University of New Hampshire, located on the Island of Shoals.
Students will also be developing scenes in their humanities class and taping them for broadcast on DTV.
According to Director Jay Davis '90, SEAD's mission is twofold: both to expand high school students' conception of what's possible in their lives and to work with the Dartmouth community to enhance learning.
"We believe we can contribute to the central mission of a liberal arts institution by providing Dartmouth students with the opportunity to learn with others from different backgrounds," Davis said.
In addition to classes, the students participate in activities such as bowling, going to the Canobie Lake Amusement Park and a coffeehouse talent show.
This Saturday, each student will be walking or running in the Prouty Century Ride and Fitness Walk, which raises funds and awareness for the Norris Cotton Cancer Center at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center.
Delehanty sees the program as a valuable chance for Dartmouth students to open their eyes to the world outside the "Hanover bubble," as well as share their education with students who have had fewer opportunities.
"A lot of the support structures that existed for Dartmouth students don't exist for these students.
"I love SEAD so much, and I think that the students are really wonderful people. They have so much potential and so much to say about where they're from," said Delehanty.
