SEEDS: Students for Education, Empowerment, & Direct Service
LASER opportunities and history of the program
Mentors
LASER continues the tradition at nearby Lane Middle School. Mentors commit to a at least a semester of mentoring a middle school student at Lane. Mentoring qualifies for the off-campus federal work study internship program.
Download a mentor volutneer job description
Download a mentor application due January 28th
Interns
The Reed College LASER interns are chosen through a written application and interview. Interns are selected for working in a specific classroom with varying teachers and subjects based upon their own experience and academic interests. The interns participate in a short orientation and meet roughly once a month to check in, maintain a support network, discuss educational issues, and/or plan larger activities. Most interns travel to Lane once a week although some choose to volunteer more to make solid connections with Lane students and to learn the inner workings of the school. After one semester of interning, Reed students have the opportunity to design and teach their own after-school class in Lane's SUN Community after-school program. Interning qualifies for the off-campus federal work study internship program. Interning qualifies for the off-campus federal work study internship program.
Download an intern volutneer job description
Download an intern application due January 28th
History
At the beginning of spring semester 2001 the volunteer office coordinator at Harriet Tubman Middle School informed several Reed interns of the school's dire need for one-on-one mentors. A list had been compiled of over 90 Tubman students who were placed, or had requested to be placed, on a mentor waiting list due to their academic, social, or disciplinary problems. The Reed-Tubman partnership responded immediately to this need in two ways. First, the partnership's yearlong interns volunteered to each mentor a student once a week in addition to their already pledged commitment to work as teachers' aides and team-teach after-school classes.
Second, the partnership advertised at Reed College for new volunteers to mentor a minimum of one student for one hour, once a week. After a short application and interview process, six committed Reed students were hired to volunteer at Harriet Tubman as part of the partnership's new satellite mentor program. The mentors were given a tour of Harriet Tubman led by the Vice principal, Carla Sosanya, on February 20-21, 2001, and began mentoring the following Monday. The program continued and has shown great success. Each mentor was responsible for structuring each hour-long session with the Harriet Tubman students. Focus ranges from academic help and tutoring to simply providing a stable and consistent older figure in the students' lives. The mentors wrote a short weekly summary of their individual sessions to ensure a level of professionalism throughout their relationship with the Tubman students as well as maintaining a feeling of cohesiveness within the larger Reed-Tubman partnership.