The Office of Economic Opportunity has granted the University $73,000 to set up a year-round program of teaching and counseling for bright but poor Cambridge high school students.
The project--called "Upward Bound"--will bring 50 high school sophomores and juniors to classes at Harvard this summer, with all the privileges of regular summer school students. Tutorials, small group sessions and extensive counselling will continue through the 1966-67 school year.
The grant is $12,000 more than the University requested. A work program that would guarantee every "Upward Bound" student a job and a salary for the duration of the program will probably be established with the extra funds.
One of 200 such programs which will be set up under the Economic Opportunity Act of 1965, "Upward Bound" was designed to seek out students who would not otherwise consider a college education.
Underachievers
"We won't be looking for class leaders. We want the student who maybe once showed a brief spark but isn't very interested now," David J. Swanger, executive director of the project and teaching fellow in education, said yesterday. Students will be recommended next month by school teachers and a citizens' group from the Cambridge Economic Opportunity Committee, then selected by the "Upward Bound" staff.
A group of 12 teacher-counselors for the project was selected last week. It includes six teachers, two GSAS students, one Law School student and three undergraduates.
Guest Lectures
They must now work with the "Upward Bound" staff to develop the "core curriculum" of reading skills, mathematics and social studies that they will begin to teach during the summer.
More undergraduates may be recruited for the program during the school year, possibly by Phillips Brook House. The possibility of expanding "Challenge," the PBH tutorial program for junior high students, and linking it to "Upward Bound" is now being studied.
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