Carrying a Durham Student to College?

An average 8th grader weighs about 130 pounds, but you don't have to lift them to get them moving toward college. We provide them with a different kind of lift that gets them to sign up for a college-bound course of study for high school. For the 8th year, Duke is hosting School Days for 300 academically capable 8th graders from Durham who are unlikely to aim for college without some help. The students are from families that think college is unaffordable or don't have any first-hand experience with college to know what to expect. Bringing them to Duke makes a huge difference in orienting them to this possibility.

We need your help on Friday, October 26, as a staff escort. To ensure they get a hands-on feel for college, all students are in smaller groups of 10 (with two DPS chaperones), each with a Duke student as a guide, and a Duke staff escort. No preparation is needed on your part, just an interest in helping out, a willingness to ask the students questions, and some time on October 26.

In addition to the satisfaction of helping these students, there are some fringe benefits:

· exploring a part of campus you have probably never seen, from the residence halls to labs like the Human Patient Simulator or the 3D Virtual Reality Chamber

· getting a free t-shirt

· enjoying a breakfast and lunch

· entertainment from Duke performers

· an end-of-program professional slide show of the day

If you think you can break away from 8:45 -- 1:15 to help out, please contact David Stein at dstein@duke.edu or 668-6271.