Video created by Halla Walton, a Sail student currently enrolled at the UO

OUR MISSION

TO INSPIRE PROMISING YOUNG STUDENTS TO PURSUE HIGHER EDUCATION!
The Summer Academy to Inspire Learning (SAIL) is a University of Oregon program led by faculty who volunteer their time to increase the number of low-income students enrolling and succeeding in college.  Founded in 2005 as a week-long economics camp for 15 students, we now have eight faculty-led summer camps with 150 students and made possible by the faculty and staff who volunteer.  We recruit 8th grade through 12th grade students who will attend a new camp every summer and each camp focusses on new topics. Current camps include: performing arts, international studies, economics, psychology, biology, physics, physiology and journalism.   SAIL is FREE and gives students information and personal experience with the college campus, including seminars on admissions and financial aid.  Our goal is for students to finish four years of SAIL and have the tools to succeed in higher education.

We work closely with administrators and teachers at the lowest socio-economic status (SES) middle schools in the local area to identify students who are bright enough to succeed in college, but are at risk of not realizing their potential due to low family income, parents without college educations, or other related factors. We recruit middle school because we believe students are old enough to begin planning their academic future, and will soon face critical decisions about college preparatory courses in high school.  SAIL also mentors students throughout the academic year, assisting them with college and scholarship preparation, academic tutoring and SAT preparation.

 What prior students have said about our program:

“I would love to do this camp again.” -anonymous
“It’s like the best thing that a kid my age gets to do!” – Erin
“It helped me imagine college”  Sergio Pelayo

“SAIL is not only responsible for our daughter Noelle attending college, but because of her ease and comfort with the campus (and our knowledge by proxy) my husband and I returned to college (UO) and finished our degrees, something we never dreamed we’d do. SAIL provided us as parents with visits to campus, and our excited daughter took us on numerous private tours, which familiarized us with the school and made us realize this was something we could really do. We will forever be indebted to SAIL and its creators for setting off this chain reaction and life changing path the program set our entire family on.” Sincerely,  Jeremy and Beckie Jones

                                                                    SPECIAL THANK YOU to LANE TRANSIT -LTD

SUMMER ACADEMY TO INSPIRE LEARNING (SAIL)
Department of Economics
1285 University of Oregon
Eugene, OR 97403-1285
T 541-346-8378
F 541-346-1243

Lara Fernandez, Executive Director
laraf@uoregon.edu