After more than a week of pushback, the University of Oregon Summer Enrichment Program will get a second chance.
The UO College of Education announced Friday in a message to the SEP community that the university will support the 35-year-old camp this summer. The university will collaborate with Oak Hill School, a K-12 school in southeast Eugene. After this year, Oak Hill will support SEP independently.
YETAG, an outreach unit of the UO College of Education, had originally partnered with Oak Hill to support its “Super Summer” program, a camp for K-5 students. Now, that collaboration extends to SEP campers — grades 6-12 — as well.
SEP provides a residential summer camp for promising middle school and high school students. They are largely taught by UO graduate students. Tuition added up to as much as $1,595 a year.
Last week, Dean of Education Randy Kamphaus initially ended the pipeline summer program for economic and non-economic reasons.
“It wasn’t just a financial decision,” Lauren Lindstrom, UO associate dean of research and outreach, told the Register-Guard. “We are focused more and more on our research and other programs for college-age students (not those younger).”
Kramphaus met with SEP parents on Monday to discuss the camp’s future.
“It was a tough conversation because we were closing a program that affects youth,” Kamphaus said on Wednesday. “I think we were all disappointed that we had not found a more acceptable plan for SEP.”
Tuition was not enough to financially support the program. For the last three years, the UO has averaged $80,000 a year in subsidies to support the program, according to Kamphaus.
A Facebook group called “Keep SEP Alive”, created last week in response to the previous discontinuation of the program, currently has 680 members. With today’s announcement, their dream to keep the program alive will continue in the immediate future.