From Colgate University’s Scene/Alumni Spotlights
Autumn 2012
By Aleta Mayne 

Although Lennox Middle School — located beneath the landing path of Los Angeles International Airport — is just a mile away from the Pacific Ocean, many of its students have never been to the beach. This hard-to-believe, yet telling, truth is what most struck Dr. Glenn Langer ’50 when he got to know the students of the school through a volunteer program established by UCLA. Having grown up during the Great Depression, Langer “immediately identified” with the poverty-stricken students, most of whom come from immigrant families. He decided to do something to help.

Langer was director of UCLA’s Cardiovascular Research Laboratory as well as a professor of medicine and physiology when he started volunteering at Lennox’s science fairs and career days back in 1995. “It was only 20 minutes from the UCLA campus, but it was another world,” he said of the school district, which is only 1.3 square miles but is troubled by 16 active gangs. “A lot of these children have never been out of that district in their lives. This gives you a rough idea of the disadvantage that they have.”

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                      Fort Bragg ADVOCATE-NEWS – Thursday, January 19, 2012 – Section A – Page 11

By Betty Barber

Community Reporter 

   “I couldn’t imagine what was possible for me before I entered the Partnership Scholars Program. I became aware of alternative ways of thinking and aware of new opportunities for my life,” said Niko Gomez, a senior at Mendocino Community High School.
    Gomez tells me about the Partnership Program he has been in for the last five years. He said that the six-year program begins in the seventh grade and end at graduation after the senior year of high school.
    Students are chosen for the program if they are strongly motivated to go to a four-year college, if they have at least a 3.0 grad point average, and are from supportive, low-income families. Each student/scholar is assigned to a volunteer mentor who will work with the scholar for the next six years.
   Together, the mentor and scholar go to concerts, plays, museums, and travel to places as far away as New York, Washington, D.C. or even to other countries. They go to various kinds of restaurants and eat food from different cultures. The purpose of the program is to provide experiences that the student might not otherwise have and open them up to new possibilities for their future. These experiences result in new-found confidence and independence. Read the rest of this entry →

Lennox junior high scholarship program scrambles for funding

Three helped by the Partnership Scholars program at Lennox Middle School are now teachers in the area. Clockwise from top left, Sara Vargas, Milagro Romero and Sarah Sanchez with Assistant Principal Meg Sanchez. Fewer donations mean fewer students in the Partnership Scholars program started by a retired UCLA professor will get the funds and mentoring they need to get through high school and into college.

By Bob Pool 8:38 PM PDT, April 28, 2009

Things have come full circle in Lennox where an unusual junior high scholarship program was hatched a dozen years ago. Read the rest of this entry →