New York, USA — At 46 years old, Denniston M Reid has already dedicated his life to ensuring that as many underserved kids as possible are exposed to a college education.

This past June, the University of Colgate graduate, who received the University’s Alumni Corporation 2018 Humanitarian Award for his years of service working with underprivileged youths, was elected to the university’s board of trustees.

A small liberal arts school, Colgate University was founded in 1819 and is located in Hamilton, near Syracuse, in upstate New York. Now preparing to celebrate its bicentenary, it claims the late Adam Clayton Powell, the first African American to be elected to Congress from New York, and who would go on to become a powerhouse in American politics, among its distinguished alumni.

“Denniston Reid has dedicated his life to improving educational opportunities for underserved students. As a teacher, administrator, visionary and innovator he has spent his life, since leaving Colgate, helping young people to recognise and achieve their potential,” a citation accompanying the award read.

The Kingston-born, Vaz Prep School graduate who did one year in high school in Jamaica before migrating, holds a masters’ degree from Teachers College at Columbia University in New York, and is currently pursuing his PhD at Penn University in the state of Pennsylvania.

For several years Reid, who wanted to become an attorney, has run a programme exposing students from economically challenged backgrounds to college life.

“It’s my way of giving back,” he said in an interview with the newspaper, adding that he gave up thoughts of becoming an attorney after discovering that most of the boys in a juvenile facility at which he was teaching, “were not able to read”.

“It was a situation that left me shocked,” he said. He admitted, however, that becoming an educator “was never far from my mind”, as two of his aunts were educators in Jamaica.

He has been credited with helping to raise the test scores of black and Hispanic students at the publicly funded Bronx Preparatory Charter School, where he was a founding maths teacher for sixth-graders. His success was featured in the prsetigious New York Times newspaper.

Reid is currently chief of schools and innovation officer for Excellence Community Schools, a non-profit body that is expanding access to high-quality education in high-needs neighbourhoods in New York.