Volunteerism & Service Learning (U - Social Activism)

<p>Edward James Olmos imparts a lively message about the ideals of cultural diversity and racial harmony that inspire you to fight for the causes in which you believe. </p><p>Named America’s most influential Latino star by Hispanic Magazine, Edward is an actor, director and passionate community activist best known for his roles in the film <i>Stand and Deliver </i>and television’s <i>Battlestar Galactica</i>.</p><p>A longtime pioneer for more diversified roles in the U.S.

<p>Molly Barker is an American educator, social entrepreneur, and visionary. She is best known as the founder of Girls on the Run International, the self-esteem, youth-development and healthy lifestyle program for third- to eighth-grade girls. </p><p>Molly Barker started Girls on the Run International in 1996 with 13 girls in Charlotte, NC. Since then, the program has grown to include schools in all 50 states, inspiring over 2.5 million girls to know and activate their limitless potential.

<p>Former inner-city high school English teacher Erin Gruwell changed the lives of her students and became a change agent for the future of education with her philosophy of tolerance, respect, and the power of writing one’s own story.</p><p>Charged with turning around a class of low performing, underserved kids who lived in a community plagued by gang violence and racial hostility, Gruwell compared the family feud in <i>Romeo and Juliet</i> to a gang war and used the stories of Anne Frank and Zlata Filipović—students who wrote about their lives during wartime—t

<p>For 40 years, photographer James Balog has broken new conceptual and artistic ground on one of the most important issues of our era: human modification of our planet’s natural systems. An avid mountaineer with a graduate degree in geography and geomorphology, James is equally at home on a Himalayan peak or a whitewater river, the African savannah or polar icecaps.</p><p>To reveal the impact of climate change, James founded the Extreme Ice Survey (EIS), the most wide-ranging, ground-based, photographic study of glaciers ever conducted.

<p>Eboo Patel is the founder and executive director of the Interfaith Youth Core, a Chicago-based institution building the global interfaith youth movement. He was appointed by President Obama to the Advisory Council of the White House Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Initiatives, where he is working to realize the president’s priority of interfaith cooperation.</p><p>He is the author of <i>Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim</i>, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation.