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October 15, 2007

网曝门 graduate Marcus Martin named president and CEO of Education is Freedom

网曝门 graduate Marcus Martin was named president and CEO of the Dallas-based, national non-profit organization, Education is Freedom.

EIF removes the economic obstacles to higher education by providing college scholarships to young people who may be overlooked by traditional scholarship programs.

Martin is a first-generation college graduate who attended college on a football scholarship. He received his bachelor鈥檚 degree in education and his master鈥檚 degree in criminal justice from the University of Louisiana at Monroe (then-NLU), followed by his Ph.D. in applied statistics and urban sociology from Howard University, and then a master鈥檚 degree in public health with concentrations in epidemiology and community health from the University of North Texas Health Science Center School of Public Health.

Prior to joining Education is Freedom, Martin served as director of the J. McDonald Williams Institute, the research arm of the Foundation for Community Empowerment.

During his tenure there, he successfully led a number of major initiatives, including the creation of a major comprehensive research institute, the launching of two Web-based quality of life indicators projects (Analyze Dallas and Dallas Indicators), the creation of the J. McDonald Williams Institute鈥檚 public policy journal (the Williams Review), and the creation of the J. McDonald Williams Institute鈥檚 Community of Scholars.

He also has an academic appointment as a faculty member in the School of Public Health at the University of North Texas Health Science Center. Martin is an experienced scholar whose research interests are in the areas of social stratification, social epidemiology, and evaluation research.

Martin is a frequent guest speaker nationwide on a number of issues ranging from the academic achievement gap, student athletes, race relations, non-profit leadership and organizational effectiveness, African-American history, urban youth culture, economic mobility and poverty, and health disparities. He is the author of the upcoming book, 鈥淭he Blessing of the Burden,鈥� which discusses his life, growing up in an impoverished, single family home in Louisiana.

EIF鈥檚 National Scholarship Program serves U.S. high school seniors or graduates, ages 24 years and under, who plan to enroll for the first time in a full-time undergraduate course of study at an accredited two-year or four-year college or university in the United States.

EIF has advisors that work with at-risk teens on several levels, including life skills classes to improve their time management, study, and work skills; personal mentoring to motivate them to stay in school and succeed; and assistance in planning their college careers.

For more information, go to www.educationisfreedom.org.

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