A panel discussion, "A Commitment to Social Change," is slated for 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. Sept. 25 in Call Alumni Auditorium of Kennedy Hall at Cornell University. It will feature three prominent guest speakers who are known for doing extraordinary work in their communities and whose initiatives represent a model for community participation.

The program, which is free and open to the public, is the first event supported by the $1 million endowment from Jill and Ken Iscol for the Iscol Family Fund for Leadership in Public Service, an interdisciplinary program in the Department of Human Development in the College of Human Ecology at Cornell. The goal of the program is to inspire and educate new generations of leaders in public service able to address the intractable problems that face society at any given time, such as hunger, poverty, ignorance, homelessness and violence.

"With a desire for our students to become ambassadors of change, this program seeks to stimulate new problem-centered approaches to educating students, create a dialogue among faculty within the college and strengthen university-community partnerships in tackling some of society's greatest problems," says John Eckenrode, chair of the Department of Human Development.

The Sept. 25 program will feature Rafael Cestero of the Enterprise Foundation, which oversees almost 1,000 housing units for homeless individuals and families with special needs; Jonah Edelman, co-founder and executive director of Stand for Children, the nation's only citizens' voice for children, and the son of Marian Wright Edelman; and Katherine LaGuardia, M.D., director of women's health at Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical Inc., founder of the Fiorello H. LaGuardia Foundation to foster Italian-American partnerships in environmental and health projects and the granddaughter of Fiorello LaGuardia.

Ken Iscol, a 1960 Cornell alumnus, was a leader in the development of the Personal Enterprise and Small Business Management Program and founder of the Center for the Environment at Cornell. Jill Iscol manages the family's foundation and is an educator and sociologist. Most recently she managed the New York senatorial campaign of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. Their children, Zach '01 and Kiva '03, are both Cornellians.

According to Jill Iscol: "With our own contributions, we try to combine our commitment to supporting institutions that have given so much to us with our interest in tackling social problems and fairness and equity issues. We believe these kinds of partnerships are an efficient and effective way to leverage human and financial resources."

Related World Wide Web sites: The following site provides additional information on this news release.

o Department of Human Development: http://www.human.cornell.edu/units/hd/

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