Erin Gruwell

Acclaimed California teacher to close President’s Lecture Series

Two-time California Teacher of the Year Erin Gruwell will present “Overcoming Adversity: Achieving Academic Excellence” to close the 2003-04 President’s Lecture Series on March 23.

Her presentation will begin at 7:30 p.m. in 101 Olscamp Hall, followed by a reception and book-signing in the same room.

Gruwell is the author of Freedom Writers’ Diary—How A Teacher and 150 Teens Used Writing to Change Themselves and the World Around Them. Available at the presentation and in the University Bookstore beforehand, it is the product of Gruwell’s efforts to help 150 of her students, many of whom had been written off by the educational system.

Helping those students graduate from high school and attend college is also part of her story, which Jersey Films and Universal Studios are scheduled to turn into a motion picture this year.

Gruwell is also founder and president of the Tolerance Education Foundation, a non-profit organization that promotes tolerance and funds scholarships to underprivileged students. Her “Ambassadors of Tolerance Tour” took the group’s Freedom Writers to the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland, Anne Frank’s apartment in Amsterdam, and to war-torn Sarajevo. Their journey will be made into a feature-length documentary.

Gruwell’s vision and commitment to teaching tolerance has gained national media attention. Her story has been told in numerous newspapers and magazines, and her students have appeared on several television programs, including the Oprah Winfrey and Rosie O’Donnell shows and ABC’s “Good Morning America,” “Prime Time Live” and “The View.”

She has won various humanitarian, as well as teaching, awards. Among them are the Spirit of Anne Frank Award, the American Jewish Committee Micah Award and the National Conference of Community and Justice Human Relations Award.

A 1991 graduate of the University of California-Irvine, Gruwell has been honored as “One of UCI’S Top 10 Graduates” and received the prestigious Lauds and Laurels Award for an Outstanding Graduate. She earned her master’s degree in English literature and her teaching credential from California State University-Long Beach, where she is currently Distinguished Teacher in Residence in the colleges of liberal arts and education.

“Leadership and Civic Engagement in the Information Age” is the theme of this year’s President’s Lecture Series, coordinated by University Libraries.