Ivan Hageman, principal and co-founder of the East Harlem School at Exodus House (EHS) in New York City, will speak at Cornell University Wednesday, Sept. 24, at 4:30 p.m. in G73 Martha Van Rensselaer (MVR) Hall. EHS is a highly successful inner-city middle school established in 1993. The title of Hageman's talk will be "A Harder Thing: Discovering My Work in East Harlem."

The program, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by the Iscol Family Program for Leadership Development in Public Service, an interdisciplinary program in Cornell's College of Human Ecology. The program is designed to inspire undergraduate students to become leaders in public service who will address the intractable problems that face society, such as hunger, poverty, ignorance, homelessness and violence.

The audience is invited to a buffet supper in the Belkin Courtyard of MVR Hall immediately following the program.

Hageman is a nationally recognized educator with more than two decades of service in public and private schools in New York City. He grew up in Essex House, a drug rehabilitation center in East Harlem run by his parents, and went on to earn a B.A. magna cum laude at Harvard University in social anthropology and a master's degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Since Hageman and his brother, Hans, opened EHS, whose mission is to educate minority students and instill in them character, dignity and a sense of civic duty, the school has been featured by "NBC Nightly News," Teacher Magazine, The New York Times and a number of other television programs and publications. Hageman has been honored with fellowships from Columbia University Teachers College and the Rockefeller Foundation. He has received the Robin Hood Hero Award from the Robin Hood Organization, for his "extraordinary contributions in the fight against poverty," and the Essence Award, which celebrates black achievement, from Essence Magazine .The Iscol program is endowed by the Iscol family. Ken Iscol, a 1960 Cornell alumnus, is a leader in the development of the Personal Enterprise and Small Business Management Program and a founding supporter of the Center for the Environment at Cornell. Jill Iscol manages the family's foundation and is an educator and sociologist. Their children are Cornell alumni Zachary '01 and Kiva '03.