June 26, 2011 | Read Time: 1 minute
New job: Kevin Jennings, 48, was appointed to succeed Alan Khazei, the founder of Be the Change, a group in Cambridge, Mass., that organizes coalitions to fight for social causes. Mr. Khazei left to pursue the Democratic nomination in Massachusetts for the U.S. Senate.
Background: Mr. Jennings, who starts his new position in July, is currently assistant deputy secretary at the U.S. Education Department, where he heads the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools. In 1990 he founded the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network, a nonprofit that works to promote safe school environments for all students regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. Before that, he taught high school history in Providence, R.I., and Concord, Mass.
Education: He holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Harvard College, a master’s in education from Columbia University, and a master’s in business administration from New York University.
Why the job interested him: Mr. Jennings says he was drawn by the chance to work on OpportunityNation, a new campaign to fight poverty and promote economic opportunity. “I grew up below the poverty line my entire childhood, living in trailer parks in the rural South,” he says. “I was the first person in my family to go to college. I have in a lot of ways lived the American dream. I’m very concerned that that dream seems less accessible to people today than it was when I was a kid.”
Other tasks: Mr. Jennings will oversee the group’s work with a coalition that hopes to persuade Congress to restore money that it cut from AmeriCorps and other service programs in the 2011 budget.
Salary: Mr. Jennings declined to reveal it. The group’s budget this year is $6.1-million.
