D'Artagnan Scorza

D'Artagnan Scorza is the Executive Director and Founder of the Social Justice Learning Institute (SJLI). The Social Justice Learning Institute (SJLI) is a nonprofit 501 (c) 3 organization dedicated to improving the education, health and well-being of youth and communities of color by empowering them to enact social change through research, training and community mobilization. SJLI currently serves more than 2,500 Inglewood and South Bay youth and community members through their programs, trainings activities.  SJLI youth and residents are committed to turning their research into action and as a result, SJLI has boldly set the goal of developing 100 urban gardens (community, school and home) over three years in our effort to develop a local food system. D'Artagnan is also a UCLA graduate with a B.A. in the Study of Religion and also has a B.S. in Liberal Studies with an emphasis on Business Management from National University and is currently a Ph.D. student in the Department of Education at UCLA.  D’Artagnan served in the U.S. Navy from November 2001 through March 2006 and served on ground establishing a naval support unit in Baghdad, Iraq. He was also a McNair Undergraduate Research Scholar where he developed the Black Male Youth Academy (BMYA) curriculum for culturally relevant for African-American male youth and worked to reduce recidivism, imprisonment and death rates in the community. He’s served on various UC committees including the UCLA Chancellor's Enrollment Advisory Committee, organized with the Alliance for Equal Opportunity in Education (AEOE) and served on the UCLA Task Force on African American Enrollment, helping to increase enrollment from 96 African-American students in 2006 to 213 African-American students in 2007.  D'Artagnan also served a two-year term as a UC Regent from 2007 through 2009. As a member of the Board of Regents, University of California, he participated in the governance of the University. He was a 2010 Education Pioneer Fellow and is currently a BALLE Fellow.