At age 12, Freeman Hrabowski marched with Martin Luther King. Now he's president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), where he works to create an environment that helps under-represented students -- specifically African-American, Latino and low-income learners -- get degrees in math and science. He shares the four pillars of UMBC's approach.
Saving TED talk here as well. Discusses science/engineering as an act of translation, discusses making connections between biological record and human anecdote, and involves fashion, too.