Dr. Marlon Haywood was born and raised on the Southside of Chicago in the Englewood area. Never one to let his environment dictate his future, he received his Doctoral degree in Educational Leadership from Roosevelt University. He has a Master’s Degree in Adult & Higher Education and a Bachelor’s of Arts in Liberal Studies from Northern Illinois University (NIU).

Dr. Haywood’s life’s mission is to be a positive source of change in the lives of young people, in particular young minority men. His professional resume is one deeply rooted in service. While serving as a Transition Specialist, he noticed the completion rate for African American males that receives their GED was low. To serve as an intervention, he developed the male mentoring program Urban Male Initiative, a program that provided academic support to first generation male students at Malcolm-X college. Dr. Haywood has expanded his work to include elementary and high schools, where he started Urban Male Network (UMN), a non-profit organization to work with teenage male youth in Chicago. Currently, UMN have 12 mentoring locations across the Chicagoland area, where the organization provide service to 200+ young men monthly. UMN is a community partner with the Obama Foundation – My Brother’s Keeper Initiative.