Tim Shriver, chair of Special Olympics, addresses Trinity

Tim Shriver, chair of Special Olympics, spoke to the Trinity community on Tuesday, February 14, 10:30 am, in Social Hall.

Tim Shriver is a social leader, educator, author, film producer and entrepreneur. He chairs Special Olympics, the world’s largest sports organization for children and adults with intellectual disabilities, providing year-round training and competitions to more than 5.3 million athletes in nearly 170 countries.

He and his brother Anthony Shriver recently aligned the Special Olympics and Best Buddies (founded by Anthony) to create the Eunice Kennedy Shriver Challenge event, to encourage greater acceptance and inclusion for those with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Tim Shriver is a member of the Kennedy family – President John F. Kennedy and Senators Robert Kennedy and Ted Kennedy were his uncles; Maria Shriver is his sister.

He spent 15 years in public education as a teacher, including several years in special education. He served as a high school teacher in the New Haven, Connecticut, public school system and as a counselor and teacher in the University of Connecticut branch of the Upward Bound program for disadvantaged youth. He was instrumental in establishing the Social Development Project at the public schools in New Haven, and established the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Tim Shriver was a co-producer of the movie “Amistad” and wrote a memoir, “Fully Alive: Discovering What Matters Most.” He is a board member of Malaria No More, a New York-based nonprofit that was launched at the 2006 White House Summit with the goal of ending all deaths caused by malaria. He served on the Board of Directors of The Future Project, a national initiative to empower young people to discover their passion and change the world.