News & Stories

"Leadership and Action in the U.S. Southwest and Beyond", Ernesto Cortés, Jr.

Posted Mar 21 2016

 

On March 22, 2016, Ernesto Cortés, Jr., Co-Director of the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF), founder of the Alliance Schools strategy, and recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship, gave a talk on his experiences with the Industrial Areas Foundation. The talk was followed by a discussion moderated by Professor Rodolfo de la Garza, Eaton Professor of Administrative Law and Municipal Science at the School of International and Public Affairs and the Department of Political Science.

The Industrial Areas Foundation provides leadership training and civics education to poor and moderate-income people in the United States and United Kingdom. Mr. Cortés has also been instrumental in the building of over 30 broad-based organizations whose hallmark is the development and training of ordinary people to do extraordinary things. He is the executive director of the 30 organizations of the West / Southwest IAF. Over the years, these organizations have leveraged billions of dollars for poorer communities, including infrastructure improvements in the colonias (areas of Texas which lacked basic drainage systems) in the 80s and 90s, increased public funding to equalize school funding in Texas in the mid-1980s, state funding for workforce development projects equipping underemployed adults with job training options, community level infrastructure, healthcare reform, and housing.

Aided by Cortés’ imagination and skill, the West / Southwest IAF organizations have produced impressive results in the area of job training. Cortés also envisioned and launched the Alliance Schools strategy – a much lauded initiative to engage communities of adults in public education. Identifying and training parent and community leaders to change the culture of their schools, the Alliance Schools have been successful in building a broad base of support for public education, both locally and statewide.

The work of the West / Southwest Industrial Areas Foundation, pioneered by Cortés, has been written about extensively. Cortés has been awarded honorary degrees from Princeton University, Rutgers University, Southern Methodist University, University of Houston and University of St. Edwards in Austin. In addition to being the recipient of the HJ Heinz Award in Public Policy and the MacArthur Genius Award, Cortés has completed multiple fellowships at the JFK School of Government at Harvard and MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning (Martin Luther King Jr.). He is a graduate of Texas A & M University.