Dr. Ana Gil-Garcia
Education Committee Vice Chair, LULAC
Dr. Ana Gil Garcia, a professor Emerita, five-time Fulbright Scholar, is an internationally acclaimed professional, published author and an esteemed community leader and forerunning advocate for diversity. A Chicago resident, she works tirelessly for community organizations devoted to Latino leadership parity and equity. Among her multiple awards, she is one of the 100 most influential Hispanics in the USA (2010), one of the 30 Outstanding Visionary Women in higher education (2014), Distinguished Woman in Education (2015), and one of the 50 more influential Latinos in Chicagoland (2017-2019). She has taken effective actions on the empowerment of Latina women through higher education, the development of junior faculty, teacher and principal preparation, the promotion of coalition among Hispanic professional educational organizations and the creation of international bridges for minority students. Her lobbying for Latino leadership parity, equity in education and digital access for Latinos in education crystalized on the launch of a principal endorsement program for Latino teachers to close the existing gap of Hispanic school leaders needed in Chicago Public Schools in which 49% of the student population are Latinos. To support the previous initiative, she co-founded the Illinois Latino Coalition of Education Leaders (ILCEL) to maximize efforts in educational issues affecting the Latino education community. She is the co-founder of the Illinois Venezuelan Alliance, a not-for-profit organization to denounce the existing Venezuelan humanitarian crisis. Dr. Gil-Garcia’s image served as one of the Rotary International faces of the “Humanity in Action” world-wide campaign to fight poverty.
