BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
JOSUE M. GONZALEZ

Professor González was an early innovator in bilingual and multicultural education. As early as 1967, he wrote curriculum materials and designed programs at all levels from kindergarten to graduate school. He has written in that field, lectured widely and helped train future bilingual education teachers. He is a former President of the National Association for Bilingual Education. He has held faculty appointments at Chicago State University and Southern Methodist University and adjunct appointments at Roosevelt University and George Mason University.

From his involvement in bilingual education, Dr. González developed a strong interest in education policy studies. In 1970, González served on the staff of the Senate Select Committee on Equal Educational Opportunity where he organized the first hearing ever held by the U.S. Senate on the status of Puerto Rican education on the mainland. When he later served in the Department of Education, González put his policy expertise to work. He was instrumental in fashioning departmental policy towards refugee children and in designing enforcement policies for school systems attempting to comply with the Lau v. Nicholas decision of the U.S. Supreme Court.

In 1978, Dr. González was appointed to direct the Office of Bilingual Education in the U.S. Office of Education (USOE). While at USOE, González helped organize the newly created U.S. Department of Education. He became the first director of the Office of Bilingual Education and Minority Languages Affairs under the First Secretary of Education, Shirley Huffstedler. Huffstedler also appointed him to the U.S. Mexico Cultural Exchange Commission, a bilateral group of government officials responsible for developing cultural and educational exchange procedures between the two countries.

In February, 1981, Dr. González left government service to become a Senior Policy Fellow at the Institute for Educational Leadership in Washington, D.C. and a Visiting Fellow at George Mason University in Virginia. He continued his interest in public policy as an adjunct professor of Public Administration at Roosevelt University in Chicago after he returned to Chicago in 1982. In Chicago, he served the Chicago Public Schools as a senior administrator. Subsequently was appointed Vice Chancellor for Planning, Development and Research at the City Colleges of Chicago, the city's community college system.

Dr. Gonzalez has served as board member of several organizations including the Latino Institute, the Erikson Institute, the Ounce of Prevention Fund, and the Mexican and American Solidarity Foundation. In 1986, Dr. González was named to the Commission on Youth and America's Future, a long term project of the W.T. Grant Foundation.

Dr. González has received numerous awards for his leadership in education on behalf of Hispanic children and youth. In 1987, Mayor Harold Washington appointed him to the Mayor's Education Summit, the group that drafted the education reform plan for Chicago in 1988.

In 1991 Dr. González became Professor of Educational Administration at Teachers College, Columbia University where he served until 1997. Currently he is Director of the Center for Bilingual Education and Research and Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at Arizona State University.