Rubén Olivárez, M.S. ’72, Ph.D. ’75, a proud College of Education alumnus, served as the third director of the Cooperative Superintendency Program from 2006 to 2021. He first met the program’s founder, L.D. Haskew, as a student in the Teacher Corps program, where he began working alongside the renowned former dean.
Over a 35-year career in education, Olivárez held nearly every role imaginable – from classroom teacher to principal to superintendent – across multiple school districts. He also served in senior leadership roles at the Texas Education Agency (TEA), including as deputy commissioner of education.
As deputy commissioner, Olivárez established a hands-on learning partnership between TEA and CSP that placed students at TEA to examine the role of the state with the University while gaining field-based experience.
We need to step up to the quality measures of good leadership and also to make sure that the needs of the students across the country are being met in an equitable and high expectation type of situation,
he said.
Olivárez was the holder of the L.D. Haskew Centennial endowed professorial chair.
Talk about CSP and your involvement with the program.
I had the opportunity to meet L.D. Haskew back in 1973 when I was a student at UT, working in the teacher corps program, a partner program to the Peace Corps. At that time, its mission was to improve teacher preparation programs across the country.
During the summer of our first year there, we presented a petition to the College of Education to have a professor who could help us understand how the educational system works, where the power is, and how we go about changing it as corps members, to participate in a change-oriented type of program.
L.D. Haskew stepped up to the plate.
What is the program and what do people need to know about CSP?
Across the state, we have thousands and thousands of children that are being served by a superintendent that has graduated from our program and the allegiance to the program makes sure that there’s perpetuity in how we prepare our leadership.
We’re all over the state, and that is very difficult to measure. We are highly recognized nationally. And we stay very, very competitive. The whole idea is to serve our children in this country, especially in these challenging times.
Why should people support this program?
The program cannot survive by itself if we don’t have the alumni stepping forward and making whatever contributions that they can to help it go even further. There’s always a need for more resources and to not only stay competitive but be number one – not number three or number four. And it takes the contributions of all of us who have been in the program to make it go. It’s time to step up to the plate and make our contributions to the program so that it can continue to succeed.
Join Us
Support the Cooperative Superintendency Program Legacy of Leadership Endowed Excellence Fund to help recruit the best and brightest to the Forty Acres and provide the hands-on learning that is a cornerstone of the program.
