Gloria G. Rodriguez

1993 Inductee
Civic and Volunteer Leadership

Dr. Gloria G. Rodriguez, passionate advocate for children and families, is the founder, national president and CEO of AVANCE, Inc. Family Support and Education Program and a national leader on issues of health and education for parents and children.

AVANCE, the first parenting education program in San Antonio, was recognized nationally as a model for parent education and family support. It promotes mental health and works to prevent poverty, child abuse and neglect, crime and delinquency, school dropouts and other social and economic problems. The program was featured in numerous newspapers and magazines as well as by “ABC World News Tonight,” “Good Morning America,” Univision and Telemundo. AVANCE received the 1985 Outstanding Mental Health Program Award from the Greater San Antonio Mental Health Association, the Third Annual National Award for the Prevention of Child Abuse in 1986 from the Greater Houston Committee for the Prevention of Child Abuse and was included as “one of the ten outstanding and pioneering programs in family literacy” by the Barbara Bush Foundation on Family Literacy.

Dr. Rodriguez served as a charter member on the board of the National Family Resource Coalition and as a consultant to the federal government, the Harvard Family Research Project, Georgetown University and Yale Bush center. She served on the Texas Health and Services Coordinating Council and as chair of the Governor’s Head Start State Collaboration Task Force.

Dr. Rodriguez earned her Ph.D. in early childhood education from the University of Texas at Austin.