Imanol Ordorika Sacristán

Imanol Ordorika Sacristán (born in Mexico City, October 31, 1958) is a Mexican social activist, political leader, academic and intellectual. He was one of the initiators and principal leaders of the Consejo Estudiantil Universitario at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, UNAM), with Carlos Imaz Gispert and Antonio Santos Romero, from 1986 to 1990. A founder and prominent member of the Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD) until 2001. Professor of social sciences and education at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. Op-ed writer for La Jornada and other Mexican media.

Biography

Imanol Ordorika Sacristan is the son of Imanol Ordorika Bengoechea and Maria Josefa Sacristan, Spanish Civil War refugees from the Basque country and Madrid respectively. As part of a progressive family he became acquainted with the ideals of Spanish left wing republicanism, with the Cuban Revolution, and with the 1968 Mexican student movement, since his early childhood.

Student activism

Ordorika majored in physics at the Facultad de Ciencias in the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México in 1991. It is during his student days in the 1980s that he became a militant of the Mexican revolutionary left (izquierda revolucionaria) through the Committee Estudiantil de Solidaridad Obrero Campesina (CESOC) and as a member of Revista Punto Critico, a marxist organization and journal founded by the leaders of the 1968 Mexican student movement, and later Convergencia Comunista 7 de enero (CC7). He became an important student leader and representative to UNAM’s University Council and gained national prominence with the creation of the Consejo Estudiantil Universitario in 1986.

As a student member of the Council first, and with the Consejo Estudiantil, starting on October 31, 1986, Ordorika rejected structural adjustment policies affecting Mexican universities and, more concretely, attempts to increase tuition, restrictive student selection policies and standardized testing, proposed by rector Jorge Carpizo McGregor, at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. Ordorika participated in public debates (dialogos publicos) between UNAM administrators and student leaders at the Che Guevara/Justo Sierra auditorium, transmitted live by university radio and featured prominently by the Mexican media in January 1987. During the student strike in February he was one of the selected spokespersons until CEU defeated Carpizo's structural adjustment reforms.

National politics

In 1988 Ordorika, Santos and Imaz led Mexican university students to support Cuauhtemoc Cardenas' independent presidential candidacy against the ruling Partido Revolucionario Institucional's Carlos Salinas. For this purpose they created the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) notably featuring Adolfo Gilly, Salvador Martínez della Rocca, Enrique González Rojo, Raul Alvarez Garin and others.

He was one of the founder and leaders of newly formed left wing party Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD), led by Cárdenas. Ordorika was a member of PRD's National Committee from 1990 to 1995. In 1994 he ran as this party's candidate for Federal Congress in Mexico City district XXII.

During the 2000 presidential electoral process Ordorika was appointed spokesperson and campaign head of communications for left wing candidate Cuauhtemoc Cardenas. After the elections and the 2001 PRD congress Ordorika distanced himself from this party and exercised a strong critique against its bureaucratic trends and centrist political positions.

Imanol Ordorika is also involved in the Mexican contemporary political debate as a public speaker, an editorial writer at La Jornada and a media commentator.

Academic life

In 1989 he became adjunct professor at the Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas at UNAM, even though he actually majored in Physics until 1991. From 1988 to 1990 he was elected member of the organizing committee for the University Congress at this university. In 1990, he was elected faculty representative to the University Congress.

Ordorika obtained master's degrees in education (1993) and sociology (1998) as well as a Ph.D degree in social sciences and education from the Stanford Graduate School of Education (1999). He has been a full professor at UNAM since 2002. Ordorika is a faculty member and higher education specialist in Mexico and abroad. He has written extensively on power relations and politics within postsecondary institutions, faculty and student movements, higher education policy and on the impact of globalization on colleges and universities. In 2004 Ordorika received the Frank Talbott Jr. Visiting University Chair from the University of Virginia and in 2006 he was awarded the Alfonso Reyes Chaire des Etudes Mexicaines by the University of Paris III (Sorbonne Nouvelle).

Since 2007 Imanol Ordorika is General Director for Institutional Assessment (Director General de Evaluación Institucional) at UNAM. Here has been in charge of the design and development of the Mexican Universities Comparative Study.

Recent publications

Books

Book chapters

Articles

External links

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