Jose Aybar

José M. Aybar, full name José Manuel Aybar de Soto, is the former president of Richard J. Daley College in Chicago, one of the City Colleges of Chicago. He has attracted nationwide attention for his innovative approach to remedial instruction at the college level, which has led to a doubling of pass rates for students in remedial courses at Daley College.

Aybar was one of only two presidents in the City Colleges system to be retained after a 2011 leadership shakeup by incoming mayor Rahm Emanuel. As the Latino president of a college serving a majority-Latino student body, he has been profiled as a key Hispanic leader in higher education by Hispanic Outlook and Latino Leaders Magazine.

In addition to his native languages English and Spanish, Aybar is fluent in Russian and proficient in French.

Aybar is a native of Puerto Rico, where his father worked as a physician and hospital administrator in San Juan.

For his undergraduate studies, Aybar attended Shimer College, graduating with a bachelor of science degree. Shimer, a very small Great Books college then located in Mount Carroll, Illinois, emphasizes small discussion classes, shared inquiry, and interdisciplinary integration.

Aybar continued his studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in California, where he received his MA. His thesis was on the subject of "Cuba and Guatemala." He joined the Caribbean Review as an associate editor.

Aybar completed his Ph.D. in international relations at the Claremont Graduate School, with a dissertation on the topic of "The Guatemalan agrarian reform of 1952". Aybar's first book, Dependency and intervention: the case of Guatemala in 1954, was also published.

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