April 14, 2021
Born in Hutchinson, Kansas, Lou Jean Fleron was raised on the Great Plains by working-class parents; her mother was a schoolteacher, her father worked in the oilfields. She attributes her commitment to equality to her upbringing – a commitment she’s used for 44 years to make Western New York a better place for working people.
“I’m a Midwestern pragmatist,” says Fleron, who has led the ILR School’s programs in Buffalo, New York, since 1976. “I believe you have to listen to everybody, and you have to work with people where they are, and you have to try to understand diverse interests and come to a common good. That is something that I think ILR, as an institution, is uniquely positioned to do.”