June 17, 2024
ADRIENNE IRMER
MEMBER, CIVIC FEDERATION BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Number of years with the Federation: almost 2 years
Committees: Criminal Justice, Research
Day job: Associate Vice President for External Affairs, Illinois Tech
A proud native of Chicago’s South Side, Adrienne Irmer has been a passionate champion of social causes for over 20 years. Adrienne currently serves as the Associate Vice President for External Affairs at Illinois Tech. Prior to joining Illinois Tech, Adrienne served on legislative staff of Cook County Board President, Toni Preckwinkle, managing legislation from the Cook County Bureau of Asset Management.
In May 2020, Adrienne was appointed by Mayor Lori Lightfoot to Special Service Area (SSA) #42 Commissioner. In July of 2021, Adrienne was named to the Advisory Committee of the We Will Chicago initiative of the City of Chicago, the first comprehensive city planning initiative since 1966.
Adrienne received her bachelor’s in Biology from MIT (2004), and, as a National Urban Fellow (2014), Adrienne received her MPA and served as Special Assistant to the City Manager for the City of Beverly Hills, CA. Adrienne is a 2023 Fellow with Leadership Greater Chicago, a 2019 Fellow with Illinois Women’s Institute for Leadership, 2018 Emerging Leader with Chicago Council on Global Affairs, 2017 Political Partner with Truman National Security Project, 2017 Fellow of the Chicago Urban League IMPACT Leadership Development Program, and a 2016 Fellow with New Leaders Council, Chicago. Adrienne’s current civic leadership includes: Co-Founder and Co-Organizer of Pride South Side, the Board of Directors for Social Change and The Civic Federation, and serves as the Illinois Tech delegate to the Board of Perspectives Charter Schools.
Adrienne lives in the South Shore community of Chicago with her spouse and two children.
You serve as associate vice president of external affairs at the Illinois Institute of Technology and represent the university on the board of the Civic Federation. What initiatives have been most meaningful to you to be a part of, and what do you think our community should know about your work?
In my role at the university, I am very proud of my contributions to our vanguard pipeline partnership with Chicago Public Schools (CPS) and City Colleges of Chicago (CCC), Runway 606, which gives CPS students the opportunity to go from a junior in high school to a master’s degree in just six years. This saves students a LOT of money in tuition costs and widens access to an education that accelerates meaningful economic mobility.
If you asked me 20 years ago if I would be working as a government affairs professional, I probably would have laughed. Today, I have a diverse resume: emergency management and preparedness, workforce development, marketing and communications, electoral campaign consulting, legislative affairs, government administration, public policy development, and even activism. The list goes on and on. All of my previous roles and leadership inform my work and helped me build a network of professionals to collaborate with and deepen my impact in my community. My current work at Illinois Tech involves a lot of government and legislative affairs, however at its core my work is about building and nurturing relationships, fostering mutual respect, and elevating not just the importance of college access, but lifelong learning.
You grew up on Chicago's South Side and continue to live and serve your community there today. What's your favorite South Side hidden gem you think others should know about?
It is hard to pick one, but I would probably say the South Shore Cultural Center (SSCC). I choose the SSCC because its history is worth elevating in this digital space. Until as recently as the early 70s, SSCC was an exclusive country club that excluded Black folk and Jewish folk. In fact, my grandfather educated me that there was once a sign at the entrance that proclaimed “No Blacks, No Jews.” Now this historical landmark is where Michelle Robinson and Barack Obama became our iconic “Obamas,” and is home to arts and culture events all year round. There are so many events here throughout the warm seasons, including live jazz and blues, cooking events, and even nine holes of golf. And should you come to the neighborhood, there are great local businesses to support, too. You can enjoy barbecue or vegan, smoothies and breakfast sandwiches. If you want to catch a show at the SSCC, let me know and I’ll bring the family, too. If you ask me to play golf, be prepared for nine holes to take us about four or five hours. Despite my proximity to two golf courses, I am not very skilled on the links. LOL!
It's LGBTQ+ Pride Month! You co-created Pride South Side, a weekend festival celebrating LGBTQ+ pride on the South Side that's now in its sixth year. You also continue to serve as Government and External Affairs Director for the festival. What motivated you to create an LGBTQ+ pride festival specifically for the South Side, why is PSS a critical activation for the South Side, and what kinds of impacts have you seen from the festival's presence so far?
In 2018, my cousin Jared called me to share yet another story of Black LGBT+ folks who were asked to leave a northside Pride bar after a verbal altercation. This incident was initiated by a white patron that was already there and who was not asked to leave. In this conversation we talked about a Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH) study that cited a lack of safe spaces for the LGBT community on the south side to socialize and be connected with health resources. Jared suggested we create that space and asked if I would be interested in organizing that with him. I immediately said “yes, and how can I help!” After a lot of research and dozens of calls to friends, allies and co-conspirators, Pride South Side (PSS) was born. 2019 was an amazing first festival with over 2,000 attendees across the festival and associated evening activations. COVID-19 landed on all of us later that fall, but we have persevered for six years now, hoping to reach 6,000 to 8,000 guests with our 2024 fest: "Right to Pride!" I’d be remiss if I didn’t share that if any Civic Federation board members or community members are interested, we still have time to onboard additional festival sponsors—you can email me at [email protected]. I also want to extend a note of deep gratitude to our Civic Federation Board Chair, Jill Wolowitz, for recognizing our impact and making Health Care Service Corporation our very first health insurance sponsor of PSS! Our festival is absolutely more than a party. We have curated a transformative space that nurtures economic support, cultural expression, and access to vital health and wellness resources. Some of the key economic and health impacts from our work include:
- $44,000 invested with LGBTQIA+ artists and vendors in our first year.
- Hired over four dozen artists and performers from around the southside and around the country to perform.
- Served as a mass vaccination site for COVID-19 and Monkey Pox when the city reopened for outdoor events.
- Over 1,500 HIV tests have been executed across our events, with several thousands connected with gender and identity affirming health care resources.
Because of our growing support from the corporate and philanthropic community, we are on pace to invest close to $100,000 with LGBTQIA+ artists and vendors this year, which will make our total economic investment in LGBTQIA+ artists and vendors nearly $500,000 in just six years. To continue this movement, The Silver Room and PSS have partnered to sell #RightToPride merchandise. Proceeds from merchandise sales will be invested in the PROUD Partner Fund, which is aimed expressly towards supporting up-and-coming LGBTQ + artists, LGBTQ-owned businesses, and events that create safe spaces and economic opportunities for BIPOC LGBTQ Southsiders.
Our collective is keenly aware that the South Side of Chicago experiences higher rates of new HIV/AIDS infections, disproportionately affecting communities of color, particularly Black and Latinx populations. According to the Chicago Department of Public Health and local community health organizations, the prevalence of HIV/AIDS on the South Side remains significantly higher than the national average, despite the fact that PrEP is now widely available. Our goal is to continue to build the kinds of partnerships that address the vast structural barriers, including housing instability and unemployment, that exacerbate the vulnerability of our community to HIV infection. PSS also seeks to bring further awareness to the jarring reality of violence experienced by trans women, especially black trans women, in Chicago. This means we have to foster deep conversations about decriminalizing sex work in Illinois and the alarming and outsized number of trans women than bear the brunt of violence in this context. Most people don’t know that 75% of sex workers will be attacked at some point in their career and even fewer people know that 62% of trans people killed in the past decade were sex workers. These conversations, and wider conversations about the survival economy, are all towards creating a safe space to be BIPOC and queer. We know our work cannot stop and we continue to build a movement of high-impact partnerships with community organizations across the city to build a safe Chicago for us all.
What's a project you're working on now?
You might think that with all my work as a mom of two kiddos, working at the university, and on Pride South Side that I might be all tapped out. But with so much work to do to build equity frameworks across so many facets of life here in Chicago, I manage to find time to do just a bit more.
A new initiative in development at the university is our National Institute for Advanced Manufacturing (NIAM). I am supporting this critical work on multiple fronts, including building institutional and community support for our permanent, state-of-the-art learning lab on campus. NIAM will be a 17,000 square-foot facility capable of welcoming thousands of degree- and certificate-based learners for in-person and virtual curriculum each year. Advanced manufacturing is the focus of multiple local and regional government initiatives to grow our economy and create solid middle-class jobs. Illinois Tech is committed to expanding our state’s capacity for advanced manufacturing education and workforce development, and it is very exciting to be a part of this effort.
In addition to PSS, I am consulting with a controlled environment agriculture company, helping to develop their non-profit presence and partnership development. I can’t share many details about this work right now, but I will be sure to share the official launch with our community. I was drawn to this work because of a necessity to reimagine our aging food systems and address the stark realities of food insecurity growing across the nation, and right here at home. Some things our Civic Federation community should know about this world are:
- We already use or have assigned the rights to 100% of the planet's available arable land and water for food production.
- One in seven Americans and Canadians are considered food insecure, but when you zoom into a city like Chicago, one in five Chicagoans are facing food insecurity (according to the Greater Chicago Food Depository).
- Large-scale cultivation of GMOs and over-reliance on and use of pesticides and fertilizers, and unsustainable farming practices have led to an unprecedented number of agricultural issues that threaten the quality and nutritional value of our current food supply.
- Due to the intersection of the agriculture industry’s reliance on long, lean supply chains and regional output stability due to climate change and other drastic changes in regional weather patterns, the actual production of food is growing more and more unstable via conventional farming models.
What are you looking forward to this summer?
I cannot wait to celebrate at Pride South Side—this year feels like it will be so epic, and it is always so satisfying to see the vision come to life the day of the festival. If you aren’t going to see the NASCAR race on Saturday, July 6th, please come join us at the DuSable Museum! This summer I am also looking forward to spending more time with my family, especially my granny who is struggling with Alzheimer’s now. We also love taking the kids to a bunch of food, art and music festivals, like the Mac and Cheese Fest, Jazz at the DuSable, and the 57th Street Art Fair. The more sunshine, the better!