Valencia Honored With University’s Hamilton Book Award

Dr. Richard Valencia, a professor in The University of Texas at Austin’s College of Education, was named winner of a University Co-Op Robert W. Hamilton Book Award, in the runner-up category. The Hamilton Award is among the highest honors that the university offers to its published authors, and Valencia was recognized for his book “"Chicano Students and the Courts: The Mexican American Legal Struggle for Educational Equality.”

Awards were presented to the winners by University of Texas at Austin president William J. Powers at the Four Seasons Hotel in Austin on Oct. 20. Dr. Michael H. Granof, chairman of the University Co-Operative Society, hosted the event and announced the winners. The award is named in honor of Dr. Robert W. Hamilton, the Minerva House Drysdale Regent Chair-Emeritus in Law. Hamilton was chair of the Co-Op Board for 12 years, from 1989 to 2001 and is largely responsible for the Co-Op’s growth and profitability during that period.

Valencia, who is in the College of Education’s Department of Educational Psychology, is also a Fellow in the Center for Mexican American Studies and has produced scholarship and research on Mexican American educational history, testing/assessment issues, social thought, demographic trends, education litigation, academic test performance and education policy. He has edited the books “Chicano School Failure and Success” and “The Evolution of Deficit Thinking” and authored “Dismantling Contemporary Deficit Thinking,” in addition to writing his recent Hamilton award-winning book.

Some of Valencia’s past honors include a Distinguished Career Contribution Award from the American Educational Research Association and a Distinguished Faculty Award from the Texas Association of Chicanos in Higher Education. During his career, Valencia has served as an expert witness for plaintiffs of color in a number of education lawsuits, including the 2006 federal level Santamaria v. Dallas Independent School District segregation case in which the plaintiffs prevailed. 

—Kay Randall, University Communications, 512-232-3910