In an intimate and historic celebration, Dean Charles R. Martinez and the College of Education community gathered at the Etter-Harbin Alumni Center this February to present the college’s inaugural Distinguished Alumni Awards.
The recognitions marked a milestone moment in the college’s 134-year history and aimed to celebrate the excellence and world changing work of COE’s talented alumni in the fields of education, health and sport.
At The University of Texas at Austin, we say that what starts here changes the world,
said Dr. Charles R. Martinez, Dean of the College of Education at The University of Texas at Austin. Our distinguished alumni are living examples of our motto, serving as role models for future generations and demonstrating the transformative power of education.
The six recipients were selected from a pool of candidates presented to Dean Martinez after a committee composed of COE faculty, staff and students reviewed dozens of submitted nominations from across the country and around the globe.
Carlton Fong and Sana Ali Meghani will receive the Early Career Award, intended for rising star alumni who are 39 years or younger and leading inspiring early careers with a dedication to creating meaningful impact. Florence Shapiro and Jeanne Wanzek will receive the Distinguished Career Award for their lifelong achievements and notable contributions as respected individuals in their fields of practice. Suzan Clark Glickman and Elizabeth Shatto Massey will be awarded the Dean’s Changemaker Award for their outstanding legacy of impact on education and the UT community as transformative leaders and changemakers.
What is exciting to me is also that the awards highlight the myriad ways our alumni are making an impact,
Dean Martinez said. Our award winners include rising stars and distinguished experts who have had their feet on the ground in improving education systems to serve all, as well as those who are creating the evidence base needed to improve the lives of kids and families through their scholarly contributions to policy and practice. We also recognize and honor individuals who have spent their entire careers championing education and health.
He added that the awards have a particular importance now as COE continues to work to improve systems to support all kids and all communities while navigating the challenging environment of a particularly divisive moment in the country.
We hold out these award winners as the evidence of our impact through their work on behalf of kids and families, their excellence in research and their engagement in their communities,
Dean Martinez said.
According to Associate Dean for Student Success, Community Engagement and Administration Dr. Victor Sáenz, who chaired the inaugural selection committee, though the college had never formally had a mechanism to acknowledge our outstanding alumni, some programs had done so previously. In consultation with the college’s advisory council members, the decision was made to form a college-wide initiative to recognize alumni.
We pride ourselves as the College of Education of training and preparing people for the helping professions and what better example of that than our alums who are out there actually impacting the world in those ways–helping people, helping communities, advancing health and advancing education,
Sáenz said.
The inaugural selection committee was tasked with determining the criteria of what made a nominee a standout in a pool of amazing candidates with a wide diversity of backgrounds, life journeys and trajectories. Ultimately, Dean Martinez decided to honor two alumni in each category—one who followed a practitioner route and another with a more academic path.
During the February awards ceremony, Meghani and Fong both thanked their families for their profound influence as they lauded their mentors and COE faculty for their unwavering support in fulfilling their dreams.
Sáenz recalls knowing both Fong and Meghani, who will be the recognized young alumni, during their time as graduate students and describes their work during and after the program as outstanding.
Dr. Fong is a distinguished researcher who focuses on the experiences of historically marginalized students and works as an associate professor in the College of Education at Texas State University. Meghani is the co-founder and managing partner of Our Cause, an organization that helps create equitable, sustainable initiatives and pathways for first-generation students and students of color.
Fong said he would never forget the COE mentor who chatted with him during his campus visit to UT Austin in 2008 as he considered the Forty Acres for graduate school. He said she assured him that as an education scholar at UT, he would have the potential to make an immeasurable impact on countless lives by working with COE faculty and researchers to enhance students’ learning environments.
Looking back at the last 17 years, I am grateful for all that I experienced here at UT,
Fong said. It propelled me to achieve these goals and I remain steadfast to what drew me here.
Meghani honored her family as she thanked them all for joining her during the special, multi-generational celebration and dedicated the award to her late father, whom immigrated from Pakistan with her and her mother when she was a toddler.
As a young, brown, Muslim-American girl growing up in the South in the ’90s, I did not see role models who looked like me or who shared my faith,
Meghani said. I want my daughters to know that they can be and do anything. I stand on my father’s shoulders and on the shoulders of my ancestors. I am their wildest dream.
Meanwhile, Wanzek was celebrated as a distinguished career alumna for leading an admirable academic career, which Sáenz said is evident in her body of work and countless accolades as a researcher, scholar and teacher.
My parents helped me to understand that helping kids and others is amazing work with lasting impact,
Wanzek said as she looked back on her time at UT, where she said she discovered both her passion for researching interventions for kids with learning disabilities and also a love for college football.
Storied former Texas State Senator Florence Shapiro will join Wanzek as the other distinguished career alumna. Sáenz said in his view as a policy researcher, Senator Shapiro is among a handful of folks who have shaped education policy in profound ways over the past 30 years.
During her time as a senator and chair of the education committee, she was responsible for ushering through some seminal pieces of legislation that have shaped education policy for the better,
Sáenz said.
Looking back on her more than 50-year career, Senator Shapiro said that as a child of Holocaust survivors who immigrated to the United States just before she was born in New York, she is grateful for her parents’ encouragement to get an education and use it to do great things.
I am absolutely beyond belief that all this time has passed and that all the things I have done as a result of all of their influence on my life have led me to this today,
Shapiro said. I have never once looked back over the last 50 years and said, oh I wish I had done something else.
Additionally, Glickman and Massey will be honored with the Dean’s Changemaker Award after becoming part of a handful of nominees who demonstrated a lifelong devotion to COE’s mission.
COE Senior Associate Dean Dr. Beth Maloch, who holds the Elizabeth Shatto Massey Endowed Chair in Education, received the award on Massey’s behalf. Massey is a longtime former elementary school teacher with a remarkable trajectory in education, philanthropy and community service.
Dean Martinez honored Glickman, a retired educator with a long history of community leadership, before accepting the award on Glickman’s behalf.
These individuals are outstanding Texas exes and I am proud to have had a hand in recognizing them,
Sáenz said. I know it is going to be a celebration of them and also of our college.
- Carlton Fong (M.A. ’11, Ph.D. ’14, Educational Psychology)
- Sana Ali Meghani (M.Ed. ’17, Educational Leadership and Policy)
- Florence Shapiro (B.S. ’70, Secondary Education)
- Jeanne Wanzek (Ph.D. ’05, Special Education, Learning Disabilities and Behavior Disorders)
- Suzan Clark Glickman (B.S. ’64, Elementary Education)
- Elizabeth Shatto Massey (B.S. ’61, Elementary Education)
