South Texas College of Law Houston’s board of directors is pleased to announce the appointment of Reynaldo “Rey” Anaya Valencia as the law school’s next president and dean, to begin in July 2025.
“As we advance into our second century, after an extensive national search and collaborative engagement by the entire South Texas Law community, we are delighted to appoint President and Dean Valencia as the 13th leader of Houston’s oldest law school,” said Board Chair Genora K. Boykins ’85, who co-chaired the search committee with Professor of Law Vanessa Browne-Barbour.
Interim President and Dean Jeff Rensberger will continue to lead the law school through the spring academic semester and work to ensure a smooth transition of South Texas Law to Valencia in the summer.
A Harvard Law School graduate who earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s degree in sociology from Stanford University (joint four-year program), Valencia has led Capital University Law School as dean and professor of law since 2020. He previously served as associate dean for finance and administration and a faculty member at the University of North Texas at Dallas (UNT-D) College of Law. He joined the faculty at St. Mary’s University School of Law in 1995 as an associate professor, earning tenure in 1999 and promotion to the rank of full professor.
Valencia served as a White House Fellow in the Office of the Chief of Staff in 1999-2000, working on race, civil rights, immigration and Hispanic education issues. In 2008, having returned to St. Mary’s, he was appointed associate dean of administration and finance and held the Ernest W. Clemmons Professor of Corporate and Securities Law, an endowed professorship.
He has practiced, taught, written, and lectured nationally and internationally on corporate law, corporate bankruptcy, and race and gender issues, and also has served as an expert witness in complex corporate and bankruptcy multimillion dollar litigation.
“I greatly appreciate the mission and values at South Texas Law and the law school’s strong tradition of excellence and community culture,” Valencia said. “My life is a testament to the power and impact of a formal education as the first in my family to go to college and to earn a law degree. I am deeply humbled and honored to be the first Hispanic and the first person of color appointed to this position.”
Immediately out of law school, Valencia practiced corporate bankruptcy and general corporate law at the Dallas office of the international law firm Jones Day for five years while serving as an adjunct professor of law at Texas Tech School of Law (where at age 25 he became the youngest faculty member in the law school’s history).
He was elected to the board of trustees for the Law School Admissions Council (LSAC) and has served on several key LSAC committees. He chaired the American Bar Association Self-Study Committee at St. Mary’s, UNT-D College of Law, and Capital and has extensive accreditation experience, serving as a member of numerous ABA and AALS site inspection teams. He has published a number of articles and won awards for teaching and legal work, including St. Mary’s University Distinguished Faculty Award (Law School) in 2008 and the Outstanding Legal Achievement award by the Mexican American Bar Association of San Antonio in 2003 and 2006.
Valencia and his sons – Elias, Leo, and Robert – look forward to becoming part of the South Texas College of Law Houston community.
Original source can be found here.