Afternoon Panel on Immigration and Education

• Moderator: Ron Wilhelm, Professor of Teacher Education and Administration at UNT UNT Teacher Ed website
• Edmund "Ted" Hamann, Assistant Professor, Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education, University of Nebraska-Lincoln: "Conceptualizing the (Un)documented Child and the (Un)documented Adult" Professor Hamman's website

Trained as an anthropologist, Professor Hamann's research focuses on teaching, learning, and reform policy issues related to transnational students and English learners in the US and Mexico, adolescent literacy and English Learners, and the reconciliation of school reform and school responsiveness to English Learners. He is author of "The Educational Welcome of Latinos in the New South" (Praeger, 2003) and co-editor of "Education in the New Latino Diaspora" (Ablex, 2002). He is currently part of a study of transnational students in Mexican schools.

• Angela Valenzuela, Professor and Director of the Texas Center for Education Policy, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, University of Texas at Austin: "Immigration, Assimilation, and Subtractive Schooling" Professor Valenzuela's website

Professor Valenzuela is the author of "Subtractive Schooling: US Mexican Youth and the Politics of Caring" (SUNY Press, 1999) and "Leaving Children Behind: How 'Texas-style' Accountability Fails Latino Youth" (SUNY Press, 2004). Currently, Valenzuela also serves as Associate Vice-President for University-School Partnerships at the University of Texas at Austin. She previous held a position in Sociology at Rice University in Houston, Texas (1990-98) and was a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Mexican American Studies at the University of Houston (1998-99). Valenzuela’s research and teaching interests are in the sociology of education, minority youth in schools, educational policy, and urban education reform.

• Alejandra Rincón, Independent Consultant. Book author: "Undocumented Immigrants and Higher Education: Si se Puede!" (LFB Scholarly Publishing, 2008) Book website

Alejandra Rincón, PhD, is the 2006 recipient of the Human Relations Award conferred by the National Association of College Admissions Counseling. Also in 2006, she received the Advocacy Award granted by the Chicano/Latino Law Student Association at the University of Texas at Austin for her work in that state to support the passage and implementation of legislation that allows undocumented high school students to attend Texas colleges at in-state tuition rates. During her time in Texas she developed programs to encourage Latino and immigrant high school students to attend college and also served as the advisor of Jóvenes Inmigrantes por Futuro Mejor, an association of immigrant college students throughout the state.