Garza-Falcon receives TACHE honor

SAN MARCOS, TEXAS — Dr. Leticia Garza-Falcon, Center for Multicultural and Gender Studies and Associate Professor of English at Southwest Texas State University, has been selected as the recipient of the 1999 Texas Association of Chicanos in Higher Education (TACHE) Distinguished Faculty Award.

In the award letter, TACHE President Ed Apodaca wrote, “We consider the TACHE Distinguished Faculty Award to be the highest recognition we can offer and feel that your (Garza-Falcon’s) hard work and contributions to improving higher education for Hispanics merits such recognition and is an example of what others should emulate. ”

In addition to her work at the University, Garza-Falcon is the author of Gente Decente: A Borderlands Response to the Rhetoric of Dominance. In May 1999, Gente Decente was the University of Texas Press Nominee for the Katherine Singer Kovacs Award for Latin American and U.S. Latino Studies (sponsored by the MLA, Modern Language Association).

Presently, she is writing an essay on the Theme of Solitude in the Literature of the Texas-Mexico Borderlands for the Journal of the West 2001 and a book on the Life and Literature of Don Americo Paredes for the University of Texas Press.

“The (TACHE) award is very meaningful to me, especially because it comes from a group of scholars and teachers from my own community who understand the challenges we face in higher education today,” Garza-Falcon said.

Her strong commitment to public education has lead her through teaching positions at all levels of public education, private and community schools and post secondary institutions in California and Texas.

“All I ever wanted to be as long as I can remember is a teacher and to be recognized for that is like a dream come true.”

Garza-Falcon will be honored with this award at the TACHE Annual Conference dinner at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 17 at the Plaza San Antonio Hotel in San Antonio. The dinner is part of TACHE’s annual conference and a celebration of TACHE’s 25th anniversary as an organization. The conference and celebration is being held Nov. 17-19 at Plaza San Antonio.