Reynaldo “Rey” Anaya Valencia has been named president and dean of South Texas College of Law Houston, according to a press release. Valencia will assume his new role in July 2025.
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 to Valencia in the summer.
“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 in a press release. “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.”
A Harvard Law School graduate who earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a master’s degree in sociology from Stanford University, Valencia has led Capital University Law School as dean and professor of law since 2020, according to a press release. He previously served as associate dean for finance and administration and a faculty member at the University of North Texas at Dallas 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 an endowed professorship, the Ernest W. Clemmons Professor of Corporate and Securities Law, according to a press release. He has practiced, taught, written, and lectured nationally and internationally on corporate law, corporate bankruptcy, and race and gender issues. He has also been an expert witness in complex corporate and bankruptcy multimillion dollar litigation.
Immediately out of law school, Valencia practiced corporate bankruptcy and general corporate law at Jones Day in Dallas, while serving as an adjunct professor of law at Texas Tech School of Law. At age 25, he became the youngest faculty member in the law school’s history, according to a press release.
For more information on STCL Houston, go to stcl.edu.