Victor B. Sáenz

Victor B. Sáenz serves as the Associate Dean for Student Success, Community Engagement, and Administration in the College of Education and as the L. D. Haskew Centennial Professor in Public School Administration in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy at the University of Texas at Austin. He also holds courtesy appointments with the LBJ School of Public Affairs, the Center for Mexican American Studies, the Department of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies, the Irma Rangel Public Policy Institute, the Institute for Urban Policy Research & Analysis, and the UCLA Higher Education Research Institute. 
 
Sáenz's current work advances research-informed best practices and policy solutions that improve educational outcomes for underserved students in education, with a special emphasis on boys and young men of color. In 2010 Sáenz co-founded an award-winning initiative at UT-Austin, a multi-pronged effort focused on advancing educational outcomes for male students of color. Under Project MALES he launched a nationally recognized Student Mentoring Program that partners with local schools to connect undergraduate peer mentors with middle school and high school male students. He also co-created a network of K-12 and higher education institutions called the Texas Education Consortium for Male Students of Color that focuses on advancing educational outcomes for this critical student population. Supported by grants from the Greater Texas Foundation (GTF), the Trellis Foundation, and the Kresge Foundation, this statewide collaborative focuses on improving educational outcomes for male students of color across the state of Texas. The Consortium is made up of over thirty institutional partners in K-12 and higher education, and it seeks to align and coordinate existing programs and services across the education continuum. 
 
Dr. Sáenz earned his Ph.D. in Higher Education and Organizational Change in 2005 from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he also completed a Master's in Education in 2002. He also earned a Master's degree in Public Affairs (1999, LBJ School of Public Affairs) and a Bachelors degree in Mathematics (1996, College of Natural Sciences) from the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Sáenz is a fourth-generation Texan and a second-generation Longhorn.