The 2025 Texas 10

Since 2011, the Alcalde has asked students and alumni to submit nominations every year for The Texas 10 teaching awards forming a cohort of the most excellent professors at The University of Texas. This year for the first time, social media student ambassadors from UT’s Office of Admissions helped Alcalde staff to interview and profile these beloved professors. Get to know the 10 newest winners.

Portraits by Matt Wright-Steel

Elizabeth Danze

BA ’81  

Architecture Program Director and Bartlett Cocke Regents Professor in Architecture, School of Architecture  

After earning her Bachelor of Architecture here on the Forty Acres in her hometown of Austin, Elizabeth Danze left to pursue a graduate degree and start a family. In 1991, she would return to UT as an adjunct professor—and she’s been here ever since.  

Danze’s passion for architecture radiates when she speaks about the students in her classes and the journey she takes with them over their five-year program. She places great value not only in teaching each one of them the best in architectural knowledge, but also in guiding them to be good people. “Who you are as a person and the work you do can be part of a larger ethos,” Danze says.  

One of Danze’s favorite facets of being a professor at UT includes the opportunity to travel and study architecture around the world with her students. “There’s an intensity to what we were doing,” she says, as she describes the immense impact that buildings and architecture have on the world as we know it.  

When asked what her career would be if not a professor, Danze noted her interest in the monastic lifestyle. She identifies architecture as an “external” art, one that is made for perception on a very public basis. As an introvert, however, she enjoys the idea of the articulated internal life created by the likes of nuns and monks.  

Though her interests range, Danze is confident in the path she has carved. “I think folding these things into my life is probably right for me,” she says. “I probably wouldn’t be anything different.” —Bailey Evertson

Brian Farr  

Director, Athletic Training Program; Clinical Professor, Department of Kinesiology and Health Education  

Brian Farr never thought he would be at UT for 25 years. In his time here, he has accomplished a lot: founding the Athletic Training Program, working with various teams, and, most remarkably, leaving enduring impressions on his students as an educator.    

Farr balances the roles of director of the Athletic Training Program and clinical professor well, but when it comes down to his favorite part of his job, teaching takes the cake. “My absolute favorite part of my time is being in the classroom with students,” Farr says.  

Farr came to UT Austin in 2002 as an athletic trainer with Texas Athletics’ Sports Medicine staff for football and basketball teams and to set up the undergraduate degree in athletic training. After his third year with Texas Athletics, he began teaching for the Department of Kinesiology and Health Education. He says his teaching style can be consolidated into two words: tough love.  

“[I have] high expectations, but I know what people are capable of doing, and I just want people to reach their potential,” Farr says. “But there’s the love part, too. I do more than just teach. I go out of my way to help people, not just with sports medicine, but with life.”  

His dedication to his students is not lost on them. Jennifer Escamilla, a current student of Farr’s, wrote to nominate him: “It is evident in the way he teaches and challenges his students that he is passionate about his work ... He is the type of professor that makes me proud I chose to come to UT.”    

Farr says his time at UT has shaped him for the better. “It’s a high-level university, so I have good students and good colleagues to work with,” Farr says. “It’s kept me on my toes and made me a better professor, because you have to deliver a good product to good people.” —Minza Mirza  

John Doggett

Professor of Instruction, Rosenthal Department of Management, McCombs School of Business  

John Doggett turns 78 this year, but he said he doesn’t feel that old unless he looks in the mirror. He’s been teaching business courses at UT for 36 years and somewhere along the way picked up the nickname “Smiling Darth Vader” for his imposing expression that belies his softer side.  

While getting his MBA from Harvard University, a professor told him he was a born teacher. Fifteen years later, he walked into his first classroom at UT, where 80 students eagerly waited to find out what type of teacher John Doggett would be.  

Doggett prides himself on his tough teaching style: “The Doggett Experience” he calls it, which was inspired by his experiences at Yale and Harvard. “It’s going to push you, and it’s going to test you,” he says, “but if you survive it, you’re going to be some of the best, brightest, toughest students on this planet.”  

Doggett routinely challenges his students to be better, cold-calling on them to analyze complex cases and making them do quick mental math. With a laugh he says that two-thirds of MBA students refuse to take his courses. Doggett views this as a compliment.  

“The magic of what I do is when the students in the class start owning their learning,” Doggett says. “They start debating and discussing among themselves, and at that point, I just stand in the corner and let it go.”  

Doggett’s former students are now CEOs and business leaders across the country. They say that the challenge of “The Doggett Experience” helped them grow in ways they never expected and led them down a path of success.  

“Think today about what you want to accomplish,” Doggett says, “and how you’re going to go from where you are to where you want to be.” —Garrett Bohannan  

Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez

BJ ’76  

Professor, School of Journalism and Media, Moody College of Communication; Founder and Director, Voces Oral History Center  

When Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez enrolled in UT Austin as an undergraduate, she says she felt like “a kid in a candy store” upon seeing the course catalog. “I just wanted to take everything that I could take,” Rivas-Rodriguez says. “I was exposed to so many different topics and so many different kinds of people.”  

Rivas-Rodriguez’s 17-plus year career as a journalist eventually led her back to UT Austin as an educator, where she offers classes on audio storytelling, oral history, and covering the Latino community. On contributing to the breadth of UT’s course candy store, Rivas-Rodriguez says, “I really hope that my students fall in love with the things that I fall in love with.”  

Rivas-Rodriguez recalls much from her time at UT, but the bonds she’s formed stand out the most. She remembers the conversations she had with Dean Wayne Danielson regarding her career as an undergraduate, specifically those that landed her an ideal internship in Monterrey, Nuevo León, and solidified her decision to apply to graduate school. Since then, she has covered the U.S.–Mexican Border for the Dallas Morning News and earned her PhD as a Freedom Forum doctoral fellow from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  

“[My internship in Mexico] really did open my eyes to so many experiences and, [when I was] coming to UT, I didn’t think I would have ever been do that,” Rivas-Rodriguez says. “So, Wayne Danielson was really pivotal to me.”  

On the last day of all her classes, Rivas-Rodriguez throws a party and puts up a slideshow titled, “Dr. Maggie’s Tips to a Fabulous Career in Journalism and Life.” “These are all things that you can’t find in a textbook,” she says. “It’s the stuff that I really learned the hard way from my experience and also from watching other people’s experiences.” —M.M.  

Aaron Witcher  

Professor, Department of French and Italian, College of Liberal Arts  

Though Aaron Witcher has been at UT Austin for only one year, he has developed a deep appreciation for two campus staples: the Tower Burgers’ Butter Burger and students who harbor a love for education.  

Witcher says he teaches with a student-centered approach. His teaching consists of interactive pedagogy—a method that encourages students to actively participate in the learning process—which sometimes surprises both himself and his students. “One of the functions of a professor is to endow students with a critical tool kit with which they can find, evaluate, and use information responsibly,” Witcher says. “Part of that is trying to make students more autonomous as learners.”    

These activities include asking his students to step into his shoes for the day by developing lesson plans and conducting class discussions, or playing a version of the Heads Up game using relevant French vocabulary. “I like to implement a number of activities that allow students to direct where the class goes,” Witcher says.  

Xavian Panjwani, a student of Witcher’s, finds that Witcher cultivates an approachable atmosphere in his classes. “He’s got a knack for approaching complex topics and grammar concepts with an engaging and entertaining teaching style,” Panjwani said upon nominating his professor for the Texas 10.  

Witcher’s students impress him with their creativity and serious engagement with course content. “UT students are go-getters,” Witcher says. “They’re a bit more autonomous than some of the students I’ve worked with. [They’ve] raised the bar in terms of what I think is accessible and possible for students to do in the classroom.” —M.M.

Jo-anne Holley

Associate Professor of Practice, College of Natural Sciences & Freshman Research Initiative  

Jo-anne Holley has been a cornerstone of the Freshman Research Initiative (FRI) for more than a decade now. As the research educator for the “Bugs in Bugs” stream, one of the many distinct labs within the FRI program, she immerses students in the intricate world of insect-associated bacteria, fostering a hands-on learning environment that bridges molecular biology and ecology.  

“It was kind of inevitable,” Holley says of her journey to becoming a professor. “I liked biology, so I studied biology. I wanted to study more biology ... and once you’re in a PhD—I loved teaching biology—you just keep going.”  

She emphasizes the importance of curiosity-driven research, encouraging students to pursue their own interests within the scientific realm. Holley’s favorite part of her job is forming relationships with her students and helping them collaborate and work with others to discover new ideas through research.  

“Finding things out through research is really exciting, but what really gets me is working with the students,” Holley says. “I love what I do. I love Texas—I’m Australian originally, [but] Texas feels like home like nowhere else in America. I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.”  

Holley describes her teaching style as enthusiastic and approachable, yet professional. She takes pride in guiding students through the challenges of scientific inquiry, providing support and encouragement that extends beyond the laboratory. “Everything we do is by design and should be broadly applicable to other parts of your life ... and any career,” she says. —Bianca Liau

E. Lee Walker  

Adjunct Professor, Plan II Honors Program, College of Liberal Arts  

When asked what he would do if he weren’t a professor, Lee Walker says he would enjoy being a carpenter.  

Although woodworking may sound like a stark change for someone who has dedicated 34 years to his teaching career, the core values that drive Walker would remain. He emphasizes his love for connection, describing how he would want to make wooden toys for the children in his neighborhood. For now, carpentry remains a part of Walker’s retirement plan, but his passion for fostering meaningful relationships and engaging in vivid conversation remains a dominant piece of his classroom experience.  

Walker suggests that some of the most important lessons he teaches “have nothing to do with the material.” Instead, the ability to stretch one’s imagination, be brave, and discover a deep state of gratitude are things he hopes to leave with every student. In his two hallmark classes, Pathways to Civic Engagement and Civic Viewpoints, these teachings have an invaluable impact on young learners—not limited to the group of 23 former students of Walker’s who came together to nominate him.  

“Lee welcomes students as they are and listens to them with a keen curiosity, which he reveals by rocking himself back and forth to the cadence of their conversation,” Dayton Thompson, BA ’22, wrote on behalf of the group. “The thing [that you will] come to learn is something you already knew about yourself, your community, your purpose. He’ll listen; he’ll excavate; and then he’ll co-conspire in y’all’s good trouble.”  

After his years of experience, Walker continues to be surprised at how much he has in common with his students. Besides his love for coffee, Pilates, and a good brownie, he is similar to them in the sense that he prefers to think of himself as a learner rather than a teacher. —B.E.  

Debbie White  

Associate Professor of Instruction, Department of Linguistics, College of Liberal Arts  

Debbie White’s bracelets jangle as she signs excitedly to everyone upon entering the room. Her voice interpreters—Caroline, to speak aloud the sentences White signs in American Sign Language (ASL), and Hannah, to sign spoken responses back to her—share her ebullient attitude.  

“My students say that they don’t need a cup of coffee when I’m their first class of the day because I wake them right  
up!” White signs. With a background in  
theater, she understands teaching to be a new kind of stage. Instead of entertaining an audience, however, White has a different mission as a professor.  

“I really want my students to understand Deaf culture and the language, and how to apply both of those things,” she says. “Often, hearing people are afraid when they meet a deaf person for the first time ... I want to break that stigma. I want hearing folks to not be afraid, to be comfortable interacting with deaf people, and to make an effort to communicate.”  

White—whose daughter is currently a freshman at UT, while her son sports a different shade of orange at the University of Tennessee—has been teaching at The University of Texas for 18 years. Before that, she was a parent and infant educator at the Texas School for the Deaf, working with families who have deaf babies. (She and her husband are both deaf, and their children are CODAs, or children of deaf adults.)  

Nearly two decades later, White is still having fun on the job. “There’s never a dull moment,” she signs. “I am always learning and becoming a better person because I learn so much from my students ... They’re teaching me new things every day, every year.” —Eliza Pillsbury

Sandy Leeds

MBA ’95, Life Member  

Professor of Instruction (Retired), Finance, McCombs School of Business  

If blood really is thicker than water, the McCombs School of Business represents a bit of both for Sandy Leeds. Though he retired in December 2024 after nearly 24 years at UT, this will always be the place where he found and raised a family.  

He tells a story about a Christmas night long ago spent in the McCombs building—where he had met his future wife while they were both MBA students—watching one of their sons try out the built-in wheels of his new Heelys sneakers on the long stretches of flat and glossy floor. “One of my kids, he loved elevators when he was really little, so on Saturday and Sunday mornings ... we’d come over to McCombs and ride the elevator,” Leeds says.  

But as much as the school has given to him, he’s paid it forward in full. As a professor, Leeds shared his expertise from a career that also included law school, money management, felony prosecution, and blogging. His pedagogical approach comes from a deeply held personal conviction that learning is fun.  

“The other thing I constantly say is that knowledge matters, grades don’t,” Leeds adds. “Students have been trained for so long to worry about grades, but no one cares once you get out [of school]. It’s, ‘Can you perform? Are you good at what you’re doing?’”  

Leeds sought to know his students, too, saying hello to each one as they walked into his classroom no matter its size, a habit that was often met with surprise in the first few weeks of a semester.  

“I love being around young people at an important time in their life, when they’re making big decisions,” Leeds says. “Honestly, every day when I would walk from my garage to the building, I would think, This is awesome. I work on a college campus.” —E.P.

Sandy Magaña

Professorship in Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disabilities, Steve Hicks School of Social Work; Executive Director, Texas Center for Disability Studies  

Even though Sandy Magaña always loved learning, she never saw herself teaching.  

After getting her undergraduate degree, she discovered a love for universities through community organizing, so she went back to school to get her master’s in social work. “I really didn’t think I was going to be a professor or anything at that point,” Magaña says, “but there were opportunities to learn in that role, and ... it gave me an opportunity to continue to be a student for life.”  

Her research focuses on autism and neurodevelopmental disabilities, and she teaches one of the few social work classes focused on disabilities. “I mean, it’s all about learning, right?” Magaña says. “Being on campus is so exciting because you can learn, and I learn from students as well, so I think it’s really a cool process.”  

Throughout her seven years at UT, Magaña has taken on a variety of leadership roles. In 2021 she became the director for the Texas Center for Disability Studies and worked to create the Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities (LEND) program, a nine-month training opportunity for graduate students to become leaders in the field of social work.  

“Her impact will ripple through practitioners and the people they serve for decades to come,” Katrina Thompson, MS ’21, wrote to the Alcalde. “I cannot understate the impact she also had on me personally, as a single parent with a huge career gap, helping me get my career started and encouraging me along the way.” —G.B.