The Texas Experiment: Politics, Power, and Social Transformation
About this ebook
This award recognizes excellence in 1st edition textbooks and learning materials. The Texas Experiment: Politics, Power, and Social Transformation provides students with an all-encompassing view of Texas government. The book brings together the historical and the contemporary, the political and the personal, to walk students through the state′s past, present, and future. Through its rich historical narrative that tells the unvarnished story of how Texas came to be, to its depictions of the processes and structure of Texas government, and finally with its shifting demographics, we learn that the soul of Texas is multicultural, diverse, and thriving.
The Texas Experiment empowers students to develop their social and personal responsibility so that they can all be a force of positive change in Texas′s vibrant culture.
About the author
William V. Flores, Ph.D. is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Houston-Downtown (UHD) and directs the Master’s program in Nonprofit Management. He served as President of the University of Houston-Downtown from 2009-2016. He previously served as Deputy Secretary in the New Mexico Department of Higher Education, and prior to that as Executive Vice President and Provost at New Mexico State University, where he also served as Interim President. While UHD president he regularly attended and testified before various Texas legislative committees and has served on various boards and commissions, including the El Paso Branch of the Dallas Federal Reserve Board of Directors and the Board of Directors of Central Houston. He served as co-chair of the Higher Education Track for Points of Light and currently sits on the Higher Education Council of the Kettering Foundation. Flores served as the Chair of the Governing Board of the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities and the President’s Trust of AAC&U. Dr. Flores earned his Bachelor of Arts at UCLA in Political Science. He earned his M.A. in Political Science and his Ph.D. in Social Theory and Public Policy from Stanford University. Dr. Flores co-edited Democracy, Civic Engagement, and Citizenship in Higher Education (Lexington Press, 2019). He co-edited Latino Citizenship: Claiming Space, Identity, and Rights (Beacon Press, 1997). He regularly writes on voting rights and on public policy issues, particularly immigration, health care, environmental issues, nonprofit management, and higher education.
Christina Hughes, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Houston Downtown. She earned her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Houston, and her BA in History from at the University of Houston. She has over 20 years of teaching experience has and has taught over 20 different courses in political science. In addition, she has also served as a research associate for the Hobby Center of Public Policy (2000-2006), working on two separate grants evaluating school programs with a combined value of $1.8 million. She also served as the principal investigator on an evaluation of Learning Signature for Cy Fair Community College and has served as Assistant Managing editor for two academic journal, Social Sciences Quarterly and Law and Society. While at UHD she has been instrumental in creating the Model UN and Model Arab League programs and assisting in the development of a certificate program in Diplomatic Simulation Studies.
Anita Chadha, Ph.D. is an Associate professor at the University of Houston, downtown. She received her PhD in Public Policy and Public Administration from Auburn University. Prior to UHD, Dr. Chadha taught at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in both their graduate and undergraduate programs. Her teaching interests are courses on American Government, Political Participation and Democracy, Public Policy, Public Administration, and Organizational Theory. Her research interests are in civic engagement, political participation, and electoral reform. She has dozens of publications in both areas of research. She is working on a book on electoral reform, “Rethinking American Elections: Local Experiments with Electoral Reform” for which she received an excellence award from UHD.
Gene B. Preuss, Ph.D, is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Houston-Downtown. He holds a PhD in History from Texas Tech University. Dr. Preuss is an active member of the Texas State Historical Association, past president of the East Texas Historical Association, and of the H-Net Council. He is author of “To Get a Better School System”: One Hundred Years of School Reform in Texas. (Texas A&M University Press, 2009), and co-authored with former US Secretary of Education Lauro F. Cavazos, A Kineño’s Journey: On Family, Learning, and Public Service (Texas Tech University Press, 2016).
