Washington, DC – Wallace Hall, a former regent of the University of Texas System, will be presented with the Jerry L. Martin Prize for Excellence in College Trusteeship. This award recognizes dedicated and innovative leadership by college and university trustees. Through his work to clean up the University of Texas’s admissions process, Wallace Hall has made great progress in protecting the sanctity of the American university.
Mr. Hall was an early whistleblower concerning admissions corruption in 2011, and faced harsh criticism for requesting application documents to investigate. Accusations were immediately launched against Mr. Hall claiming that he was overstepping his role as a trustee, and a controversial impeachment process against him began. Impeachment attempts were not successful, and Mr. Hall’s claims were validated in 2015 when an investigation found widespread admissions corruption.
Now, in light of the recent college admissions scandal that has swept the nation, students have come to appreciate the lengths Mr. Hall went to in order to protect the admissions process. The Student Government of the University of Texas–Austin issued a statement, noting that Mr. Hall was “one of the few University administrators genuinely acting on behalf of students and fairness in admissions.”
The Martin Prize will be presented at an evening gala following ACTA’s annual Athena Roundtable conference at the Ronald Reagan Building on October 18 in Washington, DC. ACTA is honored to recognize Mr. Hall as a leader in higher education and admissions accountability.
Released yesterday is a podcast conversation between Mr. Hall and Dr. Michael Poliakoff. In front of a packed crowd at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, their enlightening discussion ranged from Hall’s experience as a trustee during the admissions scandal to the lessons future trustees can learn from his experience.
CONTACT: Connor Murnane, Program Officer for Communications
media@goacta.org (202) 798-5450
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