Luis A. Torres, Ph.D
. has been involved in NACCS for many years, contributing to the development of this organization, serving as the NACCS national Chair for two years in 1992 and 1993, for which he helped lead the NACCS submission of an amicus brief against the anti-Gay Rights Amendment 2 in Colorado, voted upon by referendum and decided favorably by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1996. He was also instrumental in the formation of the K-12 Caucus.
Luis A. Torres, Ph.D. is an activist scholar. He has received several academic recognitions including a Ford Foundation Fellowship, two National Endowment for the Humanities fellowships, and a California Arts Council Award. He has received several awards including Outstanding Faculty Award from the University of Southern Colorado in 1994, Martin Luther King Jr. Peace Award at then- Metropolitan State College in 2003, the LARASA Bernie Valdez Education Award from the Latin American Research and Service Agency in 2002, and the Cesar Chavez Leadership Award in Denver in 2002, among others. He has twice received the Ally of the Year award from the tri-institutional Auraria Higher Education Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Alliance.
Luis A. Torres, Ph.D., has served as Deputy Provost for Academic and Student Affairs at Metropolitan State University of Denver (MSUD) since 2008 and previously as Associate Dean in the School of Letters, Arts, and Sciences. He has been Co-Chair of MSU Denver’s Hispanic Serving Institution Initiative since 2007, helping increase Hispanic student enrollment from approximately 13% in 2008 to 22% in 2015, toward the goal of 25%. He helped lead the effort for MSU Denver, as the only institution in Colorado to do so and few if any nationally, to develop a tuition structure in 2012 to allow undocumented students to pay a reduced rate, substantially less than half of out-of-state tuition, before Colorado in 2013 passed the ASSET Bill for in-state tuition. He serves currently on the national College Board’s SAT Writing Test Development Committee. Among other examples of community involvement, Dr. Torres has served on the Board of Denver’s Latino Education Coalition, and he chaired Denver Public School’s Hispanic Education Advisory Council, serving as Principal Investigator at MSU Denver of a partnership Goals 2000 Grant with Denver Public Schools to establish the El Alma de la Raza Curriculum and Teacher Development Project, which created more than 80 curriculum units in multicultural studies.