EDAD’s Hatch-Tocaimaza receives emerging scholar award

27 Apr 2018     By Brad Stauffer

Deryl Hatch-Tocaimaza, assistant professor in the Department of Educational Administration, was presented with the Barbara K. Townsend Emerging Scholar Award from the Council for the Study of Community Colleges (CSCC) April 27, 2018 at its annual meeting in Dallas, Texas. The award, presented since 1998, recognizes a new scholar for outstanding theoretical and/or applied research that contributes to the professional body of knowledge about community college; demonstrated excellence in teaching, advising and/or mentoring; and, integration of knowledge to teaching and service.

Hatch-Tocaimaza is passionate about his scholarly work in community colleges because he personally benefited from the opportunity of a second chance in community college.

“I barely graduated high school, and was not eligible for college,” said Hatch-Tocaimaza. “After I got my life in order, Mt. San Antonio College in Southern California offered me a second chance to live up to a potential I almost squandered.

“The list of prior award winners are outstanding scholars, colleagues and mentors who are models of excellence. I aspire to emulate their work and contribution, and to be counted among them is a real honor. CSCC is definitely one my scholarly homes, so that makes it even more meaningful.”

A career and life planning class he took at Mt. San Antonio helped launch Hatch-Tocaimaza on his academic journey. Mentoring by instructor Sal Robles was “transformative” and reflects what Hatch-Tocaimaza says is “what community college folks do day in and day out.”

He also credits Americo Marano, a professor of Italian and Spanish, for giving him opportunities to contribute to self-published language learning books. 

“My aim is to contribute to the scholarship that fosters the kind of learning environments at community colleges that these and others exemplified,” said Hatch-Tocaimaza. “In my scholarship, I provide actionable information to higher education professionals that informs their efforts to create the kind of institutional environments that students deserve and that educators aspire to. As educators, we wield weighty academic freedoms in our simple, everyday work process that ultimately excludes a lot of possibilities and precludes more equitable practices. I hope my research contributes to reforming and innovating institutional practices and structures to be more equitable.”

After beginning his collegiate experience at Mt. San Antonio College, Hatch-Tocaimaza completed a bachelor’s degree at Brigham Young University, an educational master’s degree at Harvard and a Ph.D. at the University of Texas.