By Rick Vacek | May 5, 2025
After working in the same Green Hall corridor for 42 years, Dr. Richard Scotch is finally retiring this year. He still plans to be on campus in the fall but will change offices.
The new one is right down the hall.
It’s one of his old offices, in fact.
Creature of habit? No, just a man with good habits who found a home at The University of Texas at Dallas and has made it his mission to make others feel comfortable here, too.
“I like UT Dallas a lot. I’ve had a very good career here and strong support,” said the Professor of Sociology, Public Policy, and Political Economy and Program Head of Sociology and Public Health. “I love our students. I think they’re very interesting and challenging to work with because they’re so engaged.”
It goes both ways. Ask people in the School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences (EPPS) what has made Scotch such a valuable commodity, and one of the first things they’ll typically say is that he’s so engaging.
“He’s just been a great colleague,” said the school’s dean, Dr. Jennifer Holmes. “When I was an assistant professor, you could talk to him about anything. He was a great resource, always helpful. He’s always working with students, going that extra step to get them connected with someone who could advance their career.”
There were similar sentiments at Scotch’s retirement party on May 2, but his honors began when he was selected to deliver the 2025 Polykarp Kusch Lecture on April 3.
The Culture of Policymaking: How Personal Troubles Are Translated into Public Issues was his first opportunity in those 42 years to share his disability policy expertise with the entire campus.
Left unsaid in his talk was how he ventured into that field. Not surprisingly, it tracked with his penchant for helping others.
As is his habit, he filled a need.
Scotch noted in his Kusch Lecture that disabilities were considered such a political liability in the first half of the 20th century, President Franklin D. Roosevelt refused to be photographed in his wheelchair.
Decades later, the disabled still were almost completely disenfranchised when Scotch was growing up in the Chicago area. He remembers a friend who was told by a doctor that her intellectually challenged son belonged in an institution. She refused, but a regular school often wasn’t an option for the disabled.
“People were hidden,” Scotch said.
The Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which prohibited discrimination based on disability in programs and activities receiving federal funding, was the first major federal civil rights legislation of that era for the disabled, but there still was work to be done.
An interest in health issues and research conspired with a need for a dissertation topic to convince Scotch that he should explore disability issues for his PhD from Harvard University, which he earned in 1982.
His interest had been piqued when he was part of a two-man team that evaluated the implementation of federal special education law for a Virginia agency. He attended meetings around the state and found the parent advocates, many of whom worked for the federal government, to be knowledgeable and articulate.
But he had another reason for his choice.
“When you’re a PhD student, you want to find a topic that no one has published in before,” he said. “At that time, there had been no academic work done on this disability movement.”
His dissertation became a book, From Good Will to Civil Rights: Transforming Federal Disability Policy, the first of several he has authored. Sign of those times: An administrative aide had to type it into a word processor (“It was almost as big as a pipe organ,” he said) that had 7 ½-inch floppy disks.
“That came out at a time when there was a lot of interest in disability policy and disability rights,” he said. “Once you become known as an expert in something, you get other opportunities. I think one of the keys to academic success is to find a niche that you can make an impact on.”
He has made an impact in other ways. He has led three major organizations, including the Society for Disability Studies, which he helped name. He has won numerous awards. He has worked with a wide variety of local and national health and human service agencies.
And since the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, he has watched the U.S. develop into a leader in disability rights. Today, UT Dallas students are accustomed to sitting next to the disabled in school, and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott being filmed propelling his wheelchair up a ramp is just one example of a politician who isn’t fazed by that sort of attention.
“Yes, I think there has been a big change in how people are perceived,” Scotch said.
There’s another reason why the plight of the disabled activated Scotch’s activist instincts.
“This was a group that had no political power,” he said. “It was hard for them to even conceive of themselves as a group because they don’t all live in the same neighborhood and don’t all know each other, and they don’t have a lot of economic or political influence.
“It was interesting to me how that group coalesced and how they were able to influence power – a lot through their ideas. There are still a lot of issues and barriers. Disabled people are more likely to be unemployed and live in poverty. But in terms of acceptance, in terms of the overall culture, it’s not as stigmatized as it had been.”
Scotch’s contributions to the UT Dallas culture have been noticeable, too.
“He was always willing to take on anything that needed to be done for the school,” said Dr. Ronald Briggs, a retired faculty member who was at the school when Scotch arrived and came back for his retirement party. “When there were difficult times in various programs, Richard would step in, not necessarily to take control, but to take responsibility if you were trying to resolve some of those issues.”
Years later, Scotch was the major driver behind the new bachelor’s degree in public health. But that’s nothing new – he even got involved when an EPPS colleague needed advice about pursuing a degree.
Dr. Carol Cirulli Lanham was contemplating her career choices 20 years ago and talked to Scotch, who encouraged her to earn her Master of Science in Applied Sociology at UT Dallas and then possibly work toward a PhD.
She followed his advice and went on to become a Professor of Instruction in Sociology at UT Dallas in addition to serving as an Associate Director for the Center for Teaching and Learning.
“Because he took the time to meet with me in person, he changed my life,” she said. “Without that meeting, I most likely would have chosen a different university and never had the amazing opportunities I’ve had at UT Dallas.”
“When you talk about people who have a commitment to the institution, he’s right at the top of the list.”
DR. JENNIFER HOLMES, DEAN, SCHOOL OF ECONOMIC, POLITICAL AND POLICY SCIENCES
Lanham was no exception. Scotch continues to meet with prospective students and mentor current students even today. That ongoing commitment to student success is one of the reasons he received the Provost’s Award for Faculty Excellence in Graduate Research Mentoring in 2019.
Fortunately for Lanham, other faculty and, of course, students, Scotch is set to be in that same corridor when the fall semester arrives.
He plans to continue working on writing projects, still will serve on dissertation committees and no doubt will keep his door open for anyone who needs advice.
“He’s always been one of the most engaged faculty I have,” Holmes said. “He’s always helping students. He’s talking to junior faculty. He’s researching.
“When you talk about people who have a commitment to the institution, he’s right at the top of the list. He’s just the ideal colleague.
“Forty-two years – that’s a long time.”