To create a scholarship, Susana Alemán ’84 took on extra work and set aside the earnings.
“I don’t want a single student to say, ‘I want to be a lawyer, but I don’t have the money,’” she said in an oral history recorded by The University of Texas at Austin’s Center for Mexican American Studies.
“I’m a dreamer. Don Quixote is my hero,” Alemán added in the 2023 recording. “And if you can think it, plan it, you can do it.”
That can-do attitude and drive to give back endeared Alemán—a triple Longhorn, Texas Law alumna, former Law School assistant dean of student affairs, and “Sunflower Lady”—to multitudes.
Respect for Education
The Edinburg, Texas-born and proud “Rio Grande Valley Girl” was gifted a respect for education by her parents. “I was fascinated by my civics class, and I also loved serving on the student council,” she said. Alemán, who also played drums in the marching band, graduated at the top of her high school class in Falfurrias before enrolling at UT.
She earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees, enjoyed a successful teaching career, and then enrolled at Texas Law. That ultimate decision connected her love of civics with her desire to become an administrator in higher education. “During my final year of law school, they announced that the school’s assistant dean for student affairs was planning to retire, and I knew I wanted that position,” Alemán said in 2023.
She got the job and made her mark. “Having someone Latina from South Texas in her position of leadership and authority, it was probably unprecedented” in the state at that time, says Angélica Salinas Evans ’95, now Texas Law’s assistant dean for Career Services. (Alemán’s numerous milestones were recognized in the state congressional resolution granting her interment at the Texas State Cemetery.)
Soon, Alemán also earned a nickname: the Sunflower Lady. She took to the Texas fields to collect them for the Law School’s Sunflower Ceremony, a tradition in which those flowers are pinned to the lapels of graduating students.
Several years ago, Texas Law shared that Alemán told the Daily Texan in 1995 how she had become “obsessed” with sunflowers. “My office is full of sunflower stuff that students bring me,” Alemán said. “I’ve read a book about them. I look for fields everywhere. I drive everyone who rides with me crazy because I have to stop if I see even a yellow flower.”
Giving Back
Each sunflower produces hundreds of seeds, spreading beauty into future generations. Alemán was no different.
“To whom much is given, much is expected,” Alemán urged lawyers during an appearance on the Austin Bar Association’s “Council of Firsts” podcast. “And frankly, to me, it’s almost a moral obligation to give back somehow, someway.”
Alemán found many avenues for giving back. During her two decades at Texas Law, Alemán counseled thousands of law students and helped organize school events, including Parents’ Day and the Sunflower Ceremony.
Professor John Dzienkowski ’83, Dean John F. Sutton Jr. Chair in Lawyering and the Legal Process, had several classes with Alemán when both were law students. As assistant dean, “Susanna had a positive attitude and a wide network of professionals, and she was responsible for helping thousands of our graduates find their place in the law.”
Jaime Garcia ’15 was a recipient of the Dean Susana I. Aleman Scholarship. “The scholarship went a long way in helping me pay for law school, and in minimizing the amount in student loans I had to pay back after I graduated,” says Garcia, today a partner and co-owner of Trautmann & Garcia PLLC in Laredo, Texas.
“I am forever grateful that I was among the recipients of her scholarship,” he says.
Creating Community
Her efforts are recalled warmly by Texas Law alumni. “Susana was a wonderful law school mom to me and other Latino students while I was there,” says Omar Ochoa ’11, of the Omar Ochoa Law Firm in McAllen, Texas.
“She was always so dear to me and I’m sure to everyone else,” says Veronica Gonzales ’91, senior vice president of governmental and community relations for the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley in Edinburg and McAllen.
“Having Dean Alemán in her position provided me with a sense of community and togetherness. We were both from small farming towns in South Texas,” says Pat Barrera ’90, managing partner of Barrera & Associates in El Segundo, California, who grew up in Premont, eight miles north of Falfurrias. “I felt her support and encouragement throughout my three years in law school.”
“She felt like family—so nice and warm, and she always had her door open,” Salinas Evans says. “There was never a time when I thought, ‘I need to talk to her, but I I’m afraid to go.’” Alemán was available to students for advice on classes, daily struggles, or anything they were facing. “And that was really nice, when you’re 21 years old, in school, and don’t have any lawyers in your family,” Salinas Evans says.
Alemán also was the faculty/staff advisor to Texas Law’s Chicano/Hispanic/Latino Law Students’ Association, also known as CHLLSA, where Salinas Evans was a board member all three years in law school. Alemán supported the CHLLSA students’ participation in various opportunities, leadership development, and involvement with the wider legal community, Salinas Evans says.
“She was an educator at heart. That was her first profession and her first love,” says Salinas Evans. “And everything she did, I think, came from that.”
Rudy Metayer ’06, the son of Haitian immigrants and the first generation in his family to graduate from college, says Alemán was a source of support. “But just as important was her ability to shame you when you didn’t live up to your potential. A disappointed word from Dean Alemán carried weight,” says Metayer, now an attorney with Chamberlain McHaney PLLC in Austin, Texas Law adjunct professor, and councilmember with the City of Pflugerville, Texas.
For Metayer, Alemán offered a wealth of Law School history, “understanding what it meant for people like me to matriculate from the school. It’s a huge privilege,” he says.
Sunflower Scouting
As a 3L, Nicholas Parma ’98 accompanied Alemán and two students from CHLLSA to help collect sunflowers in a field the dean had pre-scouted. “She had her trunk set up with an ice chest and beaker vases to collect and preserve the flowers until the ceremony,” Parma says.
“She told us she always kept an eye on places where the sunflowers grew and tried to get wildflowers, per tradition,” he says. Alemán informed the students that the Law School only had to purchase flowers once for a December graduation, “due to a freeze wiping out the wild sunflowers.”
During their time in the field, one of the other students found a double-headed flower, and later Alemán “made sure he got that flower at the ceremony,” Parma says. “She took the tradition very seriously.”
Sports, Celebrations, and Faith
Alemán enjoyed a gathering. “Susana held large birthday parties during the milestone years of 60, 65, and 70 and these parties would attract her Law School classmates, her former students, her work colleagues, her South Texas friends, and her religious community,” says Dzienkowski. “Susana was a big supporter of athletics and at her 65th birthday, the Silver Spurs brought Bevo to celebrate with the guests.”
It wasn’t unusual to catch Alemán at a celebration, especially one recognizing the University, or a sporting event. “She loved UT—she was a cheerleader and an ambassador for Texas,” Barrera says. “She loved Texas Football games, especially the pregame tailgating events!”
Alemán also had a deep belief. At one point, Salinas Evans ended up attending the same church as Alemán, St. Albert the Great Catholic Church. “She was very faithful and very much involved in that community,” Salinas Evans says.
Maintaining Connections
Former students took inspiration from Alemán into their own lives and careers.
“Dean Alemán’s positivity, energy, and enthusiasm gave me a sense of confidence,” says Barrera, who adopted those traits into his own law practice and work to help people.
Alemán never forgot others, even after they’d graduated from the Law School.
“You wouldn’t have talked to her in years, and then you’d get something from her,” says Salinas Evans, who still has a cornbread recipe birthday postcard that Alemán sent years after her law school graduation. “It was always special. She remembered everyone.”
Ongoing Legacy
Alemán’s legacy continues to blossom. In the wake of her death in March 2025, Rene Gonzalez ’90, executive counsel for Exxon Mobil Corp. in Spring, Texas, committed to a full-tuition Pipeline Program scholarship named for Alemán, who was an ambassador for the program since its inception. (Gonzalez, who originally met Alemán when he worked for her as an undergraduate, is also on the board of trustees for the Law School Foundation.) The program prepares aspirants from low-income families or first-generation backgrounds to become successful law school candidates.
Texas Law has “such a rich history of not only Texas, but our country. Dean Alemán is part of that tapestry,” says Metayer. “I hope that someday, I’ll be able to go to the Law School with my own grandchildren and see a picture or bust of her, so they can see for themselves what she meant to the University of Texas School of Law,” he says. “Maybe the Sunflower Ceremony should be named for her.”
Alemán, too, understood the power of symbols, particularly at that graduation event, as she explained during her oral history recording.
“It’s a proud moment for the individual, for the parents, the family, loved ones. It symbolizes that completion, ‘I’ve reached my goal.’ And I wanted the ceremony to be as perfect as possible for the student,” she said. “That was my gift to them.”
Friends of Susana Alemán can donate to her scholarship.
Please also see our earlier story, “In Memoriam: Susana Alemán.”
