Valerie E. Lee, Ph.D., professor of education in the School of Education, and faculty associate, Survey Research Center, Institute for Social Research, will retire from active faculty status on June 30, 2011.

Professor Lee received her B.S. degree from Stanford University in 1959, and her Ed.M. and Ed.D. degrees from Harvard University in 1981 and 1985, respectively. In 1985-86 she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Educational Testing Service in the Division of Statistical and Psychometric Research. She joined the University of Michigan faculty as assistant professor in 1986, and was promoted to associate professor in 1992 and professor in 1997. She was appointed faculty associate in the Survey Research Center, Institute for Social Research in 1992.

Professor Lee taught courses in the sociology of education, program evaluation, and quantitative research methods. Her research focuses largely on public policy with respect to educational equity, and on identifying characteristics of schools that make them simultaneously excellent and equitable. Although much of her research has focused on secondary schools, more recently she has been studying similar issues in the early grades and has begun to broaden her focus to study schools' effects in Brazil and sub-Saharan Africa. Professor Lee's research has been published in books, journal articles, and reports, and she has been awarded numerous grants from private and public sources. She received the Rackham Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award in 2008 and was elected to the National Academy of Education in 2010.

The Regents now salute this distinguished faculty member by naming Valerie E. Lee professor emerita of education.