UNP enthusiastically congratulates Associate Director, Dr. Teresa Molina, the 2024 recipient of the University of Utah’s Distinguished Faculty in Service Award! She and other faculty award recipients were formally recognized by President Randall and members of the university leadership team.
Megan Medina, the Associate Director for Community Engaged Learning & Scholarships at the U, congratulated Teresa in @theU, and visited the UNP office to present an award sculpture in front of our team. Megan wrote:
The Distinguished Faculty Service Award honors faculty members who have demonstrated sustained commitment to the campus-community connection through a life of active, unpaid community service and the integration of service with research and teaching. Dr. Isabel Teresa Molina Avella’s long-term presence in the community has established trusting relationships with diverse partners to find creative solutions to existing challenges. Professor Molina’s scholarship is located within a community-based participatory action framework (CBPR) and is focused on Latine mental health, how mental health is understood across diverse communities of immigrant and refugee backgrounds, and how organizational processes can be changed to improve access for individuals. She is one of the founding faculty members of Bridging Borders (BB), a global collective of educators, students and community partners working to create vital networks that lead to innovative opportunities and pathways in education for communities living at or working with those at the margins. In 2013 Dr. Molina expanded a resident-led partnership and, with the support of the University of Utah, founded Latino Behavioral Health Services (LBHS). From founding partner to board member, researcher and student mentor, Dr. Molina continues her service with LBHS and has been at the forefront of an effort to shift the mental health paradigm from one that diagnoses and treats individual with mental illness, to one that promotes recovery and wellbeing. She is directing her $1000 to the recovery program through University Neighborhood Partners. For her lifelong work as a bridge builder, we honor Professor Molina with the 2024 Distinguished Faculty Service Award.
Very well deserved! Congratulations Tere, from all of us at UNP!