SUNY Oneonta Student Wins SUNY EOP Award
Teresa Gonzalez, a senior at SUNY Oneonta, has been chosen as a recipient of SUNY's 2020 Norman R. McConney, Jr. Award for Student Excellence. The award, which bears the name of the late Norman McConney, one of the architects of the statewide Educational Opportunity Program and a champion of youth empowerment, was established last year to celebrate EOP students who have overcome significant obstacles to achieve their educational and personal goals.
An Adolescence Education major with a concentration in Spanish, Teresa is passionate about addressing challenges and inequalities faced by English Language Learner students in the United States. After leaving her home in Mexico as a teenager and coming to the U.S., Teresa faced many obstacles. Learning English was a challenge, particularly because the school she transferred into could not adequately accommodate her needs. Because of this, Teresa aspires to work with ELL students in seventh through twelfth grade and help them transition smoothly into the U.S. education system.