Celebrating Our Honorees

2008 Honorary Degree Recipients

Ms. Teresa Rios Wright
Teacher and Hispanic Community Leader

Ms. Teresa Rios Wright has enjoyed a 30-year career as a Spanish educator and resource teacher with the Montgomery County Public Schools. She is currently serving as the parent resource teacher in the Division of ESOL and Bilingual Programs in the Gaithersburg and Watkins Mill high school clusters. In this position, she assists immigrant families in achieving educational success for their children.

Prior to this position, she served as a Spanish teacher at Gaithersburg and Magruder high schools, as well as Montgomery Village Middle School. She has also taught Spanish at the postsecondary level at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Parkland College, Champaign, Illinois.

Ms. Wright has received numerous awards for her selfless efforts on behalf of Hispanic children. She received the Montgomery County Government Hispanic Employees Association Award, Montgomery Village Rotary Club Civic Award, Lifetime Membership Award from the Maryland National Parent Teacher Association, Excellence in Minority Achievement Award from the Maryland State Department of Education, Outstanding Leader Award from Leadership Montgomery, Friend of Gaithersburg Award from the city of Gaithersburg, and Lifetime Achievement Award from the Greater Washington Latino Mental Health Network. She was also lauded by the Montgomery County Collaboration for Children, Youth, and Families for “time well spent for Montgomery’s children.”

She was a member of the Leadership Montgomery Class of 2000.  She is a founding member and chair of the Education and Health Committee of the Hispanic Alliance of Montgomery County. She is also a member of the Gaithersburg Education Committee and the board of advisors for the Universities at Shady Grove. She is also on the board of Identity, Inc., a nonprofit organization that serves the Latino community in Montgomery County.

Ms. Wright received a B.A. in Spanish literature and education from the Normal Superior School of Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico, and an M.A. in Spanish literature and history from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.