Viridiana Villalva Salas ’20 selected as the student speaker for the Class of 2020 Commencement

A Posse Scholar from Chicago, Illinois, Viridiana Villalva Salas ’20 graduated with a bachelor's degree in English and was a scholar in both the Holleran Center for Community Action and Public Policy and the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program, all while earning her teaching certificate in secondary education. During her time at Connecticut College, she completed a summer internship at Chicago’s largest network of charter schools, which informed her senior integrative project on inequity within higher education and culturally responsive teaching in English classrooms. She also participated in the College Year in Athens program in Athens, Greece, where she conducted cross-comparison qualitative research focused on the differences in teaching practice in a local community school. As a result of her research, she was awarded the Charles ‘Bud’ Church Teaching for Social Justice Award. 

Villalva Salas was a deeply engaged member of the campus community through her work as a senior admission fellow and a house fellow for Jane Addams, and as artistic director for the Womxn’s Empowerment Initiative. 

Most recently, she graduated from Boston College with a master’s degree in curriculum and instruction and a certificate in social justice leadership. She returned to her hometown of Chicago and currently works at Erie Neighborhood House as an instructor in English as a second language.