Feature Story
Third SVU Student Jasmine Rios (‘26) Receives Sigma Delta Pi’s Prestigious Gabriela Mistral Award
Today, the national collegiate Spanish honors society Sigma Delta Pi awarded Jasmine Rios (‘26) the Gabriela Mistral Award, making her the third consecutive recipient of the award at Southern Virginia University.
The Gabriela Mistral Award, founded in 1984, is granted to an outstanding graduate or undergraduate student of Spanish who is an active member of Sigma Delta Pi and has demonstrated noteworthy involvement and initiative in their chapter.
As president of Sigma Delta Pi’s local chapter and Southern Virginia University’s Latin Club, Rios has had the opportunity to combine the two clubs for activities and events, including salsa dance lessons taught by her dad and several food nights where they learned to make pupusas, corn tortillas, and tacos.
“We’ve been reaching out to a lot more people to try and get more members, so it’s been really cool,” said Rios. “For one of our activities, we made carnitas and chicken tacos. We did it in my vice president’s house, and we had a solid 40 people come and eat the food.”
Rios is Puerto Rican on her dad’s side, but didn’t develop a strong connection to the Spanish language until she served a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Honduras from 2022–23.
“I learned a love of teaching English as a second language because we taught a lot of English over there, and I came home knowing that I wanted to be a teacher but not really knowing what exactly I wanted to do with that,” Rios said. “So I kind of worked it out to where I can be flexible about teaching both elementary education and English as a second language.”
Rios is majoring in Spanish and is a member of Southern Virginia University’s teaching licensure program for elementary education. In the fall, she plans to gain a Teaching English as a Second Language certification through BYU Pathway online as she starts her senior year at Southern Virginia.
“I just love the idea of my job being super flexible,” said Rios. “I could teach elementary school, I could teach English as a second language, or I could teach Spanish. I’m really okay with any of it, I just love teaching.”
Rios currently volunteers at Maury River Middle School as a tutor, and she recently got a job teaching English as a second language for an adult education class through Rockbridge County Public Schools. She plans to student teach in the fall to prepare her for the teaching licensure.