This week’s Woman of the Week is Yalena Terrero Martinez ’22, a Junior student at Union College!

Yalena was nominated by Jossara Dos Santos Dias ’22, who states ” I am nominating Yalena because she is an amazing member of our community. She is a Resident Advisor in Richmond, a Posse Scholar, part of the Cheer Club, EMS, Gospel choir, French table and has volunteered in the Glendale home, working with dementia patients. She is part of the Kappa Delta Phi NAS and works in the language lab.”

Yalena states that her proudest accomplishment is “the moment in which I was able to tell my parents that I gained my entire tuition and most of the room and board on merit scholarships to a private institution. With me being a first generation college student, it was a big deal to simply get into college and an even bigger one for my hard work in high school to be rewarded.” Her passions are “music, mental health, spreading positivity/ support and achieving [her] goals.”

Yalena states that she looks up to “[her] parents. Although both only have a high school diploma education in the US, they worked day in and day out to be able to give me the life I have today. They went to night school, while working full time jobs to get better jobs to qualify for better jobs. Their hard work and perseverance has shown me what it looks like to work solely for the benefit of others.”

To Yalena, being a woman at Union College means “breaking the boundaries. It means accepting yourself for who you are and making sure all other women on campus feel able to do the same. And most importantly it means women supporting women.”