Serafín M. Coronel-Molina, Associate Professor in Literacy, Culture and Language Education at the School of Education, has been named an Bicentennial Professor by the IU Office of the Bicentennial.

Bicentennial Professors are part of the university’s bicentennial celebration. These professors will deliver four to five lectures throughout Indiana during the 2019-2020 school year.

“I felt very humbled, honored, excited and thankful to be selected to serve as an Indiana University Bicentennial Professor,” Coronel-Molina said. “It has not been an easy journey to get here. To achieve what has been a life-long dream, I have had to struggle through a labyrinth of profound and complex struggles in my life. This is in large part because I am an Indigenous scholar who comes from an isolated, remote area of the South American Andes, where abject poverty is the norm.”

Coronel-Molina’s background has influenced his work as a member of the faculty at the School of Education.

“As a researcher and educator, my work is about making linguistic, ethnic, and cultural borders visible, so people can apprehend them and decide whether to embrace them or not. I strive to have a positive impact on undergraduate students who have seldom experienced this kind of cultural and linguistic ‘uprootedness,’” Coronel-Molina said. “In my classes, I always inject cross-cultural, cross-linguistic awareness to provide them with real-life examples, and not just quotes taken from books. At the same time, I am a living example to domestic and international graduate students of what is possible in crossing linguistic and cultural borders. I am always available and eager to mentor them on their own journeys.”

Read the official press release for information on all the Bicentennial Professors.