Government of Mexico recognizes President Trauth with Ohtli Award

Posted by Jayme Blaschke
Office of Media Relations
September 28, 2016

The government of Mexico has honored Texas State University President Denise M. Trauth with the Ohtli Award. 

The award was presented to Trauth during a ceremony September 27 in Austin.

Trauth is being recognized for the support Texas State has provided for Mexican and Mexican-descent students. Under her leadership, Texas State earned official recognition as a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) from the U.S. Department of Education in 2011. To receive the HSI designation, an institution must have an enrollment of undergraduate full-time-equivalent students that is at least 25 percent Hispanic. Currently, Hispanics make up 34.7 percent of the student body.

“It is an honor indeed to receive the Ohtli Award, the award whose name translates as pathway. And to accept it on behalf of Texas State University – a school that has forthrightly laid out a pathway for Latino students to gain a college education,” Trauth said.

The Ohtli is considered the highest honor bestowed by the government of Mexico to a leader outside of Mexico and acknowledges and celebrates the commitment, vision and impact of an individual in lifting the Mexican or Latino community. The word Ohtli means “path” in Nahuatl (language of the Aztecs), and signifies the opening of the path to progress. The title honors and recalls the continued tradition of Aztec descendants who still bid farewell with the phrase “Cualli ohtli!” (To have a good trail/journey).

“The government of Mexico is profoundly grateful for all the support that Dr. Denise Trauth has granted to the Mexican and Latino students at Texas State University. Under her leadership, the university has opened the path – the Ohtli – of higher education to thousands of Latino students in Texas,” said Carlos González Gutiérrez, consul general of Mexico in Austin.