April 30, 2024 | Erin Bluvas, bluvase@sc.edu
Just one year after receiving the top service award from the National Association of Athletic Trainers (NATA), Toni Torres-McGehee has won another major service award. The exercise science associate professor has been selected as the winner of the 2024 USC Educational Foundation Outstanding Service Award.
“In well over two decades as a faculty member in higher education, I do not recall seeing anyone who has dedicated themselves to the betterment of the university and a willingness to serve as Dr. Torres-McGehee has,” says Shawn Arent, chair for the Arnold School’s Department of Exercise Science. “She exemplifies servant leadership in her approach, which also includes tremendous transparency, compassion, advocacy and support for those around her.”
Torres-McGehee’s service contributions span two main areas. As an expert in the field of athletic training and the director of the department’s athletic training programs, she makes an impact on the profession and students/future athletic trainers. She also serves as the school’s Associate Dean of Access and Collective Engagement and co-chair for USC’s Council of Academic Diversity Officers, advocating for marginalized individuals and groups in the university community and beyond.
Inspired by her mother’s dedication to service, the first-generation college student benefited from numerous mentors throughout her educational and professional journeys – never taking a moment for granted and vowing to pay it forward through her own good works. Those journeys have included associate’s (Cochise College), bachelor’s (Southern Utah University), master’s (Texas Tech University) and doctoral (The University of Alabama) degrees across the Southern United States before landing her first academic appointment at USC in 2006.
Over the years, her professional service has included numerous roles for scientific journals as well as NATA and the Commission on Accreditation for Athletic Training Education, which she currently leads as president. As the director of athletic training programs and the program director for its post-professional program, Torres-McGehee mentors both faculty and students – chairing research committees for six doctoral students, 82 master’s students and 25 undergraduates and advising students in the Maternal and Child Health Leadership, Education, and Advancement in Undergraduate Pathways (MCH LEAP) program.
With her Mexican American heritage shaping her childhood, Torres-McGehee has always brought a perspective of diversity and inclusion to her work – dating all the way back to her first days as an athletic trainer providing medical care to underserved patients in the panhandle of Texas. It has been an underlining theme throughout her career, from service to research to mentorship. In addition to the diversity, access and equity-related roles she has taken on with professional organizations and at the university, she has developed an athletic training outreach service program that provides services to eight counties in the state while exposing students to diverse clinical experiences.
“Dr. Torres-McGehee values globalization, international students and diverse backgrounds not only by race, but in religion, sexuality and thought,” Arent says. “She believes that by promoting these values, the students that graduate from the program will be better prepared to serve the local and global communities.”
Always pushing herself to learn more and make a bigger impact, Torres-McGehee considers leadership to be intertwined with service. She has completed the USC Pipeline for Academic Leaders Program, Southeastern Conference (SEC) Academic Leadership Development Program, SEC Academic Leadership Development Program Alumni Fellowship, and Shared-Equity Leadership Development Program. Torres-McGehee is currently an Education Advisory Board Rising Higher Education Leaders Fellow.
“I cannot think of a more deserving and well-rounded faculty member that embraces the long history of athletic training education while progressively pushing her program and self to imagine health care education differently,” Arent adds. “She recognizes that athletic training is public health and encourages the students in our program to give back to the community through a population-based health approach.”