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Peters Earns SCICU Excellence in Teaching Award

Peters Earns SCICU Excellence in Teaching Award

by Shay Shealy West, South Carolina Independent Colleges & Universities - May 22, 2020

COLUMBIA, S.C. — An eight-year member of the Newberry faculty, Dr. Sara A. Peters, associate professor of psychology, is Newberry College’s 2020 SCICU Excellence in Teaching award winner.

Dr. Peters holds a Ph.D. in experimental psychology with an emphasis in quantitative psychology from the University of South Carolina. Her dissertation was entitled “The Relevance of Sarcasm in Resolving Ambiguous References in Spoken Discourse.” Peters also earned an M.A. and B.A. in experimental psychology, both from the University of South Carolina.

The Council of Independent Colleges recognized Dr. Peters’ excellence in teaching with her selection for the 2019 Network for Vocation in Undergraduate Education (NetVUE) program. Peters was one of 20 professors chosen nationwide to explore strategies for incorporating vocational exploration into curriculum and student mentoring.

Since joining the Newberry faculty in 2012, Dr. Peters has taught a variety of psychology courses, including research methods and statistics. Dr. Peters also mentors undergraduate students in research projects. Her students have presented their research findings at the Carolina Undergraduate Social Science Symposium and the Southeastern Psychological Association (SEPA).

Dr. Peters has published work in Frontiers in Psychology, the Journal of Language and Social Psychology, Bilingualism: Language and Conversation, and The Conversation website. “Why is sarcasm so difficult to detect in texts and emails?” – Dr. Peters’ piece featured on The Conversation website – has been shared widely.

“Dr. Peters does an excellent job of connecting classroom learning to meaningful research,” said Dr. Vinetta Witt, chair of Newberry’s Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences. “She recognizes that student learning is connected to active engagement, and therefore designs meaningful projects with the opportunity to present the results publicly. Her ingenuity in seeking research projects illustrates the passion that she has for ensuring her students have opportunities to prepare them to compete in the labor market as well as graduate school.”

This article originally appeared on the South Carolina Independent Colleges & Universities' website.