Teaching Assistant Professor Cyndi Edgington Named Park Scholarship Faculty Scholar

Cyndi Edgington, Ph.D., a teaching assistant professor of STEM education at the NC State College of Education, believes that building positive relationships with students is one of the most important aspects of her job. She will take that belief one step further through her new role as a Faculty Scholar for the Park Scholarship class of 2023.

“I believe my life is improved when I am able to connect with others. Serving as a Faculty Scholar will give me an opportunity to connect with students and their families, faculty, and community members that I wouldn’t otherwise have,” she said.

Two Faculty Scholars are chosen each year to work with an incoming class of Park Scholarship recipients. Their four main responsibilities involve monitoring and guiding class enrichment activities, providing scholars with an overview of group responsibilities, advising students on academic issues and providing communication to Park Scholarship administrators about class activities and individual students.

Faculty Scholars are chosen based on their deep involvement in their disciplinary activities, their ability to connect students to people and opportunities on and off the NC State campus and their ability to create an open and positive environment where each student feels valued.

“I feel extremely honored to be selected as a Park Faculty Scholar,” Edgington said. “The Faculty Scholars that have served before me are some of the best researchers and teachers our university has to offer. To be considered among that group of people is humbling, and I can only hope I can live up to the high standards they have set.”

The Park Scholarship program brings exceptional students to NC State based on their outstanding accomplishments and potential in scholarship, leadership, service and character. Edgington said she is looking forward to seeing what the incoming class of Park Scholars will accomplish as well as what they will be able to teach her.

“Teaching and learning is a symbiotic relationship. I learn just as much from my students as they do from me,” she said. “As I engage with the Park Scholarship program and the scholars, I know that I will continue to develop my own scholarship, character, service and leadership.”