When passion and dedication meet the classroom all learning possibilities begin to take form.

N. C. A&T professor Stephanie Luster-Teasley recently accepted the 2012 Excellence in Teaching Award given by the UNC Board of Governors for her incomparable teaching skills.

The A&T alumna and associate professor to the department of civil, architectural, and environmental engineering as well as the department of chemical, biological, and bioengineering said she never thought she would become a teacher, but growing up in a family full of them it was in her blood.

Luster-Teasley graduated from Michigan State University in 2003 with a BS in Chemical Engineering and PhD in Environmental Engineering. For a year she worked as an environmental engineer for Malcolm Pirnie, Inc. in Birmingham, AL. The following year she began teaching here at A&T and has remained here for the last nine years. Luster-Teasley believes what sets her apart from other instructors is deeply rooted care for her students. She not only focuses on her student’s ability to understand the material given but ensures they are obtaining the tools they need to succeed in life.

“A lot of our students have a lot of things going on at home and in their lives. They need people they feel they can trust and get good advice from,” said Luster-Teasley. “I like to take the time to get to know every single one of my students. If I know that they are struggling and what they are struggling with I can help them focus on what they need to do for school.”

By taking this approach she helps diffuse her student’s tension between home and school by simply understanding the pressures that come with being a student.

Luster-Teasley brings real-world situations and hands-on experiences to her classroom to create a more relatable experience for her students.

She vividly recall her days in Hines as a student where her labs left her without real-world relevance. She now sets out to change that for her students. Luster-Teasley chooses to incorporate different teaching styles to engage students more in the classroom. She notes that minorities and female students learn best with hands-on experiences.

“That’s why I love Dr. Teasley. Everything we do you can see in the real world,” exclaimed Niya King, a graduate civil engineer major with a concentration in environmental engineering from Lumberton, N.C.

Though the biggest issue she faces as an instructor is limited resources and funds, Luster-Teasley does not let that stand in the her way and allows her creativity and ingenuity come forward.

She finds ways to make things at home for her students to use and uses her two sons to test out each experiment.

The Excellence in Teaching Award is presented to a faculty member from each of the constituent schools of the UNC system. The award is given to commemorate the importance of good teaching.

Excellence in teaching, according to Luster-Teasley ,means being both an educator and a scholar, focusing on the material as well as what is known scholarly and the different ways a student can approach and interpret material.

She also started the Engage 2 BE engineering program in order to mentor and provide academic support for biomedical, biological, and environmental engineering students. Engage 2 BE takes a different approach to learning by focusing on the individual strengths of each student.

“We use a strength based approach, where instead of focusing on the deficiencies that students have we figure out what they are good at and use those strengths to help them develop professionally.”

By focusing on the positive, she gives her students a strong outlook on their future and goals by allowing them to narrow in on their strongest assets.

“She brings her leadership into the students track to be successful engineers and wealth to the department, especially in the bioengineering area,” said Sameer A. Hamoush, chairman of the Civil, Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Department of the College of Engineering. “Her classes are always full.”

Hamoush believes Luster-Teasley’s teaching style reflects the department as a whole and that her newest achievement will bring a greater sense of competitiveness to the department as well.

He enjoys seeing professors interact well with the students and knowing when to be hard on students and when to be gentle in addition to having an all-around sincerity when it comes to the learning experience.

Currently,Luster-Teasley works with two graduate students on the treatment of waste water. Waste water contains numerous amounts of bacteria and can sometimes end up in running off into our local bodies of water where people fish, swim, and boat.

She recently got a patent on what she calls an “environmental pill,” which releases a chemical over time that kills off bacteria present in the water, improves color and odor of the water, and maintains the ph.

The two students will expand upon this technology and see if they can find the perfect method for reducing bacteria in any type of waste water.

Stephanie Luster-Teasley is an outstanding woman that takes great pride in her students and their own personal paths of success and we are very grateful to have her here.

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• Stephanie Banaci, Contributor