💡 Susan Autry has always loved history and wanted to be an educator. After a stint with Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, she realized she had a calling to work in higher education.

“Being able to teach at the college level and teaching adults is so gratifying because I can focus on my passion, which is talking about history and telling students the amazing story of our collective past,” Autry said. “There has never been anything else I could conceive of doing professionally.” 😄

That passion has resulted in an award-winning career in the classroom at Central Piedmont. She has served as a Faculty Fellow for the Center for Teaching and Learning, received the Student Government Association Award as voted on by students at the Merancas Campus, and won the Mary W. and Wilton Parr Faculty Teaching Award. 🏆

📚 Autry also received the title of Full Professor and published a two-volume American History college-level textbook with co-author Dr. Edward Lee of Winthrop University that will be available this year.

Autry is grateful for the opportunities the college provided her to grow professionally by traveling to conferences, teaching students about history, and the relationships she developed here.

“It has been so meaningful to me,” she said. “The freedom to tell our past to mature students who are engaged and anxious to learn is the greatest possible profession I could ever ask for. Central Piedmont has given me more than I could have ever asked for in a career.”

One of the areas that Autry is most proud of is the quality of education she feels she provides her students, who have told her they learned more and had better experiences at Central Piedmont than at other institutions. Additionally, several have entered the teaching profession as well.

Ultimately, it is all about the students for Autry, embodying one of Central Piedmont’s core values of being student-centered.

“My most meaningful accomplishment is not the projects that I completed with the CTLE, or the awards that I received, or the faculty title I can attach to my name,” she said. “My most meaningful accomplishment is the intense and engaged stare I get when I know my students are fully enthralled in my teaching. There is no better reward than when students say they are sad that a semester is over or can’t wait until the next class to see ‘what happens.’ That is my greatest accomplishment. Fortunately, I can make it happen every semester if I keep my passion strong and my love of history and teaching engaging. Then I know I have accomplished what I have set out to do.” ⭐