Arts and Sciences Alum Honored with Teaching Award

After traveling around the world, Sarah Jernigan finally found a place that feels like home—the front of a classroom. 

The McMicken College of Arts and Sciences Communication graduate student currently teaches an Introduction to Effective Speaking class at UC. She enjoys encouraging students and making a difference in their lives.

“I think college is a pivotal moment because you find out who you are and who you want to be,” said Jernigan, who recently received one of two of the college’s 2016 Excellence in Teaching Awards for Graduate Assistants. “Just the fact that I get to take part in that is really cool.” 

She said her undergraduate experiences, as well as her graduate school training, prepared her to teach. When she started graduate school, she participated in a “Teaching 101” bootcamp, where she got to create a syllabus and lesson plans for the first time. 

“Our grad school is good because you get teaching experience,” the 23 year-old said. “That’s very helpful because sometimes people thought they wanted to teach and they hated it.” 

An average week includes teaching and grading papers, studying for her graduate classes, researching for her thesis and more. She was tapped to serve as a coach for the upcoming TEDx UofCincinnati and is working with five of the speakers to sharpen their presentation skills, from brainstorming and outlining to Skype practices. It’s a role she didn’t envision for herself before she took advantage of study-abroad experiences as an undergraduate, first to sub-Saharan Africa and then to India. 

“I hadn’t really had the worldly experience,” she said. “Going on the trips taught me first of all there are so many people out there that are so different from our culture. It’s really eye-opening and really meaningful.” 

While on her study-abroad trip in India, she became fascinated by the work of non-governmental organizations and started a path that led to her thesis work today. During the trip, she met with representatives from different NGOs that combat human trafficking. She selected five of those NGOS to research for her master’s thesis, which will evaluate their leadership and the effectiveness of their strategies. 

Her off-campus work is also focused on community. She has been a part of UC’s Navigators, a campus ministry group, for years and takes her role as a leader there seriously. 

Jernigan advises students to get to know their professors and consider graduate school if they want to teach. She found a mentor in ProPEL professor Michael Sharp, who encouraged her to help create and lead the student group Student Ambassadors for Service Learning. That, in turn, led to other opportunities. He also suggested she go to graduate school, which she said is one of the best decisions she has ever made. 

After she earns her Master’s Degree this year, Jernigan plans on studying for her PhD. In just a couple of weeks, she will decide which school she’ll be attending. No matter where she lands, she plans to build a career either focusing on human trafficking or some type of applied communication.