Dr. Cindy Lahar Wins Carolina Trustees Award from USC
The Office of the Provost at the University of South Carolina has announced the 2024 faculty award winners. USCB’s Dr. Cindy J. Lahar, Professor of Psychology, won the South Carolina Trustees Award.
Each year, the faculty awards recognize the exceptional work faculty and staff across the USC System are doing, spotlighting remarkable teaching, advising, service and research.
Twenty-one faculty and staff members from nine different schools or colleges and three system institutions received awards for their service to their peers, students and communities.
“The achievements of this year’s faculty award winners represent the remarkable strides we are making campuswide, and it’s truly a privilege to have such exceptional scholars contributing to our university community," said Donna Arnett, Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs.
Dr. Cindy J. Lahar is a professor and program coordinator of psychology at USCB. Dr. Lahar is a highly effective and impactful professor who prioritizes advising and mentorship, with 76 active undergraduate mentees last year. She played a key role in re-envisioning the psychology program, growing the full-time psychology faculty from three to six members, and she played a pivotal role in making the program the fastest-growing major at USCB and third-largest major at the institution. Beyond her impact on her own students, Dr. Lahar mentors junior faculty within her program and recently served as Director of Research at USCB, leading the institution to its highest level of sponsored awards funding in its history.
Since receiving her PhD in psychology from Brandeis University, she has taught at universities in the U.S., Canada, Japan, and Cambodia. She was named a Carnegie Scholar by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in 2004, and continues to explore her interest in best practices for teaching in online, hybrid, and traditional classes. She has received two Fulbright Scholar awards to do research and teach in Cambodia (2004 and 2006) and continues to consult with the Psychology Department at the Royal University of Phnom Penh in Cambodia. Recently she also taught at Vietnam National University in Hanoi in their first PhD program in Clinical Psychology. This year, she is participating in a Fulbright-Hays grant project to South Korea. At USCB she teaches a variety of psychology courses, including Introduction to Psychology, Biological Psychology, Learning & Memory, Cultural Psychology and Psychology of Aging.
- USCB -
cw / 8-8-2024