To her students, Dr. Jennifer Edwards is more than just a professor. She’s a mentor.
Edwards, a professor of sociology and chair of the social sciences department at Northeastern State University, is the 2026 recipient of the Medal for Excellence in Regional University/Community College Teaching.
Dr. Jamie Suzanne Farmer, a history professor at NSU, called Edwards “one of the finest teachers I have ever known.”
“What strikes me most about Dr. Edwards’ teaching is the way she treats her students,” Farmer said. “Whether they are undergraduates just starting or graduate students preparing for their careers, she approaches them all as future colleagues. I’ve watched her sit with students for hours, discussing not just their coursework but also their goals, fears and plans.”
Edwards coordinates NSU’s sociology major and its women’s and gender studies minor program. She’s advised and mentored hundreds of undergraduate and graduate students and is a peer mentor for junior faculty.
In the classroom, she sets high standards and strives to create immersive, experiential assignments. She developed the Sociological Research Symposium at NSU to help students gain experience presenting research, and she created a virtual field trip so that they can conduct in-depth analysis of a city without traveling there.
“To engage in active learning, I believe it’s my responsibility to create a classroom setting that allows students to engage in the course material,” Edwards said.
Edwards, who’s taught at NSU since 2003, has received the university’s Model the Way Award and Circle of Excellence Award in Teaching, and she’s twice been chosen for the student-nominated Top Ten Riverhawk Award. In 2020, the Midwest Sociological Society honored her with the Jane Addams Outstanding Service Award.
Edwards was the inaugural director of NSU’s Center for Women’s Studies, a role she held for three years. From 2019 to 2022, she served as program chair of the university’s master’s degree in criminal justice. She previously taught at Southwestern Oklahoma State University and MiraCosta College in Oceanside, California.
A California native, Edwards holds a bachelor’s in sociology from California State University, Stanislaus; a master’s in criminology from California State University, Fresno; and a doctorate in sociology from Oklahoma State University.
Edwards maintains an active research agenda that focuses on how groups utilize social rituals to retain or attempt to gain power.
“Dr. Edwards brings her own research into the classroom in ways that make sociology come alive for students,” Farmer said. “Her work on the Orange Order in Northern Ireland, on social rituals and power, and on intergroup conflict allows her to demonstrate to students how sociological theory helps us understand real conflicts, people and communities.”
