Faculty Member Receives FSU Community-Engaged Teaching Award

Erika Cuffy, an assistant teaching professor at the College of Social Work, was awarded a 2025-26 University Teaching Award for Community Engaged Teaching.

“I’m honestly so proud to receive this particular award,” expressed Professor Cuffy. “I feel like ‘community engaged teaching embodies me as a social worker. I cherish being able to still work in my community while working in academia.”

Her teaching style offers a unique approach, which allows her students to understand what it is like to be a social worker from the moment they enter her classroom. “I make it a priority to merge the community and classroom together,” Cuffy emphasized.

This includes bringing in guest speakers and collaborating with local social service agencies to ensure students gain real-life experience. Professor Cuffy’s teaching philosophy also includes being firmly established in content, ideas, navigation of challenging situations and confidence. She also brings an unwavering enthusiasm to the profession and her course material, and shares with her students a dedication to serving clients, being involved with various communities and enhancing the social work profession.

“My time as a social worker was extremely rewarding. I appreciated watching my clients work hard to break unhealthy generational cycles within themselves and their families,” she said. But teaching was also a consistent interest for Cuffy as early as her time in her own BSW program.

She noted that her favorite part of teaching is seeing her students’ passion come to life and watching their progress and confidence grow as they graduate and go out into the field. Cuffy only laments that there is never enough time in any semester or class to get through all the content she wants to cover for every subject matter. But as an ever-evolving profession, teaching social work courses are different semester to semester and always interesting.

“I absolutely love bridging the gap between the classroom and the community,” she stated. A particularly favorite is the service-learning projects she engages the students in “The Social Work Profession” class each semester. This allows students to plan and implement a project in collaboration with a local social service agency.

“Activities like this bring the content that the students learned all semester come to life,” she determined. “They also highlight the importance of collaboration within social work.”

Cuffy and other FSU faculty will be awarded at an event at the end of the spring 2026 semester.