Susan Riner

Professor Riner’s teaching career at Oxford began in the Natural Sciences and Mathematics Division where she taught courses ranging from calculus to game theory. She designed and implemented Oxford’s first mathematics lab, which provided a setting based on collaborative learning and peer tutoring. As a pianist and organist, she served as the accompanist for the Oxford Chorale. She was the featured organist at convocation and baccalaureate and performed in numerous musical productions including a specially commissioned cantata presented at Emory’s sesquicentennial celebration. Most recently, she was selected to help design and implement the Quantitative Theory and Methods (QTM) course and lab program. Professor Riner was one of the first faculty members to receive Oxford’s most prestigious teaching award, the Emory Williams Distinguished Teaching Award. She has received Oxford’s Phi Eta Sigma Honor Society Teaching Award, and the Crystal Apple Award for Teaching Excellence, which is the highest honor given by students on the Atlanta campus. She has been honored with the Outstanding Teaching Award given by the Oxford Alumni Board. She was the first recipient of the Faculty Member of the Year Award given by Emory’s Office of Accessibility Services, and she has been recognized for teaching excellence by both Phi Beta Kappa and Mortarboard Honor Societies. Her devotion to her students outside the classroom has been demonstrated in her decades as a club advisor and as a faculty facilitator in the Freshman Seminar/Learning to Lead programs where she has joined students running through corn mazes, performing karaoke, grilling hot dogs, and attending local festivals. She has served alongside students packing medical supplies, visiting homeless shelters and assisted living facilities, distributing candy at the Atlanta Zoo, painting the walls of a community center, planting shrubs at a school, and tutoring at an after-school program. She has also planned outings and accompanied students to Atlanta to visit the Aquarium, the Zoo, the Carter Center, and other Atlanta landmarks. In addition, Professor Riner is in Who's Who Among American Teachers and Who's Who Among American Women. She is an ordained elder in the Presbyterian Church and was a church organist for more than twenty years. She studied ballet under the director of the Southern Ballet Company and  sang with the Emory University Collegium Musicum. In the community, she has worked with Habitat for Humanity, the Food Pantry, the American Alzheimer's Association, and prison ministry.