Written by: Dakota Gange

President Jesse Peters confidently and humbly displays what one may assume are aspects to his true self; a cozy sweater, jeans and brown leather shoes with stitching resembling that of a Moccasin. A small silver hoop earring hangs on his left ear. 

Though his sweater and shoes are soft, one does not need to ask if he rides a Harley, or a bike alike, to guess that he does.   

Peters began his undergraduate studies in business but switched to English after being heavily drawn to literature. His minor is in sociology. 

During his graduate school studies, Peters said he “…specifically became interested in Native American literature. So I went to the University of New Mexico and did my Ph.D. there in Native American Literature.” 

Dr. Peters has seemingly dedicated his youth to education. 

His resume is impressive — spending 18 years at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, where he worked up the ranks, beginning as an assistant professor and progressing through to a full-tenured professor. Peters was also Dean of the Honors College and Director of Undergraduate Research. 

And there’s more — during his tenure at Fort Lewis College, Peters served as the Dean of Arts and Sciences. He also was the Interim Provost for one year, overseeing the college’s development of new programs in Environmental Science, Health Science, Nutrition, Borders and Languages, Computer Engineering and Musical Theatre.

After receiving a $500,000 Mellon Foundation Grant — a Foundation which supports a wide range of initiatives to strengthen the arts and humanities — Peters used his grant to promote inclusive pedagogy — the ways that courses, curricula, assessments and classrooms weigh issues of diversity with a goal to engage all students in meaningful, relevant and accessible learning. 

In addition to his already busy schedule, he currently serves on the “National Collegiate Honors Council, Honors Semesters Committee as well as the Diversity Committee, and he frequently co-facilitates national faculty institutes on experiential learning,” he said in an interview with Western.  

Peters likes “…the smallness of regional universities (like Western) and the personalized nature of the education and how we can really get to know students and serve them the best way that we can in a community-based holistic system.” 

Influenced by the literature and art of Scott Momaday, Lesley Silko, Louise Erdrich and James Welch, the “…large figures of the Native American renaissance literary movement that came out of the 60s and 70s. Since then I have been fortunate enough to know many artists and authors of the Native American communities.” 

Peter’s passion and affinity for Native American culture echoes throughout his office, in bright and neutral colors.  

He feels a connection to these artists and writers, drawing him to Native American culture. 

“The art of those writers, any good novelist or poet, appeals to me. I think I probably had some connection to notions of land relationships, like growing up in swamps, fishing and hunting, and being in the woods a lot myself — I think there’s something about that that comes through a lot of that art. I was also sort of drawn to notions of relationships of intersectionalities of human beings and communities and living things that you often see in ways of thinking about existence and creations that are probably more holistic than in western traditions,” he expressed. 

“I think notions of balance and reciprocity and lots of things that I believe those cultures have to teach and have taught the world, and I was just drawn to engaging with those ideas, as I am an outsider to those experiences, which fosters good exploration of those ideas.” 

Growing up on a farm in Southern Georgia, Peters enjoys camping, being outdoors around water, and farming with his family. He likes to go fly fishing and wishes he had more time to ride his motorcycles.

Western feels very homelike to Dr. Peters, and he plans to “tell Western’s story better and to more people,” hopefully growing awareness of Western and enrollment. He feels that “it’s important that the student body and faculty are proud of how well Western serves students and the student body that we do serve — how diverse it is, how innovative it can be — how many strong alumni we have in the state and around the region. We need to talk about that and make sure we are a part of conversations about higher education.”  

Through his more profound understanding and openness of one’s cultural lens, perhaps President Peters will launch us into a future centered around Western’s growth, diversity and inclusion. 

Contact the author at howlmanagingeditor@wou.edu