Dr. Dan Peterson is the dean of the Sybil B. Harrington College of Fine Arts and Humanities at West Texas A&M University. Before coming to WT, Peterson has taught communications and public relations based courses.
As the dean, Peterson oversees four departments: the Department of Art, Theatre and Dance; the Department of History; the Department of Communication; and the Department of English, Philosophy and Modern Languages and the School of Music and Office of General Majors.
“Before I came to WT, I was doing a similar job,” Peterson said. “I was the dean of a college of Health Arts and Sciences at Oregon Tech. There are some things about being a dean that are similar across institutions; So that’s a starting point. June 20 was my first day on this job, so my main goal over the summer has been to meet people and develop relationships so that I can work better with faculty and students and people who have been friends of WT.”
Coming from a family of educators, Peterson grew up around college life.
“My dad was a professor at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah,” Peterson said. “And my mom was a teacher at a junior high, so I was always around education. When my dad would go to work, I would go with him. The building I spent the most amount of time in was called the Harris Fine Arts Center, which had the colleges of fine arts and communication, so I remember observing the student and faculty work, and that’s how I got interested in this academic way of life.”
Peterson’s primary areas of study as well as subjects teaching, have been public relations and communications.
“I sort of stumbled upon public relations, to be honest,” Peterson said. “I thought it might be more interpersonal communication-oriented, but once I realized how media-focused it was, I began to enjoy it. Part of what made me interested was planning and how to communicate strategically.”
Though Peterson does not currently teach any courses, he may in the future.
“I don’t teach any courses right now,” Peterson said. “My background in teaching is courses in interpersonal and organizational communication, public relations and in media writing, but my favorite class to teach is public speaking. I imagine I’ll have an opportunity to teach at some point. Right now, I am getting my feet underneath me from an administrative perspective but I’d love to be able to.”
Peterson describes his teaching style as a collaboration with his students.
“It’s [teaching style] definitely collaborative and applied,” Peterson said. “I like to have students learn, and then I like to be able to see them using what they learned in actual use. Often in my classes students would have a project where they find a company or nonprofit who needed some public relations and go and teach these concepts. For me, it is really about application theory and collaboration.”
As the new dean, Peterson touched on what he believes the College of Fine Arts and Humanities already does well and what changes could be made.
“I don’t know that I’ve been here long enough yet to know what changes I’d like to see,” Peterson said. “One of the things we’ve talked about is thinking of the things that we already do that are effective and hopefully making them even more effective. I’ve referred to it as refreshing what it is we do because there is some strength in the college. But I also think that it’s nice to have a new person come in that can ask, ‘What can we be doing differently?’”
