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Meet Our Faculty: Claire Peterson

Claire Peterson


Associate Professor

School of Humanities & Social Science 

Department of Humanities and Language Arts


What she teaches:

HUMA 1100 Intro to Humanities, HUMA 1010 Essentials of the Humanities, INTL 2040 The Immigrant Experience Through Lit & Film


Number of years teaching at SLCC:

12


Undergraduate:

University of Ulster at Jordanstown, N. Ireland


Master’s:

MA Irish Studies: Queen’s University Belfast, MSC International Affairs & Global Enterprise: University of Utah


Doctorate:

Lang & Lit University of Ulster



Why working at SLCC matters:

I love the diversity of the student body at SLCC. As an immigrant and a first-generation student myself, I appreciate the challenges that attending college can present. I love to see my students succeed and hear about their life experiences and how they relate to course material. 


Greatest professional challenge:

I want to be sure that my curriculum is accessible to all students and that it contains relatable content. I recently finished a new humanities Open Resource textbook which is free for all students.  I want to be mindful of the different ways in which students learn and most importantly ensure students who have felt marginalization have a voice in my classroom. I want my classroom to be a brave space, where everyone can exchange perspectives and ideas. This requires a lot of thought and personal reflection in terms of the sources we traditionally use to learn and understand history and society. I want to ensure no voices are left out and all my students feel heard, seen and represented. 


Greatest professional accomplishment:

My greatest professional accomplishment aligns with my greatest personal accomplishment; that is moving to a new country and creating a new life while trying to understand and navigate new systems, cultural norms and making new connections. I also recently returned to grad school and although it took me longer than expected to complete, I was quite proud I was able to pull it off!


Advice for students or others:

Be committed to being a lifelong learner. Learn from others. Be involved, ask questions, read books and be curious about people and things and places. And travel when and however you can. For my students specifically I would like to remind them that school does in fact end! Sometimes when you are in the thick of classes, it can feel like school will never end, but it will, and your life will be forever enriched and advanced because you completed your degree.



Future plans:

I look forward to when we can travel freely again as I am long overdue a trip to my home country! I want to continue writing and expanding our humanities textbook and am excited to be a part of the group developing the Social Justice AS at SLCC. 


Family:

I am a single mom to three great mostly grown up kids, two of which are SLCC students! I inherited a cat from my daughter who is okay most of the time. 


Hobbies:

I love to travel, sometimes solo and sometimes with family and friends. I love to be outdoors. I try to run most mornings, not competitively, but more in a Forrest Gump kind of way. I taught myself to ski three years ago and now understand why people in Utah look forward to winter. I love the ocean, which clearly presents a challenge living here in Utah; though I do try to get out on the lakes as much as possible on my paddle board in summer and early fall.

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