Overview

Grounded in an integrated commitment to agroecology, sustainable food systems, and democracy, my main goal as a professor with a teaching and research appointment is to advance the theory and practice of community-based, participatory processes of research, learning, and development.  I devote a good deal of my work to an exploration of the historical and contemporary nature of the land-grant system's public engagement mission, with special attention to the origins and evolution of extension work.  As a faculty member at a land-grant institution, I seek to reach and engage both academic and public audiences.

Research Focus

Areas of research include:

• History of American higher education
• Public engagement
• Civic education
• Community organizing and development
• Political theory
• Public philosophy

My research program is centered on a critical examination of the social, political, and cultural identities, roles, purposes, and work of academic institutions and professionals.  I pursued these in two related lines of inquiry: a historical line that focuses on the origins and early development of the national land-grant system's agricultural extension work, and a line that utilizes narrative inquiry to analyze and interpret the civic engagement experiences and work of contemporary academic professionals and community educators.

Instruction Focus

I place the focus of my teaching on the history, philosophy, politics, theory, and practice of community education, organizing, and development, with special attention to complex relationships and tensions between democracy, science, and education.  The courses I teach include EDUC 6820 (Community Education and Development) and EDUC 6680 (Narrative Inquiry and Analysis).  I'm in the process of developing a new course on the theme of organizing sustainable community food systems, which will be offered during the spring 2012 semester.

Outreach and Extension Focus

Using tools from narrative inquiry and action research, I seek to provide opportunities and resources that help people and organizations reflect on and learn from their public engagement work and experiences.  I serve as the principle investigator for Cornell's participation in a five-year (2011-2016) integrated teaching, research, and extension project (supported by a $5 million grant from USDA) called "Food Dignity: Action Research on Engaging Food Insecure Communities and Universities in Building Sustainable Community Food Systems."  I also serve as an associate editor of the Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement http://openjournals.libs.uga.edu/index.php/jheoe/index.

Additional links

• Food Dignity Project
  http://fooddignity.org
• Developing and Using Practitioner Profiles
  http://courses2.cit.cornell.edu/fit117
• Community-University Engagement
  http://www.communityuniversityengagement.org

Selected Publications

• Peters, S.J. (2011). "To make this beautiful theory practical": A review of Kevin C. Armitage, The Nature Study Movement: The Forgotten Popularizer of America's Conservation Ethic. The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, October, Vol. 10, no. 4.  
• Peters, S.J. (2010) Democracy and Higher Education: Traditions and Stories of Civic Engagement. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press.  
• Peters, S.J. and Alter, T.R. (2010) Civic engagement across the career stages of faculty life: A proposal for a new line of inquiry. In H.E. Fitzgerald, C. Burack, and S. Seifer (eds.), Handbook of Engaged Scholarship (Vol. 2), East Lansing: Michigan State University Press.  
• Peters, S.J., Alter, T.R., Shaffer, T.J. (2010). Hot passion and cool judgment: Relating reason and emotion in democratic politics."  Connections, 15-17 [http://www.kettering.org/media_room/periodicals/connections/2010/5]  
• Schusler, T. M., Krasny, M. E., Peters, S. J., and Decker, D. J. (2009). Developing citizens and communities through youth environmental action. Environmental Education Research. 15 (1): 111-127.  
• Peters, S.J., Alter, T.R., and Schwartzbach, N. (2008). Unsettling a settled discourse: Faculty views of the meaning and significance of the land-grant mission. Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, Vol. 12, No. 2, pp. 33-66.  
• Peters, S.J. (2008). Reconstructing a democratic tradition of public scholarship in the land-grant system. In David W. Brown and Deborah Witte (eds.), Agent of Democracy. Dayton, OH: Kettering Foundation Press.  
• Peters, S. J. (2007). Changing the story about higher education's public purposes and work: Land-grants, liberty, and the Little Country Theater. Ann Arbor, MI: Imagining America (Foreseeable Futures Position Paper #6, published by Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life [www.imaginingamerica.org]).  
• Morgan, P.A. and Peters, S.J. (2006). The foundations of planetary agrarianism: Thomas Berry and Liberty Hyde Bailey. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, Vol. 19, No. 5: 443-468.  
• Peters, S.J. (2006). Every farmer should be awakened: Liberty Hyde Bailey`s vision of agricultural extension work. Agricultural History, Vol. 80, No. 2: 190-219.  
• Peters, S.J., O'Connell, D., Alter, T.R., and Jack, A. (Eds.) (2006). Catalyzing change: Profiles of Cornell Cooperative Extension educators from Greene, Tompkins, and Erie Counties, New York. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Cooperative Extension.  
• Peters, Scott J., N. R. Jordan, M. Adamek, and T. R. Alter. (Eds.). (2005). Engaging Campus and Community: The Practice of Public Scholarship in the State and Land-Grant University. Dayton, OH: Kettering Foundation Press.  
• Peters, Scott J. (2004). Educating the civic professional: Reconfigurations and resistances. Michigan Journal of Community Service-Learning, Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 47-58.  
• Peters, Scott J. (2004). The Country Life Commission: Reconsidering a milestone in American agricultural history. Agricultural History, Vol. 78, No. 3., pp. 289-316.

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