John G. Peters

• Member, FRA Board of Directors for Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
• President, Northern Illinois University

Dr. John G. Peters is the eleventh president of Northern Illinois University, a post he has held since June 2000. As NIU’s chief executive officer, Dr. Peters provides strategic direction and oversight for a nationally recognized, comprehensive university serving more than 25,000 students in 120 areas of study at both undergraduate and graduate levels. Under his leadership, NIU has both expanded and refined its institutional vision to more closely align teaching, research and outreach efforts with emerging needs of the northern Illinois / Chicagoland region.

A native of Strongsville, Ohio, Dr. Peters earned his bachelor's degree in political science at Cleveland's John Carroll University, and a master's in government from Ohio University in Athens. In 1974, he received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Prior to assuming the NIU presidency, Dr. Peters was provost and chief operating officer at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. His distinguished academic career also includes twenty years in teaching and administrative roles at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where he earned numerous awards for work in and out of the classroom.

Dr. Peters’ presidency at NIU has been marked by substantial increases in university reputation and new sources of funding. In his first year as president, he gained admission for NIU to the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, an honor reserved for the top five percent of universities nationwide. That same year, Dr. Peters secured NIU’s largest-ever private gift: $20 million for a new College of Business building. Since that time, President Peters has led efforts to expand federal funding of select NIU research programs – a campaign that has garnered more than $60 million, strengthened key partnerships with state and federal research programs, and enhanced NIU’s standing in the prestigious Carnegie Foundation rankings of research institutions.

NIU’s longstanding commitment to regional service has also received new attention and support under Dr. Peters’ leadership. His vision of NIU as “the nation’s premier regional public university” has been the basis for substantial enhancement of regional partnerships with schools, business, health care and local governmental agencies. In 2005, Dr. Peters established an ambitious five-year plan that leverages historic NIU strengths by connecting regional engagement and applied research to the university’s well-known focus on real-world learning experiences. NIU completed its first-ever comprehensive capital campaign, True North, and exceeded the $150 million goal by more than $10 million for campus-wide strategic planning process to focus university resources and efforts in the years ahead. Through True North, alumni and friends made NIU history with more than 59,000 donors participating and changing the physical and philanthropic landscape at NIU. Among its more ambitious components is creation of a proton therapy cancer treatment and research center that integrates NIU’s respected physics program with cutting-edge nuclear medicine.

Dr. Peters’ reputation as a consensus-builder and education policy expert puts him much in demand for leadership roles in statewide and national organizations. He currently serves on the Executive Committee for the NCAA and has served as chair of the Mid-American Conference Council of Presidents and is a member of that group’s executive committee. His leadership in the area of intercollegiate athletics also includes membership on the BCS Presidential Oversight Committee representing the “coalition conferences.” Dr. Peters served as Illinois’ representative to the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU). He is a member of the U.S. Abraham Lincoln Commission on International Education; APLU’s Commission on Women in Higher Education; and is co-chair of Illinois’ Center for Child Welfare and Education. In 2004, the U.S. Department of Education named Dr. Peters to a special task force studying math and science education, providing a national perspective for his ongoing work with education and economic development groups throughout the Midwest.

Dr. Peters has been referred to as the "student's president," NASPA, the organization for student affairs administrators in higher education, honored Peters in March 2010 with its annual President's Award, given to one college or university president. A political scientist by training, Dr. Peters specializes in studies of public policy and Congress. He has published widely, including articles in the Journal of Policy Studies, American Politics Quarterly, American Political Science Review, and Legislative Studies Quarterly, and has co-edited two books on American politics. He is a Fellow of the Center for Great Plains Studies and has served as the associate editor of the Great Plains Quarterly. Dr. Peters and his wife, Barbara Cole Peters, have a son, Russell, who lives and works in Knoxville, Tennessee with his wife, young son and daughter.