Peter Heckman, academic dean for the main campus at Southwestern College, will be the featured speaker at the annual opening convocation on Friday, Aug. 22, in the Richardson Performing Arts Center.  There is no admission charge and the public is invited to attend.

Following the college’s 2014-15 academic year theme of courage, Heckman will speak about moral courage.

Heckman has a bachelor of arts degree in English and philosophy from Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa, and a master of arts degree in philosophy and a Ph.D. in philosophy from Northwestern University.  Before joining Southwestern College, Heckman was professor of interdisciplinary studies and associate dean at the University College, Zayed University in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.  

His first year in Abu Dhabi was spent as the associate dean.  

“I spent a lot of time working with faculty on several different committees and interviewing and hiring new faculty and evaluating continuing faculty,” Heckman says.  “I found I was interacting mostly with faculty who were from around the world but who were not Emirati.  I thought it would be good, as I was living in a country, to get to know its people and culture a little better.  So the next year I served on the faculty and taught global awareness classes to Emirati students.  The campus was segregated by gender, so I had a few classes that were all male and a few classes that were all female.”

Heckman’s wife, Pamela Thompson, was active in the tennis community in Abu Dhabi, and served on the board of the Abu Dhabi American Women’s Network, and as a writer-in-residence for the Art Hub in Liwa. She also taught courses in communication at Zayed University.

“We enjoyed Abu Dhabi,” says Heckman.  “One of the nice things, for us, was the ability to travel easily to other places on that side of the world.  In the two years we were in Abu Dhabi, my wife and I visited Istanbul, Bangkok, Prague, Hong Kong, Singapore, Muscat, and Doha.  I will miss the weather and the ocean, but we are glad to be back in the United States and excited to be working for Southwestern College.”

Heckman now lives in Winfield with his wife.  She is an adjunct English professor for Southwestern College.

He comes from a family entrenched in higher education:  His father, Phil, served 20 years as president of Doane College in Crete, Neb.  One of his sisters, Susan Lawlor, is the chair of the biology department at a campus of Latrobe University in Australia.  

The opening convocation will wrap up the festivities for Fall Frenzy 2014 and officially start the academic year. It will also feature the introduction of new faculty, recognition of students included on the Dean’s Honor Roll for the spring 2014 semester, and announcement of the Scholar of the College.