Welcome to the home page of Pete Powers!
I’m Dean of the School of the Humanities here at Messiah College. I came to Messiah in 1997, serving first as a professor in the Department of English, then as Chair of the department. Since 2008, I’ve been privileged to serve as Dean to a creative, energetic, and caring faculty who take educating students for leadership and service to the church and to society as their first priority.
I’ve been lucky enough to have a career at Messiah that’s let me explore a lot of different things about myself
and others. I enjoy finding the connections between my many areas of scholarly interest: American literature,
ethnic studies, creative writing, cultural theory and, more recently, leadership and administration. I hope
someday soon to write an essay on the relationship between having trained as a writer of fiction and being a
good administrator. I especially enjoy two things about being an administrator. First, I enjoy identifying
problems to be solved or opportunities to be taken hold of, and then creating and implementing plans that can
address those issues. Second, I enjoy recognizing and identifying the gifts and strengths of others and finding
ways that those gifts can be brought together to create a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.
A few personal notes. I'm married to Shannon and am the father of two great kids: Devon, who is on her way to stardom in musical theatre, and Colin, who writes and plays guitar with more passion and skill than I can hope to muster. I attend St. Stephen's Episcopal Cathedral in Harrisburg. I take my avocation to be singing: in my spare time, which means almost never, I perform with local choirs and opera companies, having trained for ten years to be an operatic tenor.
