By Simon Bravo, Nazifa Islam, and Erin O’Sullivan
Upon meeting Peter Stevenson, Director of Recreation, Health, and Wellness at Dillard University, you realize very quickly that you are in the presence of one of those individuals who—as if through magic or sheer willpower—is able to transform the resources available to him into much more than just the sum of their component parts.
Peter Stevenson has been the Director of Recreation, Health, and Wellness at Dillard University since 2011.At the top of his game
With over 20 years of experience in higher education and the private sector of health, wellness, and recreation—his current work with the Tulane Prevention Research Center‘s Community Advisory Board surely benefits from his experiences working in community recreation and wellness-based settings—Peter now exercises his knowhow in service of Dillard University and the broader New Orleans’ community.
Peter first met with the Chair of the Search Committee for the Dillard University Director position at the 2010 Emerging Recreational Sports Leaders Conference, which was being held on Dillard’s campus. Dillard had been without a dedicated campus recreation department or consistent programs for years, and so the Chancellor was surprised when Peter explained Dillard’s integral role in the founding of an association that currently supports hundreds of institutions, thousands of professionals, and millions of students across North America (learn more about NIRSA’s history). Shortly after that meeting, Peter was offered the chance to bring his diverse skill set and strong community ethic to New Orleans by heading up Dillard’s Department of Recreation, Health, and Wellness.
In July of 2011, Peter recalls, he took over a department with “four treadmills, four ellipticals, and a fitness center made up of a couple of pieces of equipment from the old weight room that Peter moved across campus in a U-Haul truck.” It truly was a frontier; there were no organized recreation programs in place, no website or mission statement, and Peter’s own position was only made possible by a grant that wasn’t guaranteed to exist beyond a handful of years.
Serving a diverse body of around 1,200 students, Dillard University’s Department of Recreation, Health, and Wellness, Peter beams, “now offers students 20-25 programs a semester; access to swimming 5-6 days a week; participation in the Tennis On Campus program; volleyball, soccer, badminton; free movie screenings every other week” since the department—i.e., Peter—manages an ASCAP-licensed movie theatre; “bowling; intramurals in 10-12 sports a semester (this term he’s even holding Ms. Pacman and Kickball tournaments); access to a handfulof club sports, including a nationally decorated martial arts club; nutrition and cooking classes; personalized fitness instruction; priority access to the integrated wellness clinic; an indoor track; considerably expanded free weight and cardio equipment; and so much more.”
And not unlike other colleges and universities of a similar profile, he’s doing all of this on a shoestring budget and with the added, if expected, complications that come with sharing facility space with an Athletics Department that serves a much smaller percentage of the university’s students yet is still given first priority in scheduling.
Members of Dillard’s martial arts club have won multiple first-place titles at the national level.When Peter and two of his colleagues from two other HBCUs presented at the 2013 NIRSA Annual Conference & Recreational Sports Expo in Las Vegas, the three schools together had a cumulative operating annual budget of $30,000. Still they wowed session attendees with just how much their schools have been able to achieve through creative solutions and collaboration.
Always upping his game
Peter talks about his first NIRSA conference with the same excitement and detail of a great shortstop reminiscing about donning a glove and playing catch for the first time. “I was so nervous,” he says. “I was alone—the only person there from my school—but in the conference hotel lobby some more experienced NIRSA members gestured at me to come over and join them.” There in the lobby, they started exchanging ideas and Peter expressed how his recent experience in the profession was so different from his undergraduate experiences. “They told me,” he recalls, “young man, we’ve all been there and done that.”
And from that experience he offers this advice to anyone who is breaking into a new position or a new field: “Find the older people who have ‘been there and done that’ to learn those things you didn’t cover in class. Someone in [your] organization can help you out, whatever the challenge.” At least part of his own success, he says, is due to the fact that he often had supervisors who strongly encouraged his own professional development and continuous learning.
In an article he penned for the New Orleans’s community newspaper The Trumpet, Peter asserts “life isn’t about finding yourself—life is about creating yourself.” He reminds us that part of staying healthy involves expanding our capacities. “Stretch your abilities,” he encourages.
Staying fired up and striving for excellence
Peter will tell you enthusiastically about how much responsibility the work study students he works with take on. How he couldn’t afford to operate without their willingness to consistently go above and beyond. How the skills that they learn working in campus recreation will continue to serve them well throughout their lives—whatever their chosen career paths.
What he doesn’t profess so adamantly is that as the only full-time professional member of the Dillard University Recreation, Health, and Wellness staff, he is ultimately responsible for facilities, operations, programming, marketing, training, personnel, risk-management, sponsorships, etc.
When we ask Peter how he is able to manage it all and still take on things like a community service project or the introduction of a recurring game night, he admits: “It can be a little scary.” He quickly follows up, though, with, “but it’s a good kind of scary.” It doesn’t take long in his company to sense how motivated he is by working with students and with the broader New Orleans’ community that Dillard serves. Dillard offers affordable community memberships to the facilities, and the full-service health clinic that occupies part of the Recreation, Health, and Wellness Center space is accessible to Dillard students and faculty as well as the neighboring Gentilly community.
The sense of community is part of the charm of a school like Dillard, he explains. “At a big school it’s going to be easier to blend in—at a smaller school you have an opportunity to stand out.” And Peter’s influence on the Dillard community is proof that people will take notice when you do good work. One freshman told him he wasn’t allowed to leave until she graduated. And he’s celebrated by Campus Safety Officers who tell him that as his participation rates have climbed these past years, the judicial crime rates have dropped—and they can always tell when programming is going on at the Rec Center since the whole campus gets noticeably quieter.
Xs and Os: Pattern your playbook on proven tactics
So what are Peter’s secrets to getting the most out of his resources?
Be a team player
Certainly, his strong team ethic hasn’t hindered him. “In a small campus environment like Dillard,” he says, “you have to find allies who share your goals.” Whether it’s through a partnership with Dillard’s International Program to intentionally include and involve a diverse international community on campus, or working with the university’s athletic teams to arrange access to facilities and equipment during non-peak hours, Peter remains flexible and looks for every opportunity to maximize the benefits of recreation, health, and wellness through collaboration. That is one of the advantages of being a NIRSA member, he says: “there’s no need to re-invent the wheel.”
Bring your A-game
The research that NIRSA’s founder, Dr. Wasson, did about the intramural programs at 11 Historically Black Colleges & Universities was the focus at the very first annual meeting of dedicated campus recreation professionals. That first meeting took place at Dillard University in 1950.
NIRSA has since grown from that first meeting, which welcomed 22 people, into an organization that in 2015 will see over 2,500 students and professionals exchanging ideas and best practices on a much wider range of topics in collegiate recreation. When we asked Peter what, if anything, he thought about directing the recreation program at the institution that is the birthplace of the organization, he replied, “I feel like I definitely have to bring it.”
“When we do something, people know about it,” he tells us. Whether he’s showing a first-time fitness center visitor how to use a piece of equipment or working to make Dillard the first Historically Black College or University to host a Tennis On Campus regional championship, Peter’s professional integrity is present in everything he touches.
Be resilient and relentless
Like a black belt martial artist—which Peter also just happens to be—who redirects his opponent’s energy and uses it to his own benefit, Peter is able to take perceived disadvantages and transform them into opportunities. “You can’t let the fact that you may not have the right tools to do the job—whether it’s t-shirts for a program or access to equipment—be enough of a reason for you to give up.” Because, with perspective and a can-do attitude, you’ll see that “you just may not have the right tools at that particular moment.”
If Peter had allowed all the things that he didn’t have access to—or the money the department didn’t have when he first came to Dillard University—slow him down, he certainly wouldn’t be celebrating the more than the 11,000 visits his facility welcomes annually.
Live your values and always play with a passion
The theme for the 2015 NIRSA Annual Conference & Recreational Sports Exposition is “Moving Our Values Forward.” Long before NIRSA had articulated its strategic values for the Association, members like Peter have been building their careers on principles of health and wellbeing; equity, diversity, and inclusion; leadership; service; global perspective; and sustainable practices. They are passionate about their role in bringing these values to a new generation of students who will integrate them into their own lives and into their respective communities.
Like most career collegiate recreation professionals—and despite the many, many hats that Peter wears in any given day—he sees himself as an educator first-and-foremost. “The opportunity to teach,” Peter reminds us, “comes naturally through recreation. And it is so inspiring to see students take new information and just run with it.”
