Darrell Peterson

Professor

“I was very shy when I was a young person. And I think that has helped my awareness of what students are feeling.”

“I really think that teachers are born, not made,” says Darrell Peterson, chairman of the SMC Mathematics Department. “I had wanted to be a teacher ever since I was in the sixth grade. I had some very fine teachers myself,” he says. “And I’ve tried to emulate the qualities I found most helpful in those teachers.”

Darrell has been delivering the helpful quality of his teaching to the classrooms at SMC since 1956. “There are three or four of us who still endure from the early days,” he says with a warm laugh. “Of course, there were only a few little buildings then. Much has changed.”

“Knowing your subject thoroughly is most important in teaching,” says Darrell. “But you must also be very people-oriented. A lot of my students come to me,” he continues, “just to talk. They come from other countries or from homes where relationships are not necessarily ideal. So it helps for them to know that I’m available to be a good friend to them.”

“We have an excellent math department at SMC,” says Darrell. “We respect each other and work well together. And many people—students and teachers—have come to me and said what a pleasure it is to be involved in a department where there are such obviously good feelings about the work we do.”

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