Ph.D, UNC Chapel Hill
Professor
Office: Living Learning Academic 126
Phone: (828) 262-6316
E-mail:
reichlepc@appstate.edu
Traveling is a major way to build community and Pete has taken his Watauga Mentor groups to New Orleans several times. His social work Death, Dying and Living class travels to Washington, D.C. to visit many places including the Holocaust Museum and Arlington Cemetery where his parents are buried. But his most noted travels are his spring break trips to the Hopi and Navajo Nations in Arizona. Here folks study community building with Native tribes. The course allows students to experience being a minority in another almost third world culture. Challenges come from many different avenues and participants soon lose their preconceived notions about Native Americans.
In 2003, he served on the Chancellors Student Life Task Force which led to some important changes in campus life. He is currently on the building committee for the new Watauga living learning center and also serves a special committee looking at ASU's relationships with off-campus housing vendors. On week-ends you might find him in the new student union playing drums with a swing band, the dance floor filled with Wataugans.
Pete Reichle arrived in Watauga and IDS during the decade of the nineties, coming from the Health Education Program in the College of Fine & Applied Arts. He continues to teach his most popular course Relationships and Community which he started on arrival. In addition to his background in counseling, social work and public health, he brought a student generated outstanding teaching award. As Jay Wentworth says, "Pete is constantly moving people toward community and interaction with each other."
Traveling is a major way to build community and Pete and his wife Mary have taken his peer mentor groups to New Orleans among other places. His Death, Dying and Living classes have frequently gone to Washington, D. C. to visit many places including the Holocaust Museum and Arlington Cemetery where his parents are buried. But his most noted travels are his trips to the Hopi and Navajo Nations is Arizona where students camp in sacred Canyon DeChelly. (see web site). His long time Navajo friend Andrew Henry comes to campus each fall to talk with groups and sell his marvelous jewelry. This course allows students to study community building with native tribes and to experience being a minority in another almost third world culture. In 2001, because of his love for outstanding food, he instituted a course on Savannah where he takes students over fall break. Walking the historic squares and cemeteries students soak up the history and vitality of the southern culture.
He began the Watauga Peer Mentor Program, cementing second year Wataugans to the program as they helped new students adjust to college. In 2004, he helped start the IDS Majors club and teamed up with Harriette Buchanan to teach the new course Contextures: Disease and Health.
In 2003, he became a Certified Thanatologist to add to his many other professional credentials. He can often be heard telling students to "take care of that unfinished business."
