Peter Pihos
(he/him/his), Dean
About
Peter Pihos is the Dean of Fairhaven College and an Associate Professor in Western’s History Department, where he teaches a two-quarter survey of African American history and a range of upper-level courses on civil rights and Black Power, twentieth-century social movements, legal history, urban history, and crime, policing, and punishment in the United States.
Trained as a lawyer, socio-legal scholar, and historian, he studies the relationship between race and the politics of policing in American cities from the 1950s to the 1980s. His work has appeared in From Rights to Lives: The Evolution of the Black Freedom Struggle, The War on Drugs: A History, Radical History Review, Journal of Urban History, and Resonance: A Journal of Sound and Culture. He is completing a book on Black police officers and beginning a new project on the role of the Internal Revenue Service in the War on Drugs.
In addition to teaching and research, Peter has held leadership roles in Western’s faculty union—the United Faculty of Western Washington—including Chief Steward, Vice-President, and President, and has served on the board of the American Federation of Teachers of Washington State. He currently serves on the board of the Urban History Association and works to advance high-quality, accessible, and affordable public higher education.