In the first installment of “Monday with …” the Star sat down with President John Peters to learn more about the man who leads NIU.

Peters is celebrating his 10th year as NIU’s president, having started on June 1, 2000. During his time here, Peters has accomplished feats which include NIU’s admission to the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges - an honor reserved for the top five percent of universities nationwide.

He describes himself in three words as “a nice guy” and says he loves Huskie sports and playing sports, but is bad at golf. Peters enjoys sitting in his office, looking out upon campus, thinking about the next thing to do to help students and “move NIU forward.” But there is much more to be learned about the chief executive officer of NIU.

NS: What made you want to become president of a university?
JP: I never thought about being president. I have a lot of young people, they could be students, graduate students or people who are in administration or academics ask me what do you do to become president. I always think ‘oh boy,’ if they are interested in that, more power to them, but being a president is kind of an outcome of being involved in higher education … I’m glad I did it. I don’t necessarily recommend it to everybody and there is no formula to do it.

NS: If you were not NIU President, or in academia, what would you be doing?
JP: I’d be a lawyer, a judge, something like that. That’s what my mom wanted me to be. My family was very interested in political things and ideas. I’m Polish and Bohemian, so I’m second generation and we lived on a farm. We were interested, always, in the world and big ideas. My mom thought I should be a lawyer and I could do that I suppose. Something with helping youth, even in the law.

NS: If you had one day, completely free to do whatever you wanted to do, what would you do?
JP: Oh I’d go fly-fishing in some of the great streams. Maybe that was 10 years ago now because I’ve been so involved, if I had one day to do whatever I want I’d probably want to spend it with my son and my daughter-in-law and my grandchildren.

NS: What is something that the NIU campus would be surprised to know about you?
JP: I’m a woodworker. And I don’t make many projects but my grandfather was a contractor and a fine woodworker, and I’ve sort of picked up a little bit of that. It’s kind of a boring thing, but they might be surprised to know that.

NS: In 25 words, what is NIU?
JP: NIU is a fantastic educational institution that reaches out to hungry, intelligent, first and second generation kids and turns them into teachers, doctors, poets and good citizens.

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