JCU COLLEGE OF ARTS and SCIENCES
ASSOCIATE DEANS

Peter J. Kvidera, Ph.D.

Associate Dean for Academic Affairs

Associate Professor, Department of English

Email: pkvidera@jcu.edu

Peter J. Kvidera, an Associate Professor of English, is Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the College of Arts and Sciences.  Dr. Kvidera earned his B.A. in English literature from Loras College in 1987, his M.A. in British and American literature from Marquette University in 1992, and his Ph.D. in English literature from the University of Washington in 1999.  Before joining the faculty at John Carroll, he taught as a Mellon Fellow at Duke University’s Center for Teaching, Learning, and Writing.

Dr. Kvidera’s teaching focus is nineteenth-and twentieth-century American literature, as well as Japanese literature in translation.  His recent courses include Major American Writers, American Immigrant Narrative, American Realism, Hemingway and Faulkner, and Modern and Contemporary American Literature.  His research fields include U.S. immigrant and ethnic literatures, and he has published articles in New England Quarterly, American Literature, American Quarterly, American Literary Scholarship, and The Image of the Frontier in Literature, Media, and Society.  Prior to achieving his master’s degree, Dr. Kvidera spent two years teaching English in Japan.

In addition to teaching and research, Dr. Kvidera is active in University service.  He has served on faculty council and advisory boards for the Cardinal Suenens Center, East Asian Studies, the Honors Program, and the Arrupe Scholars Program.  He has also chaperoned student service and academic trips.

Beyond his academic life, Dr. Kvidera is a trained singer and currently performs with the Cleveland Orchestra as a member of the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus.  He has traveled with the Cleveland Orchestra on European and domestic tours.

A native of Iowa, Dr. Kvidera is now happy at home in Northeast Ohio.  He and his wife live in the City of Cleveland’s Edgewater neighborhood.

Mindy Peden is Associate Dean for Student Services and Academic Advising in the College of Arts and Sciences as well as Associate Professor of Political Science.  Dr. Peden earned her BA in Political Science in 1996 from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and her MA (2001) and Ph. D. (2004) in Government from Cornell University. 

A political theorist, Dr. Peden’s research has been primarily about taxation, political economy, nationalism, and the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa.  Her most recent research is on the role of luck, chance, and uncertainty in theorizing the political, as well as the concept and practice of diaspora as it relates to identities in Northern Ireland.  She has published research in Studies in Political Economy, Contemporary Political Theory, Politics and Policy and Political Concepts: Committee on Concepts and Methods Working Paper Series.  Her “Gambling for Certainty: Luck, Chance and Uncertainty in Politics,” which was co-authored with former John Carroll University undergraduate (and now Ph.D. student in Public Administration at Virginia Tech) Nicole Rishel has been nominated for the Award for Conceptual Innovation in Comparative Politics at the International Political Science Association World Congress of Political Science.