MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — New College of Behavioral and Health Sciences Dean Peter Grandjean is in the spotlight on the November edition of “Out of the Blue,” the television magazine program of Middle Tennessee State University.

Show host Andrew Oppmann, vice president for marketing and communications, talked with Grandjean about the diverse majors and degree programs offered in the College of Behavioral and Health Sciences, or CBHS, his higher education career and his plans at MTSU.

“The reason I was attracted to the job in the first place was because of the makeup of the college and how the college interacts with the other academic units on campus,” said Grandjean, who came to MTSU after serving five years as dean of the School of Applied Sciences at the University of Mississippi in Oxford.

Watch the segment:

CBHS houses programs like tourism and hospitality, criminal justice, social work, public health, psychology, nursing and even textiles and merchandising. While those may not seem related, Grandjean said they are.

“It really offers a lot of opportunities for students to really hone in and find a niche in the marketplace, in their professions, and their professional careers,” said Grandjean, who took the helm of CBHS on July 1.

In addition to touting the values of over 50 undergraduate and graduate majors in CBHS, Grandjean shared his own pathway into higher education.

“I started off wanting to be a football coach, believe it or not, and so I was a biology teacher

and a high school football coach that was charged with developing the strength in human performance in our team,” Grandjean said.

Fueled by curiosity, he forged a path in higher education.

Grandjean also shared his vision for leading an academic unit focused on training students in a variety of health and human services fields. He sees the potential for collaboration in all the CBHS programs.

“These programs all match together in some way, shape, or form and it’s really intriguing,” Grandjean said. “My job as a dean, and the exciting part about it, is to create an environment where people are free to be curious, free to innovate, right, and flourish and think about those ideas on their own.”

Learn more about CBHS at https://cbhs.mtsu.edu/.

“Out of the Blue” is available anytime on the university’s YouTube channel, the True Blue TV channel, Roku, Apple TV and Amazon Fire TV. It also airs on Murfreesboro cable Channel 9 daily at 6 a.m., 11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.; NewsChannel5+ at 6:30 p.m. Sundays; and streamed on the MTSU Jazz Network through WMOT.org at 7 a.m. on the first Sunday of each month; and on other cable outlets in Middle Tennessee, so check local listings. 

It is also available as a podcast on iTunes and Google Play and as individual interview segments on Spotify at https://spoti.fi/453hxg3. 

Watch previous episodes of “Out of the Blue” at https://mtsunews.com/out-of-the-blue.

— Nancy DeGennaro (Nancy.DeGennaro@mtsu.edu)