Rate My Professor Peter Fawson

Pete R. Fawson, MSW, PhD, is a Professor of Social Work in the Department of Social Work at Appalachian State University, part of the Beaver College of Health Sciences. He earned his PhD in Social Work from the University of Utah. Fawson joined Appalachian State University in 2014 as an Assistant Professor, advanced to Associate Professor, and was promoted to full Professor. He teaches undergraduate and graduate research methods courses in social work. His academic career emphasizes collaborative research with students and faculty across social work, psychology, and philosophy.

Fawson's research centers on alleviating suffering for individuals and communities. He has extensive experience in dating violence prevention and education, developing, implementing, and evaluating programs targeting teen dating violence and adult intimate partner violence. His work explores aggression, intimate partner violence, effective violence prevention strategies, interventions addressing violence, and the role of anger in people's lives. Additional projects examine wisdom in social work and how practitioners embody wisdom with clients and communities. Fawson has published extensively on these topics, including the book Applied Social Research: A Tool for Social Work and the Human Services (2019 and 2024 editions), "Practitioner Wisdom: A Conceptual Approach" in the British Journal of Social Work (2022, with Jack Kwong), and "Mormonism and Becoming a Social Worker: Applying an Intersectional Lens During Qualitative Data Analysis" (2022). Other key publications cover sexual coercion and mental health symptoms among heterosexual men (2009), mutually violent attitudes and intimate partner violence in Botswana (2011), controlling behaviors as predictors of partner violence among adolescents (2015), and predictors of reproductive autonomy among rural university populations (2018). He has presented research at conferences including the Society for Social Work and Research. Fawson's contributions advance understanding of violence prevention and social work practice.