When CHALLENGE LEADS to
                           TRANSFORMATION:

 

Dr. Leo Parvis ’98, Ph.D. in Health Services,
earns 2007 Outstanding Alumni Award

 

As an American citizen of Iranian descent in a post-Sept. 11 world, Dr. Leo Parvis had to contend with not only the shock and grief he felt, but also the palpable anti-Middle Eastern backlash that has crept through America since the terrorist attacks.

 

“After 9/11, my life as a Persian changed forever,” says Parvis, who in 2001 was applying his Walden University Ph.D. in Health Services degree as an environmental public health professional. “People looked at me oddly and treated me in a different way. I was afraid to go out to places where large groups of people congregated, such as malls, and I took to wearing an American flag pinned to my lapel to show my loyalty as an American citizen.”

 

By the winter of 2002, the distrust of Middle Easterners transformed Parvis’ professional life.

 

“The day after President Bush’s ‘Axis of Evil’ [2002 State of the Union Address] speech identifying Iran as one of the enemies of the U.S., I was laid off from my job,” Parvis recalls. “This, one week after receiving a positive performance review and service recognition. As you can imagine, it was very disturbing.”

 

This life-altering event prompted Parvis to reevaluate his career choice and consider a job that would promote the understanding of diverse cultures.

 

“I decided to leave public health and dedicate my career to cultural diversity initiatives,” he says.

 

Not long afterward, Parvis became a human rights commissioner for his town of Chaska, Minn., and began writing a column on diversity and human rights for his local paper. He also co-organized Chaska’s “Dialogues on Race.” During the dialogues, he facilitated discussions with Hispanic, Vietnamese, African-American and other multicultural representatives.

 

Around the same time, Parvis began teaching cultural diversity and other courses at Dunwoody College of Technology in Minneapolis. It was here that he organized his first diversity forum—initially as a requirement for students in his cultural diversity classes.

 

“At the very beginning, I had a great challenge because 93 percent of the students were white,” he says. But the forums—which had themes such as disability, racial profiling, race and ethnicity, and immigration—were well-received by the community.

 

Soon the forums evolved beyond their intended scope and became schoolwide events, including celebrations of multi-ethnic holidays. In five years, Parvis has brought more than 40 diversity speakers to the Dunwoody campus. What’s more, the school has listed diversity as one of the top five goals in its strategic plan. Parvis says the critical-thinking, research, and writing skills he gained from his Walden education gave him the confidence he needed to take on large-scale community projects. But the university’s social change mission spoke to him the most.

 

“I learned to look at things in a different way and to realize that I could make an impact in so many ways if I chose to put in the required effort. When I left Walden, I felt truly prepared to meet the world and its many challenges and opportunities, and to take on new things,” he says.

 

The best advice Parvis has for alumni who want to establish diversity programs at their workplaces or schools is to start their own diversity council and then plan programs under the council’s auspices.

 

“Don’t forget to create a budget to support your efforts. That way, you can bring in guest speakers and diversity trainers who have long-term experience,” says Parvis, who also recommends publishing diversity-related articles in your school or employee newsletter and getting management involved.

 

Parvis says he is very happy with his career change and is more committed than ever to diversity education. With partners, he has even established a diversity consulting company, www.diversitypromotions.com, and published a book, Understanding Cultural Diversity in Today’s Complex World.

 

“We are having an impact on all ages,” he says. “I know we’re making a difference, and that is very fulfilling.”

 

 

 

NextQ&A with Tim Wachtel