BIOGRAPHY:

Professor Parkyn has served as a faculty member, vice president for planning, senior vice president, and provost at private colleges in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. Subsequently, he was president for eleven years at North Park University in Chicago. As president he led the university’s largest fundraising campaign, guided a transformation of the undergraduate curriculum through a commitment to adopt the city of Chicago as curricular home and classroom, and oversaw a rapid and deep change in student demographics leading to enrollment of students of color exceeding 65% for both undergraduate and graduate programs.

He has served on a number of boards including the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, OneGoal-Chicago, Campus Compact Illinois, the Associated Colleges of Illinois, the Federation of Independent Colleges and Universities, and Brethren Colleges Abroad. Additionally, he was a member for 8 years of the Editorial Board and Book Review Editor of Planning for Higher Education, the quarterly journal of the Society for College and University Planning. For a number of years he has been a peer evaluator and accreditation visit chair for the Middle States Commission on Higher Education.

Selected Publications

Parkyn, D.L. (forthcoming, 2024). “Can a University Be Re-Cast[e]? Lessons on Crafting a Counter-Story toward Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging from One White Legacy Institution’s 25-Year Journey.” About Campus

Parkyn, D.L. (2018). “Come Learn with Us”, The Cresset, LXXXI(4), 42-44

Parkyn, D.L. (2017). North Park University. In K.A. Longman (Ed.), Diversity matters: Race, ethnicity and the future of Christian higher education (pp. 47-64). Abilene Christian University Press

Courses Taught

HED 705 Foundations of American Higher Education
HED 712 Higher Education Administration and Leadership
HED 725 Finance and Strategic Planning
HED 732 Assessment of Student Learning
HED 794 Dissertation Research and Evaluation
HED 795 Dissertation Design