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, and the Federation of Illinois Independent Colleges and Universities. Additionally, he was a member for 8 years of the Editorial Board and Book Review Editor of Planning for Higher Education, the quarterly professional 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.

Professor Parkyn holds the Ph.D. in higher education from Boston College and attended the Institute for Educational Management and the Seminar for Experienced Presidents, both at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.