Full Transcript for Dr. Thomas Parham - 11th President of California State University, Dominguez Hills

00:04:24.639 --> 00:04:28.399 So while I'm born in New York, my bones are nurtured in California. 00:04:28.399 --> 00:04:29.759 So I'm an LA snob. 00:04:29.759 --> 00:04:32.319 So uh that part's true. 00:04:32.319 --> 00:04:47.199 But I come from a family, uh single parent, where mama raised four kids by herself, uh, worked for the federal government for 32 years, never earned more than $18,000 a year. 00:04:47.199 --> 00:04:47.759 Wow. 00:04:47.759 --> 00:04:56.879 Four kids went to college, three finished BAs, two with PhDs, nobody on drugs, nobody in jail, nobody in the gang. 00:04:56.879 --> 00:05:08.240 So you talk about inspiration and where that comes from, come out of that kind of discipline and hard work and really perseverance through adversity that is there. 00:05:08.240 --> 00:05:13.360 Um a lot of people don't know my birthday is October 2nd. 00:05:13.360 --> 00:05:16.560 So I share a birthday with the famous Nat Turner. 00:05:16.560 --> 00:05:19.279 So who led one of the first slave rebellions. 00:05:19.279 --> 00:05:24.160 So if you want to know where my warrior spirit comes from, it comes from places like that. 00:05:24.160 --> 00:05:38.879 Um but I've also had a a uh a space in my life where I have my mother's heart and always caring about family and caring about other people. 00:05:38.879 --> 00:05:45.120 But a social justice conscience that has now manifest in the ways in which I do lots of work. 00:05:45.120 --> 00:05:49.439 Like I wrote my first essay and class project on Dr. 00:05:49.439 --> 00:05:54.399 King probably in the seventh or eighth grade in grammar school. 00:05:54.399 --> 00:06:04.079 So um, you know, that's that's what's part of my background, and that's who I am really at the core of my being. 00:06:04.959 --> 00:06:13.199 And it it's incredible to see where you come from and how that influenced your train of thought. 00:06:13.199 --> 00:06:16.720 Um, but why choose education? 00:06:16.720 --> 00:06:19.680 What why that sector? 00:06:19.680 --> 00:06:27.040 Because you can create that impact and tell your story and and and motivate in so many different ways, but why in education? 00:06:27.279 --> 00:06:37.839 You know, that's an interesting question because education is the field that I decided to kind of lend my talents and and gifts. 00:06:37.839 --> 00:06:40.480 Uh, in some cases it chose me. 00:06:40.480 --> 00:06:50.399 Um, but I started out on these streets here, deciding that I wanted to be a police officer or an attorney. 00:06:50.399 --> 00:06:52.319 Interestingly enough. 00:06:52.319 --> 00:07:02.959 I grew up in LA when the Los Angeles Police Department was not a very friendly law enforcement agency. 00:07:02.959 --> 00:07:10.000 I've been up against the wall with a racial epithet thrown at me just for walking the street while black. 00:07:10.000 --> 00:07:23.040 So I know those kind of spaces, but in my ear is always echoing my mom's voice, who says, Son, you have no business complaining about anything unless you're willing to put something better in its place. 00:07:23.040 --> 00:07:34.399 So I decided that I would move into trying to do something that would impact the criminal justice system that was my my space. 00:07:34.399 --> 00:07:48.639 Um along the way, as I was thinking about either police officer or an attorney, started college as a criminology major. 00:07:48.639 --> 00:08:01.199 But the more I learned about the discipline, the more that I believed that the criminal justice system was not about helping people. 00:08:01.199 --> 00:08:04.639 I've always been that servant leader in my spirit. 00:08:04.639 --> 00:08:09.759 It required more ability to manipulate the system than it did to really help anybody. 00:08:09.759 --> 00:08:21.759 But fortunately, while I was in college and I started out, you know, here at Cal State Long Beach, they had the largest criminology department in the Western United States. 00:08:21.759 --> 00:08:35.600 But once I got kind of turned off to criminology, I happened to participate in what young people now we call service learning. 00:08:35.600 --> 00:08:40.639 Back then there were opportunities to be able to work in the community. 00:08:40.639 --> 00:08:52.480 And I thank uh Ruby Beale, who ran the EPIC program, Educational Participation in the Community, I think is what it was called back then, at Cal State University Long Beach. 00:08:52.480 --> 00:08:59.759 In one semester, I worked in a halfway house for so-called incorrigible and runaway interviews. 00:08:59.759 --> 00:09:05.360 The next semester I interned down at the community psychology clinic in downtown Long Beach. 00:09:05.360 --> 00:09:09.039 And that's where really my passion for psychology was born. 00:09:09.039 --> 00:09:24.399 So it was a mixture of the academic that I took in intro to psych and personality theory classes and the co-curricular where I had a chance to actually apply some of the things that I had learned and put my own spin on it for my own self. 00:09:24.399 --> 00:09:31.840 Part of figuring out what you want to do in life is not just stringing out what are you interested in, but also what are you good at. 00:09:31.840 --> 00:09:41.360 So I had parents talk to me, wow, my son has really, you know, uh grown and changed since he's been impacted by you in this halfway house. 00:09:41.360 --> 00:09:46.960 Or I had supervisors in the community psych clinic that said, Wow, you got a knack for this. 00:09:46.960 --> 00:09:48.879 You need to think about this as a career. 00:09:48.879 --> 00:09:57.840 So part of that affirmation and validation for what I was doing really launched my career to say, um, I need to make some changes. 00:09:57.840 --> 00:10:01.279 So one of the changes I made is I changed university. 00:10:01.279 --> 00:10:05.519 So I went from Cal State Long Beach to University of California, Irvine. 00:10:05.519 --> 00:10:15.679 Um, and the other is I switched from looking at criminal justice to really more

psychology, which is where I was born. 00:10:15.679 --> 00:10:19.759 Oh Irvine's an interesting place. 00:10:19.759 --> 00:10:26.720 When you talk about the seeds of possibility and the places that they grow. 00:10:26.720 --> 00:10:31.519 Um I stylized a piece of African wisdom in my life. 00:10:31.519 --> 00:10:38.000 It says, Life at its best is a creative synthesis of opposites in fruitful harmony. 00:10:38.000 --> 00:10:39.200 Let me say that again. 00:10:39.200 --> 00:10:44.799 Life at its best is a creative synthesis of opposites in fruitful harmony. 00:10:44.799 --> 00:10:50.000 It means sometimes your greatest strength can be your greatest weakness, sometimes your greatest weakness, your greatest strength. 00:10:50.000 --> 00:10:56.000 My greatest strength is I was bright, and I was born and blessed that way. 00:10:56.000 --> 00:11:00.639 My greatest weakness is I was bright because it made me a lazy student. 00:11:00.639 --> 00:11:07.679 So even when I was at Long Beach, I'm getting, you know, a couple A's, mostly B's, mostly C's. 00:11:07.679 --> 00:11:10.799 Even when I was in high school, same way. 00:11:10.799 --> 00:11:25.600 Like most black kids, Latino kids, who are very, you know, connected to people, I was a uh a student who, if the faculty member or the instructor cared about you, you performed real well. 00:11:25.600 --> 00:11:31.519 If the person showed almost no interest and didn't matter whether you were in their class or not, I didn't perform very well. 00:11:31.519 --> 00:11:33.440 I was a relational child. 00:11:33.440 --> 00:11:42.960 So I knew that piece coming in out of high school, and and as I began to be more in touch with who I am at the core of my being, that's what really happened. 00:11:42.960 --> 00:11:48.799 Well, while I was at Irvine, I took a class that changed my life. 00:11:48.799 --> 00:11:52.240 And it was a course in African-American psychology. 00:11:52.240 --> 00:11:55.679 It was taught by the great Joe White. 00:11:55.679 --> 00:11:56.159 Dr. 00:11:56.159 --> 00:12:06.080 Joseph White was first PhD in clinical psych out of Michigan State in 1961, as my memory. 00:12:06.080 --> 00:12:09.360 But he was the father of the whole black psychology movement. 00:12:09.360 --> 00:12:17.759 Well, he was a professor there and took his class, did well in his class, got an A, I think an A plus actually out of him, which is hard to do. 00:12:17.759 --> 00:12:33.200 And maybe two months after class had finished, I'm walking down the walkway at Irvine, and he's walking the other way, I guess about lunchtime, so he must have been coming from lunch. 00:12:33.200 --> 00:12:36.559 And I ran into him like most students would do. 00:12:36.559 --> 00:12:37.840 I said, Hey Dr. 00:12:37.840 --> 00:12:38.879 White, how you doing? 00:12:38.879 --> 00:12:40.080 Nice to see you. 00:12:40.080 --> 00:12:44.159 He simply walked up to Chris and he said something just. 00:12:44.159 --> 00:12:47.919 He put his arm around me. 00:12:47.919 --> 00:12:50.159 He called me young brother. 00:12:50.159 --> 00:12:57.840 He said, Young brother, you have too much talent and you were too brilliant to be running around here playing basketball chasing women. 00:12:57.840 --> 00:12:59.759 Come follow me. 00:12:59.759 --> 00:13:03.840 Last person I heard say, Come follow me, was walking on water in the Bible. 00:13:03.840 --> 00:13:07.200 Now he hadn't quite walked on water yet, but he was pretty close. 00:13:07.200 --> 00:13:13.279 And over the course of the next several weeks and months, he diagrammed my whole future up on a chalkboard. 00:13:13.279 --> 00:13:14.559 Now they use dry race board. 00:13:14.559 --> 00:13:16.639 He had a chalkboard right by his desk. 00:13:16.639 --> 00:13:22.159 And he's we're gonna tighten up on your grades and we're gonna do this, and then you've mastered my class already. 00:13:22.159 --> 00:13:24.799 So I'm gonna make you my teaching assistant as an undergrad. 00:13:24.799 --> 00:13:28.639 Your job is to help students master the course in the way that you did. 00:13:28.639 --> 00:13:32.159 Then we're gonna see you to grad school and you're gonna get a master's and you're gonna get a PhD. 00:13:32.159 --> 00:13:35.440 And the more he's talking, the bigger my eyes are getting. 00:13:35.440 --> 00:13:36.159 All right? 00:13:36.159 --> 00:13:44.000 Because here's somebody who's believing in me, but also he's echoing in stereo in the other ear, what my mother had placed in it before. 00:13:44.000 --> 00:13:46.879 Because I would come home and bring report cards home and other stuff. 00:13:46.879 --> 00:13:50.720 She says, son, you get grades like this and you do very little work. 00:13:50.720 --> 00:13:53.039 If you just did a little bit of work, you'd be brilliant. 00:13:53.039 --> 00:13:57.679 And of course, I'm like most kids, oh mom, where it goes in one air and out the other, but it stuck. 00:13:57.679 --> 00:13:59.279 And that's what made the big difference. 00:13:59.279 --> 00:14:08.960 So as it comes in stereo, this is a professor who is acclaimed, who's believing in me and can see things in me I can't quite see in myself. 00:14:08.960 --> 00:14:13.679 And from there, my trajectory in life, right, was just changed. 00:14:13.679 --> 00:14:22.480 And I owe so much to both he as well as subsequent mentors that I've had who have all been influential in my life in different ways. 00:14:22.480 --> 00:14:25.919 But that's where it all started that my trajectory changed. 00:14:26.320 --> 00:14:35.279 So when you're given the opportunity to be a president of a university like yours, you're doing the same with all your students. 00:14:35.279 --> 00:14:44.879 I'm assuming I'm sure you're closer to more than others, but you're you're giving them vision, you're giving them hope, you're inspiring them to do well in life, right? 00:14:44.879 --> 00:14:46.559 But why higher education? 00:14:46.559 --> 00:14:48.559 Why not like early education? 00:14:48.559 -->

00:14:53.519 Because I mean, a lot they say the first five years of your life is kind of where you build that character, right? 00:14:53.519 --> 00:14:54.720 Comes from home. 00:14:54.720 --> 00:15:01.360 So when you get them younger, they're kind of they're easier to motivate, I would assume. 00:15:01.360 --> 00:15:03.440 So why not in early education? 00:15:03.679 --> 00:15:07.279 So for me, I think it was uh it was just a good fit. 00:15:07.279 --> 00:15:19.759 Um truly, I think there's no greater blessing in life next to being a parent than being entrusted with the personal and intellectual growth and development of students or young people. 00:15:19.759 --> 00:15:25.200 But I found a way to traverse the landscape of education and just do it in different tiers. 00:15:25.200 --> 00:15:31.360 When Joe White sent me to grad school, he said, I'm not sending you there just to be clinically good as a psychologist. 00:15:31.360 --> 00:15:41.919 He said, I want you to be clinical good, research good, academic good, because you never know where the options will be available for you, right, in terms of job possibilities. 00:15:41.919 --> 00:15:46.159 I want you trained across all of those uh subcategories. 00:15:46.159 --> 00:15:50.000 The consultation, the administration stuff will come after that. 00:15:50.000 --> 00:16:05.360 So when I came out and I'm doing research and I'm doing my clinical work and I'm doing my academic instruction, those were places where they were more aligned with what was happening in higher education, particularly being a scholar and doing my research and writing the books and whatever. 00:16:05.360 --> 00:16:06.240 I don't have that many. 00:16:06.240 --> 00:16:13.679 I only have, I don't know, six, seven books or something, but uh I've probably most of the stuff I write is in journal articles, referee journal articles. 00:16:13.679 --> 00:16:17.200 I probably have 55, 60, 65 of those. 00:16:17.200 --> 00:16:22.720 Um but and I've done most of that on an administrative track. 00:16:22.720 --> 00:16:25.440 But high red was just a better fit. 00:16:25.440 --> 00:16:32.799 But when I've engaged with community organizations, the 100 Black Men used to design a program for college battle. 00:16:32.799 --> 00:16:43.759 Um, those are the places where we've been able to work with youth, and I've designed curriculum designed to formulate the thinking of young people. 00:16:43.759 --> 00:16:47.360 Only because I understand that ideas are the substance of behavior. 00:16:47.360 --> 00:16:52.720 If you want to know why people behave the way they do, just get up in the head and look at what they think. 00:16:52.720 --> 00:17:05.680 So our job in the community is to be able to help socialize this new generation of young people coming after us and to help them successfully navigate those pathways to productivity and success. 00:17:05.680 --> 00:17:13.039 So higher ed was a deliberate choice because it was a natural fit for the kind of things that I wanted to do. 00:17:13.039 --> 00:17:19.200 As a clinician, I love seeing adolescents and adults, harder to do it with really young kids. 00:17:19.200 --> 00:17:35.119 As a professor, I think for me, my sweet spot is teaching right in university, both undergrad and graduate students, but I spent a fair amount of time in schools being invited down into those spaces where I talk to high school kids about, you know, their things. 00:17:35.119 --> 00:17:38.400 And you talk a lot about faith and spirit. 00:17:38.559 --> 00:17:39.200 Yeah. 00:17:39.200 --> 00:17:42.079 Um I'm born and raised Catholic. 00:17:42.079 --> 00:17:45.680 I can't say I was truly active my whole life. 00:17:45.680 --> 00:17:56.640 Um, but with my kids now, I I I rope them in, they're in a you know, a Catholic or not a Catholic school, but they're Lutheran school, and I try to tie them, tie them to religion quite a bit. 00:17:56.640 --> 00:18:04.799 Because I feel like when you have that purpose um and that moral, just kind of that guidebook, right? 00:18:04.799 --> 00:18:07.519 Where we're kind of living to be better human beings. 00:18:07.519 --> 00:18:11.440 Can you tell me a little bit about how you're teaching in in spirit? 00:18:11.440 --> 00:18:13.759 Because you you tap into that quite a bit. 00:18:14.160 --> 00:18:20.240 So for me, spirituality differs from religiosity. 00:18:20.240 --> 00:18:23.440 Because what a lot of people talk about is religion. 00:18:23.440 --> 00:18:48.160 Some basic religion is a set of organized rituals that people engage in that both provide a recognition that there's a force and a power greater than yourself in the universe, and that our role and responsibility is to both contribute to humankind in a way that respects the dignity and humanity of other members of the human family. 00:18:48.160 --> 00:18:51.759 So, like you, I was raised Catholic. 00:18:51.759 --> 00:18:56.880 Um was an altar boy in the church, was at St. 00:18:56.880 --> 00:19:08.240 Gregory's Grammar School, where who then was Bishop Manning became Cardinal Manning, ultimately uh of Los Angeles. 00:19:08.240 --> 00:19:13.599 Um, so had an interesting experience with the church then. 00:19:13.599 --> 00:19:18.240 Uh never had to suffer abuse or any of that kind of stuff I used to hear about. 00:19:18.240 --> 00:19:33.359 But going through Catholic school in terms of the academic curriculum, I had a difficult time, which is when I kind of fell out with the church, because there was such a profound incongruence between what they preached and what they practiced. 00:19:33.359 --> 00:19:40.960 And what they practiced, particularly when it came to African-American children, I thought was just profoundly different. 00:19:40.960 --> 00:19:45.839 Um, and it happened in grade school and it happened in high school. 00:19:45.839 --> 00:19:48.960 So I thought, mm-hmm, that wasn't for me. 00:19:48.960 --> 00:19:53.440 The nice thing is that I never lost my belief in the

Creator. 00:19:53.440 --> 00:20:02.400 I never lost my belief in God and that space, but I knew that my relationship had to be nurtured in a place that was more beholden to me. 00:20:02.400 --> 00:20:04.480 So I'm still considering myself a Christian. 00:20:04.480 --> 00:20:15.759 But I spend most of the time either in a Baptist church or in an AME Episcopal church because it happens to fit the cultural and the flavor for me. 00:20:15.759 --> 00:20:23.839 And I don't see as quite as much incongruence between what the Catholic Church preached and what they practiced in real life. 00:20:23.839 --> 00:20:27.759 But your question also had to do with the notion of spirituality. 00:20:27.759 --> 00:20:37.119 This belief in psychology, particularly in African psychology, that whatever is is in the first place spirit. 00:20:37.119 --> 00:20:42.160 There's a spiritual essence that permeates everything that exists on the planet. 00:20:42.160 --> 00:20:55.839 So that was even a little different from me being a psychologist because we're taught, even as we do clinical exams, we look at the intellectual, we look at the emotional, and we look at the behavioral. 00:20:55.839 --> 00:21:01.440 But what's missing, particularly in that African psychology space, was the spiritual. 00:21:01.440 --> 00:21:07.839 And in Eurocentric psychology, one of the challenges is they believe if you can't measure it, then it doesn't exist. 00:21:07.839 --> 00:21:11.200 And it's difficult to measure spirit, so they never mention it. 00:21:11.200 --> 00:21:13.599 Go back and look at all the different psych books. 00:21:13.599 --> 00:21:25.279 They're now starting to do it because of the infusion of that cultural flavor that elders before me, people like me, and others behind me, are now starting to infuse into the curriculum. 00:21:25.279 --> 00:21:33.920 But spirit is ever present, spirit is very important, and spirit is that energy and life force that gives humans their being best. 00:21:33.920 --> 00:21:59.759 So you have to be able to tap into that spirit, whether you're in the classroom teaching, whether you are in the clinic, you know, seeing patients, whether you are uh writing where I'm trying to write ways that will kind of appeal to people's sensibilities in that uh space, or if I'm out consulting or even administrating relative to policy, I'm never too far away. 00:21:59.759 --> 00:22:03.039 From that whole spiritual essence of my spirituality. 00:22:04.559 --> 00:22:12.559 My mom was uh talking with my son the other day, and she had mentioned the force of spirit. 00:22:12.559 --> 00:22:19.119 And I don't know why I'm thinking of her right now because you're mentioning that, but she's very positive. 00:22:19.119 --> 00:22:21.680 My mom has such a grace to her. 00:22:21.680 --> 00:22:34.400 Um, and she doesn't, you know, she's gone through a lot in her lifetime, but she's always found a way to really, and and and maybe that's why she hasn't been fully active. 00:22:34.400

--> 00:22:37.519 Like my parents weren't the parents that would take us to church every Sunday. 00:22:37.519 --> 00:22:39.839 We grew up with the religion, obviously. 00:22:39.839 --> 00:22:42.079 Um, you know, we did our catechism. 00:22:42.079 --> 00:22:49.599 Well, actually, I didn't do my catechism until I got married, but you know, that we're that type of family, but she's very spiritual, like you. 00:22:49.599 --> 00:23:03.200 She'll go to Buddhist temples, she'll she'll when she goes to, you know, when she visits all these countries like Hong Kong, she'll go make sure she'll go to the Buddhist temple or whatever the the religion is, she just believes in the the higher being and the spirit behind it all. 00:23:03.200 --> 00:23:06.880 And that's kind of tapping into what you're you're telling me. 00:23:06.880 --> 00:23:13.039 But how do you not teach that, but how do you influence that in your leadership roles? 00:23:13.039 --> 00:23:25.359 Like, because it's hard to talk about that or be, I mean, maybe not for you, but I would assume in in your leadership meetings, running a campus like yours, like how do you portray that? 00:23:25.359 --> 00:23:26.400 How does that come off? 00:23:26.400 --> 00:23:31.200 How do you inspire your staff to work in that capacity? 00:23:31.440 --> 00:23:35.119 I mean, part of it is understanding, first of all, that spirit exists. 00:23:35.119 --> 00:23:50.160 Secondly, is understanding that if it's that energy and life force, I can try to read a room and understand whether the energy is high and it's a lot of positive, whether the energy is more low and you know, people are more flowing with a half-empty glass. 00:23:50.160 --> 00:24:03.039 So some of what I try to do, even as I articulate policy and practice that I want to embrace as the leader of an institution, is taps into that kind of spiritual being. 00:24:03.039 --> 00:24:14.000 For example, if you talk to any members of my team, they'll tell you that President Parham is never interested in eight out of ten reasons why something cannot be done. 00:24:14.000 --> 00:24:16.880 He's only interested in two out of ten why it can. 00:24:16.880 --> 00:24:19.680 So we try to push in that place. 00:24:19.680 --> 00:24:30.880 I often tell folk, even in trying to transform my campus over the last um seven and a half years, that the only limit is the limit of our imagination. 00:24:30.880 --> 00:24:41.599 How are we going to push ourselves to think broadly about that and not get so, you know, stuck into the muck of the mire about what isn't working and what doesn't quite go? 00:24:41.599 --> 00:24:51.519 So part of that is tapping into the energy that allows them to see possibility instead of just settling for the way things have always been. 00:24:51.519 --> 00:24:54.160 So some of that is the way you work it in policy. 00:24:54.160 --> 00:24:57.599 Some of it I can read people is I read people. 00:24:57.599 --> 00:25:05.200 And I can tell whether somebody is feeling depressed, whether somebody's feeling anxious, whether somebody's feeling, you know, whatever. 00:25:05.200 --> 00:25:08.960 Even for folk who have minor setbacks, right? 00:25:08.960 --> 00:25:15.119 It can be, you know, this wasn't available on time, somebody had to mix up, somebody, whatever. 00:25:15.119 --> 00:25:22.240 Even just a word that you speak into somebody's ear, that then says, it's gonna be alright. 00:25:22.240 --> 00:25:25.759 You know, I learned to contextualize struggle. 00:25:25.759 --> 00:25:33.039 Whenever something goes wrong in life, lots happens to people who are of African descent. 00:25:33.039 --> 00:25:39.839 It it oftentimes will derail folk from their current trajectory. 00:25:39.839 --> 00:25:55.119 But one of the things I have in my office at the university is I have a picture of Martin and Malcolm on one end of the wall, and on the other corner are the ancestors in the slave dungeons in Elmina Cape Coast and Ghana, Africa. 00:25:55.119 --> 00:25:59.359 And those things always remind me to contextualize struggle. 00:25:59.359 --> 00:26:04.880 So whenever I think I'm having a bad day or something's not going right, or this is like terrible. 00:26:04.880 --> 00:26:07.200 Always remember that. 00:26:07.200 --> 00:26:13.200 And I'm like, if the ancestors can get through that, I can get through this a little bit of whatever. 00:26:13.200 --> 00:26:15.200 We look at the current administration. 00:26:15.200 --> 00:26:20.319 This is not the first person we've had in the White House who thinks like that. 00:26:20.319 --> 00:26:29.839 You know, there's a lot of anti-black, anti-Latino, anti-immigrant, anti-watever coming out of that administration in lots of places. 00:26:29.839 --> 00:26:32.559 But they are not the first, they will not be the last. 00:26:32.559 --> 00:26:39.279 So people have always risen to be able to rise through that persevering and keep on keeping up. 00:26:39.279 --> 00:26:46.799 You know, in church, you go on Sunday morning, they'll let you know it may be dark as Sunday night, but when the morning comes, everything's gonna be all right. 00:26:46.799 --> 00:26:48.400 So you just keep on keeping up. 00:26:48.400 --> 00:26:49.279 That's what we do. 00:26:49.519 --> 00:27:02.079 And I love that because when you're talking about the tasks, for example, it's our response as employees where we say, okay, not so much why can't we do things, but how can we do that? 00:27:02.079 --> 00:27:08.240 And and there's always a perception of how we uh attack these issues head on. 00:27:08.240 --> 00:27:12.480 And and it comes down to positivity, though. 00:27:12.480 --> 00:27:23.920 It comes down to how you respond from that moment because when you're in a room and 80% of that room is negative, um, it's gonna come off on on those projects. 00:27:23.920 --> 00:27:26.640 So you always want to make sure you have positive people around you. 00:27:26.640 --> 00:27:35.279 You surround yourself with people like you

that are inspiring because you know that's where these uh these impossible projects come to life, you know. 00:27:35.519 --> 00:27:37.680 And that's and that's very true. 00:27:37.680 --> 00:27:50.000 What I understand as a psychologist is that the way you think influences how you feel and ultimately how you respond to your reality. 00:27:50.000 --> 00:27:55.359 So if I want to change the way people respond, I just have to get up in the head and figure out what are you thinking? 00:27:55.359 --> 00:28:01.759 What are the assumptions you make about this piece that we need to either validate or interrogate and challenge? 00:28:01.759 --> 00:28:12.880 And once I can figure that out, then sometimes you got to provide a prescription for people to think a little differently than they've been thinking in order to change the behavior that they have to manifest. 00:28:12.880 --> 00:28:15.759 But how do you teach this in higher education? 00:28:15.759 --> 00:28:17.440 How do you teach this through a book? 00:28:17.440 --> 00:28:23.519 You teach it in courses, you teach it in I mean, there are whole theories of this kind of stuff that you can teach and lay out. 00:28:23.519 --> 00:28:25.599 You teach it through mentoring. 00:28:25.599 --> 00:28:32.880 One of the great opportunities I had in my life was to be mentored by Joe White, and then Horace Mitchell when I was at Washington University of St. 00:28:32.880 --> 00:28:52.079 Louis, and then Janet Helms when I was in Illinois, came back, and then administrative uh uh mentor was Michael Drake, the current uh just retired president of the University of California system, who I worked with when he was Chancellor at Irvine, uh before I became president at uh uh Domingo Sills. 00:28:52.079 --> 00:29:21.680 So some of the teaching that goes on, some of it you can do in a book as you write it, some of it you can do in a one-to-one or one-to-group patient interaction, some of it you can do in an academic classroom where you're teaching, some of it you can do in small seminars, some of it you can do in community programs where you're teaching folk to um navigate their space with a different mindset than what they had before. 00:29:22.000 --> 00:29:25.440 But that just shows me how much of a giver you are, right? 00:29:25.440 --> 00:29:33.519 There's a lot of people who have the same belief, but they're not willing to give that information so easily, or they don't take the time to do it, right? 00:29:33.519 --> 00:29:38.640 Um maybe they'll do it with their kids, but you have such a stage. 00:29:38.640 --> 00:29:48.880 And I don't think I've I don't want to say a lot of presidents, but when I think of a university president, I'm thinking of all the administrative things you have to handle, right? 00:29:48.880 --> 00:29:52.640 We're talking about this construction projects, and there's so many dynamics that you have to do. 00:29:52.640 --> 00:29:54.559 It's it's running a business, right? 00:29:54.559 --> 00:29:59.440 Um, how many staff members, for an example, what's your faculty account? 00:29:59.759 --> 00:30:04.880 So our faculty account, we probably have 800 faculty plus or minus. 00:30:04.880 --> 00:30:07.440 We've got uh a little more than that staff. 00:30:07.440 --> 00:30:09.359 There's probably a couple thousand people on campus. 00:30:09.359 --> 00:30:11.599 I can't imagine running an organization. 00:30:11.599 --> 00:30:12.720 It's a small city. 00:30:12.720 --> 00:30:15.200 It's a $250 million corporation. 00:30:15.200 --> 00:30:30.720 Uh you have academic affairs and curriculum, you have student affairs with students, you have uh information technology that runs the whole space, you have admin and finance that have everything from human resources to accounting to law enforcement to parking to local law. 00:30:30.720 --> 00:30:34.319 You've got facilities, groundskeepers, maintenance workers. 00:30:34.319 --> 00:30:42.319 You have um a whole division for university advancement, where we're not only advancing university but also doing the fundraising. 00:30:42.319 --> 00:30:47.680 You have a DEIJ, Diversity Equity Inclusion, and Justice Division. 00:30:47.680 --> 00:30:50.000 So you've got to navigate all those spaces. 00:30:50.000 --> 00:31:00.640 But in truth, if we're, you know, leaders are honest with themselves, a leader is only as good as the work produced by the people who work with and for them. 00:31:00.640 --> 00:31:06.400 The best thing I do, the secret to my success, is I surround myself with good people. 00:31:06.400 --> 00:31:15.759 Provide them with a little bit of strategic vision, be available for consultation when they need it, get the hell up out that wing and let them do what they do. 00:31:15.759 --> 00:31:21.200 You're trying to give them almost an intellectual or administrative permission slip. 00:31:21.200 --> 00:31:23.599 Just go be the best them they can be. 00:31:23.599 --> 00:31:25.359 I don't need them to replicate me. 00:31:25.359 --> 00:31:33.440 I need them to be the best they can be that exists within the confines of a current mission, a vision about where we're trying to go. 00:31:33.440 --> 00:31:36.400 But there are degrees of freedom in that that people can exercise. 00:31:36.559 --> 00:31:44.240 So I love that because a lot of a lot of leaders are or CEOs are hired to maintain a PL, and that's it. 00:31:44.240 --> 00:31:49.440 And and you're a visionary, you're a true leader. 00:31:49.440 --> 00:31:56.160 That's why when I reached out to you and I hear I hear you speak in the past, I'm like, wow, like you are so inspiring. 00:31:56.160 --> 00:31:59.680 Um, and to get this time with you, again, it's incredible. 00:31:59.680 --> 00:32:05.759 So, what I'm trying to do with this platform is how do we amplify that a little bit more? 00:32:05.759 --> 00:32:10.319 Because there's only so many people you can touch within your organization. 00:32:10.319 --> 00:32:14.160 But how do we, and I guess you're

doing it now through your students, right? 00:32:14.160 --> 00:32:20.079 They're they're kind of getting that taste of how you are staff, your community folk you touch space with. 00:32:20.319 --> 00:32:26.960 Any place where you have a a blessing to occupy is always, I think, an important space. 00:32:26.960 --> 00:32:32.240 You know, in my career, I used to have colleagues who work in in the prison industrial complex. 00:32:32.240 --> 00:32:35.519 I would go and invite to talk to folk on lockdown. 00:32:35.519 --> 00:32:53.680 Or I'm loving the fact that we have a project rebound program on campus where we have formerly incarcerated folk who've done their time or out now, and we invite them to come finish their college degrees to try to cut down some of the recidivism rate that is so pronounced in the world. 00:32:53.680 --> 00:32:57.279 And we've graduated some of our first folk who've come through that. 00:32:57.279 --> 00:33:01.680 I mean, you never know where you have a chance to be in that space. 00:33:01.680 --> 00:33:07.440 And we try to impart those same kind of blessings on some of everybody that's there. 00:33:07.440 --> 00:33:10.799 But here's also where the passion comes from. 00:33:10.799 --> 00:33:17.839 There's a difference between what I'll call personality and principle. 00:33:17.839 --> 00:33:27.519 Personalities come and go, but principles and truth, I remind folk of like those chewy tootsie rolls, they last a long time. 00:33:27.519 --> 00:33:37.759 What I understand and I owe to the ancient comedic people, right, my ancestors and elders, is they had a principle of Ma'at. 00:33:37.759 --> 00:33:44.160 Ma'at was like a code of conduct and a standard of aspiration for the ancient African people. 00:33:44.160 --> 00:33:52.640 And it was characterized by seven cardinal virtues: truth, justice, righteousness, harmony, order, balance, and propriety. 00:33:52.640 --> 00:33:59.279 So part of the challenge is to look at those principles to make sure that they're aligned with the way in which I live my life. 00:33:59.279 --> 00:34:04.880 But Maud also helped to define the five dimensions of African character. 00:34:04.880 --> 00:34:08.000 And one of those dimensions happened to be teachability. 00:34:08.000 --> 00:34:10.960 You were asking about why do you impart the knowledge? 00:34:10.960 --> 00:34:16.559 Because what teachability says that each of us has the capacity to know and understand knowledge. 00:34:16.559 --> 00:34:24.639 Not period, comma, and the responsibility to share that knowledge with other people. 00:34:24.639 --> 00:34:29.920 That's a principle that was then reinforced by a mentor. 00:34:29.920 --> 00:34:35.760 I remember us taking the great Joe White, my mentor, to dinner before we left for graduate school. 00:34:35.760 --> 00:34:42.079 And I've come home every six months and we kind of check in and you know, continue to be nurture the mentor. 00:34:42.079 --> 00:34:44.320 But we said, thank you so much. 00:34:44.320 --> 00:34:46.800 How do we thank you appropriately? 00:34:46.800 --> 00:34:50.800 He said, I appreciate your thanks, but don't eat it. 00:34:50.800 --> 00:34:55.440 What I do expect, however, is that you do for other people what I do for you. 00:34:55.440 --> 00:34:57.920 He was the original pay it forward. 00:34:57.920 --> 00:35:12.480 So part of what I do is understand, like the great Algerian Franz Fanon said, the psychiatrist, he said, each generation out of relative obscurity must reach out and seek to fulfill its legacy or betray it. 00:35:12.480 --> 00:35:16.719 So every day I get up, I look myself in the mirror. 00:35:16.719 --> 00:35:24.320 When I go to bed at night, I look in the mirror and say, have I fulfilled or betrayed the legacy that I've been blessed to inherit? 00:35:24.320 --> 00:35:31.920 And I'm hoping when all is said and done, that I have fulfilled rather than betray that legacy that the ancestors have left me. 00:35:31.920 --> 00:35:33.760 That's why we do the work we do. 00:35:33.760 --> 00:35:36.480 That's why I'm into can't stop, won't stop. 00:35:36.480 --> 00:35:43.039 That's why I'm into trying to help transform lives that will ultimately transform America work. 00:35:44.400 --> 00:35:53.039 Yeah, it's um you're you're leaving the campus, and I can't imagine what's next for you. 00:35:53.039 --> 00:35:54.400 You have so much to give. 00:35:54.400 --> 00:35:57.199 You're such a giver, but it's selfish of us too, right? 00:35:57.199 --> 00:35:59.599 I'm sure so many people want more of you. 00:35:59.599 --> 00:36:03.920 Um, and I'm sure there's time that you need time for yourself and your family. 00:36:03.920 --> 00:36:07.679 You're you're you're retiring from from the president role. 00:36:07.679 --> 00:36:09.280 I mean, what is next for you? 00:36:09.280 --> 00:36:15.599 I mean, how how can we ask you to continue to give your knowledge and support, but without being selfish either? 00:36:15.599 --> 00:36:22.800 Because, you know, there there comes a time in your life where, you know, you've you've done so much already. 00:36:24.559 --> 00:36:40.719 Yeah, I mean, I appreciate that how much or how little I've been able to do, you know, is all taken in context because sometimes you never know the impact of the difference that you've made in people's lives, you know, until much later. 00:36:40.719 --> 00:36:49.280 But um ways I could answer that is the same way that uh James Brown said when they asked James what you gonna play. 00:36:49.280 --> 00:36:51.599 He said, Bobby, I don't know. 00:36:51.599 --> 00:36:53.039 I don't know what I'm gonna do. 00:36:53.039 --> 00:36:59.679 What I think I'm gonna do is I'm gonna hang out with my wife and just be, you know, keep being in love and doing what we do. 00:36:59.679 --> 00:37:02.000 I'm gonna find time to do some work. 00:37:02.000 --> 00:37:04.960 I'll play some tennis and golf and do those things. 00:37:04.960 --> 00:37:08.800 Um I got another book, maybe two

in me. 00:37:08.800 --> 00:37:12.639 I'll consult a little bit, may serve on a couple boards. 00:37:12.639 --> 00:37:16.159 Uh I'll be involved in the community in ways that are there. 00:37:16.159 --> 00:37:28.320 So the only way I know is how to give, but it's now time to kind of allow someone else to take the reins of the presidency at Cal State University, Megas Hills. 00:37:28.320 --> 00:37:50.719 Uh, much like the I wrote in my uh letter to the campus when I announced my retirement, that when the ancients built the pyramids, when they built the temples and the tombs in ancient Egypt, what we call Khemet, they didn't expect to get it all done in one administration or one dynasty. 00:37:50.719 --> 00:38:00.400 But building for eternity allowed them to have excellent preparation and construction on one hand, and an aspiration to harmonize with divine intent on the other. 00:38:00.400 --> 00:38:12.079 But when they built, they built in a way that they would do their best, and then the next pharaoh or leader would come along and they would carve their initials in it and add to whatever it is they did. 00:38:12.079 --> 00:38:21.280 What I've done is taken the legacy that I was blessed to inherit at Dominguez, added to it, in some cases transformed it. 00:38:21.280 --> 00:38:26.159 And now it'll be time for the next leader to come by and be able to do that. 00:38:26.159 --> 00:38:33.920 And so hopefully, if I've done my job well, nobody looks back and says, well, what are we going to do without Parham? 00:38:33.920 --> 00:38:36.639 Parham's personality that comes and goes. 00:38:36.639 --> 00:39:05.280 But if the principle of excellence stays, if the principle of nurturing stays, if the principle of creating a cultural comfort zone in the midst of what looks like a sea of cultural sterility that is so pronounced on university campuses around the country, if we can create a space where we affirm the dignity and humanity of everybody who's a member of the human family, then those are principles that should endure, irrespective of whether the personality is there or not. 00:39:05.599 --> 00:39:12.639 The values are still there, the spirit's still there, the inspiration's still there through your faculty, through the students. 00:39:12.639 --> 00:39:15.039 I mean, you've created such a legacy. 00:39:15.039 --> 00:39:24.079 Um and like I said, you just said it right now, you don't know what the impact you've done until you're gone or out of that space. 00:39:24.079 --> 00:39:26.960 But from afar, right? 00:39:26.960 --> 00:39:29.360 I think I've only interacted with you three times. 00:39:29.360 --> 00:39:34.079 And those three times I interacted with you, and not even directly, I just felt something. 00:39:34.079 --> 00:39:38.000 And it's rare to have someone like that next to you. 00:39:38.000 --> 00:39:42.000 Um, and I think that's the the inspiration that I had just reaching out to you. 00:39:42.000 --> 00:39:49.199 It's like, how do I have that time and that moment and share it with an audience um that can kind of learn off of you? 00:39:49.199 --> 00:39:51.280 And I'm looking forward to what's next. 00:39:51.280 --> 00:39:57.039 I mean, obviously take your time, but um, if there is a book, I would love to read it and sit down with you again. 00:39:57.039 --> 00:40:03.199 I don't want to take uh a lot of your time today because I know you're you're quite busy, but I really do appreciate your time. 00:40:03.199 --> 00:40:09.119 Um, is there anything else that um in regards to I know you guys are having a gala coming up soon. 00:40:09.119 --> 00:40:11.280 Uh, can you tell us a little bit about that? 00:40:11.679 --> 00:40:12.079 Sure. 00:40:12.079 --> 00:40:26.079 So one of the rankings we are excited about is not just the social justice nature and the roots of the campus, but also the social mobility rankings that we get. 00:40:26.079 --> 00:40:31.199 We're now rated in money magazines looking at the um best value for the dollar. 00:40:31.199 --> 00:40:32.880 You know, we're in those rankings. 00:40:32.880 --> 00:40:37.440 We are in places we never dreamed about Dominguez Hills being in. 00:40:37.440 --> 00:40:41.920 And now people are looking at that, going, yeah, there's something going on at that campus. 00:40:41.920 --> 00:40:56.000 When I came to the campus back in 2018, I said among the four goals, I wanted to look at their strategic plan focus on student success. 00:40:56.000 --> 00:40:58.800 But the third and fourth goals were particular. 00:40:58.800 --> 00:41:15.039 I wanted to change the image that this external community, including Chambers, including other folk, corporations, community interests had of Cal State University Dominguez Hills, to expect a different level of excellence than what they anticipate. 00:41:15.039 --> 00:41:41.199 And the fourth goal, which is more internal, I said I want to provide a key that helps my campus unlock what I call the shackles of conceptual incarceration that kept them locked in the way things had always been rather than the way things might be if they just dreamed about what was possible and stopped settling for what was traditional. 00:41:41.199 --> 00:41:46.320 And I promised the C issue system as well as the state of California. 00:41:46.320 --> 00:41:54.880 I would not come and ask them for anything until we had exhausted all of our means and possibility, even though we're a resource-constrained campus. 00:41:54.880 --> 00:42:05.360 Well, but I've also got some Malcolm and Martin in me, I've got some Marcus Garvey in me as well, who argued that chance never satisfies the hope of a suffering people. 00:42:05.360 --> 00:42:12.880 It's only through hard work, persistence, and self-reliance by which the oppressed ever realize the light of their own freedom. 00:42:12.880 --> 00:42:20.239 So I've tried to go out and be more self-determined and being able to say, if you don't want to provide it for me, I'll go find it myself. 00:42:20.239

--> 00:42:27.119 So I've had lots of support and strategy from Brotherhood Crusade, from LA Sentinel and Bakewell Media. 00:42:27.119 --> 00:42:41.519 I've had lots of support from uh Urban Leagues, I've had lots of support from the California Legislative Black Caucus and the Steve Bradfords of the world, the Mike Gibson, the Mia Bantas, the those folk in the world. 00:42:41.519 --> 00:42:55.039 Keila Weber, who now chairs that group, because they have been really the support behind us that has helped the university garn enough resources because they believed in the vision of this president. 00:42:55.039 --> 00:42:58.400 And now it begins to look like we've transformed the campus. 00:42:58.400 --> 00:43:00.320 But it didn't happen just because of Parham. 00:43:00.320 --> 00:43:01.679 I had the vision. 00:43:01.679 --> 00:43:03.760 I've tried to push for that. 00:43:03.760 --> 00:43:11.840 But we just allowed ourselves to unlock that shackle of incarceration that said, oh, well, this is just Dominguez Hills. 00:43:11.840 --> 00:43:13.039 No, it don't have to be. 00:43:13.039 --> 00:43:15.840 So I affectionately joke with people nowadays. 00:43:15.840 --> 00:43:18.559 This is not your grandmother's Dominguez Hills any longer. 00:43:18.559 --> 00:43:19.599 It's a whole different space. 00:43:19.599 --> 00:43:21.119 Yeah, you took it to another level. 00:43:21.119 --> 00:43:22.079 To a different level. 00:43:22.079 --> 00:43:38.239 And I'm hoping that even as I interact with people in the community, as I interact with students, there's rarely a week on my calendar, even as busy as I am as a president, even as much as I'm out of time going to different places that I don't have students on my calendar. 00:43:38.239 --> 00:43:47.039 Every right week, several times a week, meeting with students to mentor them, give them advice, give them consultation, give them something. 00:43:47.039 --> 00:43:50.719 Because I want to be there for the people I try to manage by walking around. 00:43:50.719 --> 00:43:52.000 Sometimes I'll just keep my head. 00:43:52.000 --> 00:43:53.519 You're not just another face. 00:43:53.519 --> 00:43:54.639 Just another face. 00:43:54.639 --> 00:43:56.079 I try to walk the campus. 00:43:56.079 --> 00:43:59.760 One of the first things I do is I go have lunch with my facilities first. 00:43:59.760 --> 00:44:01.760 And I asked him when I got there. 00:44:01.760 --> 00:44:03.280 When's the last time you seen the president? 00:44:03.280 --> 00:44:04.079 Never. 00:44:04.079 --> 00:44:05.599 Just to have lunch. 00:44:05.599 --> 00:44:06.400 How y'all doing? 00:44:06.400 --> 00:44:07.599 What can I do? 00:44:07.599 --> 00:44:16.719 I try to remind them when I came on campus, the perimeter of the campus, and some of even the campus grounds didn't look as clean and manicured as I like them. 00:44:16.719 --> 00:44:24.480 And I tried to remind them some of that old African wisdom that says it is the outer garment that best adorns the inner beauty of the person. 00:44:24.480 --> 00:44:33.360 So if we want to have people look to Dominguez Hills and the excellence that already exists inside, then we've got to have a better position. 00:44:33.360 --> 00:44:36.079 Look at that campus now, it looks very pristine. 00:44:36.079 --> 00:44:39.760 Looks people take a lot of pride in being in the space. 00:44:39.760 --> 00:44:43.440 That's changing that mindset about what that was. 00:44:43.440 --> 00:44:49.360 We had a business school that was not accredited when I arrived in 2018. 00:44:49.360 --> 00:44:58.400 And I looked at a report and I said to uh the dean and the provost, we went over there to meet with the whole factory. 00:44:58.400 --> 00:45:00.480 50-60 strong. 00:45:00.480 --> 00:45:06.000 And I said, this report has some good parts and bad parts. 00:45:06.000 --> 00:45:09.199 Part of the bad part is an indictment of all of you. 00:45:09.199 --> 00:45:12.159 Academic freedom allows you to do what you want to do. 00:45:12.159 --> 00:45:14.000 I can't make you do the work. 00:45:14.000 --> 00:45:19.440 But if you don't want to do this work, I'm gonna sweep the resources out of the school. 00:45:19.440 --> 00:45:24.719 I'm gonna put them in someplace else for someone who wants to produce the excellence that I expect. 00:45:24.719 --> 00:45:28.400 So now I'm not trying to bring my Ivy League arrogance up in here. 00:45:28.400 --> 00:45:30.639 I was an Ivy League professor before. 00:45:30.639 --> 00:45:33.920 Nor am I trying to bring my University of California Erickson here. 00:45:33.920 --> 00:45:35.599 It's a research one institution. 00:45:35.599 --> 00:45:38.719 But I know what excellence looks like, and this ain't it. 00:45:38.719 --> 00:45:44.639 From the very front of the room, several senior faculty. 00:45:44.639 --> 00:45:47.760 Actually it was one in particular, but two really were there. 00:45:47.760 --> 00:45:50.400 What more resource are you gonna give us, Mr. 00:45:50.400 --> 00:45:52.239 President, to do this work? 00:45:52.239 --> 00:45:55.360 And just it snapped in me. 00:45:55.360 --> 00:45:59.679 And I just quickly turned in a knee-jerk reaction and said, I ain't gonna give you a doggone thing. 00:45:59.679 --> 00:46:01.280 And the whole room jumped up. 00:46:01.280 --> 00:46:09.599 I said, Everything you need to be successful, this school already has, this college already has. 00:46:09.599 --> 00:46:12.480 You just have to reposition it and wait to do the work. 00:46:12.480 --> 00:46:18.880 And from the very back of the room, I remember it like it was just the youngest assistant professors, they were brand new. 00:46:18.880 --> 00:46:20.000 Mr. 00:46:20.000 --> 00:46:21.599 President, we got this. 00:46:21.599 --> 00:46:26.960 From the middle of the room, then came the early newly tenured professors. 00:46:26.960 --> 00:46:27.679 Dr. 00:46:27.679 --> 00:46:30.400 P, which is what they call me, we got this. 00:46:30.400 --> 00:46:33.119 Then the other folk in the

front said, Oh yeah, we got this. 00:46:33.119 --> 00:46:35.119 So it marginalized these voices. 00:46:35.119 --> 00:46:47.119 And doggone it if a year later, when the accreditation team came back to look at all the things they've done, we got full AACSB accreditation for the first time in 27 years. 00:46:47.119 --> 00:46:50.719 And we just, by the way, got renewed again, right? 00:46:50.719 --> 00:46:56.480 On that five-year circulation, just like this past summer, we can now talk about it because we got the letter. 00:46:56.480 --> 00:47:02.639 But that also sent a ripple effect, like this president ain't joking, across the entire campus. 00:47:02.639 --> 00:47:06.000 So now we have more discipline-specific accreditations. 00:47:06.000 --> 00:47:14.559 So that right now, California State University of Dominguez Hills has more accreditations than it's ever had in the history of that campus. 00:47:14.559 --> 00:47:18.400 Um right, because they've been they've decided to do the work. 00:47:18.400 --> 00:47:27.280 We've had a cultural change, a cultural change on campus that's as exciting with all the infrastructure we were talking about earlier. 00:47:27.280 --> 00:47:34.159 I've got a new housing project coming in, a new dining commons coming in. 00:47:34.159 --> 00:47:41.760 I've got the power grid when we built the INI building where the businesses were out of power to be able to sustain more growth. 00:47:41.760 --> 00:47:46.159 So we're putting in a new power grid that should be done probably this month. 00:47:46.159 --> 00:47:58.880 We have orthotics and prosthetics uh uh unit that is the only uh unit that is off-site in Los Alamitos that are moving back on campus. 00:47:58.880 --> 00:48:03.519 We have a Merv Diameley Center, the great Merv Dimley, right? 00:48:03.519 --> 00:48:07.599 The congressman and state assembly and senator from California. 00:48:07.599 --> 00:48:11.920 We have an institute dedicated to him that's on my campus, so they're building a new building there. 00:48:11.920 --> 00:48:14.400 We got Dallas and Caucus for that. 00:48:14.400 --> 00:48:20.719 And the thing that's the biggest uh culture change is we're building a health, wellness, recreation center. 00:48:20.719 --> 00:48:24.000 So what happened several years ago, you remember COVID was here. 00:48:24.000 --> 00:48:27.920 The biggest victims of COVID, you remember who they were? 00:48:27.920 --> 00:48:31.840 Black, poor Asian, poor white. 00:48:31.840 --> 00:48:40.320 COVID didn't come around the corner and say, uh, if somebody black or Latino, there's a poor white person, let me go get them. 00:48:40.320 --> 00:48:54.559 These populations were already vulnerable to obesity, heart disease, pulmonary disorders, hypertension, and the big one diabetes, made them all vulnerable. 00:48:54.559 --> 00:49:00.239 My argument was the time to teach a people how to be healthy is not when they're 50 struggling with a pandemic. 00:49:00.239 --> 00:49:03.280 It's when they're 17 to 25 to 30 on my campus. 00:49:03.280 --> 00:49:06.559 So when I went to the legislative black call, because they're like, Dr. 00:49:06.559 --> 00:49:07.360 Parhamy, right? 00:49:07.360 --> 00:49:12.000 They came down and saw, they gave me the first down payment, $20 million for that building. 00:49:12.159 --> 00:49:12.480 Wow. 00:49:12.639 --> 00:49:15.119 But then I took it and I went to the students. 00:49:15.119 --> 00:49:21.760 I said, since I've been here, the only thing I've heard about, we can't ask the students for anything because they're poor. 00:49:21.760 --> 00:49:24.719 And I reminded them about the story where we began. 00:49:24.719 --> 00:49:26.320 I grew up poor. 00:49:26.320 --> 00:49:33.119 Mama raised four kids by herself, never earned more than $18,000 a year, and everybody went to college. 00:49:33.119 --> 00:49:35.360 Nobody on drugs, in jail, any gang. 00:49:35.360 --> 00:49:36.559 I know poor. 00:49:36.559 --> 00:49:40.159 But I don't want to hear a thing about how poor you are. 00:49:40.159 --> 00:49:44.320 What I want to know is what are you prepared to invest in your future? 00:49:44.320 --> 00:49:53.440 Some of these buildings you use right now were anchored in the spirits of prior generations of students who knew they wouldn't even get to use them when they built them. 00:49:53.440 --> 00:50:04.000 But they taxed themselves in order to make sure you could have a future in a present day right now that you utilize these buildings, you gotta be able to do the same thing for yourself and other people. 00:50:04.000 --> 00:50:06.800 So they put together a referendum. 00:50:06.800 --> 00:50:10.400 Jonathan Malia Mancio was the president. 00:50:10.400 --> 00:50:16.880 And unlike the other presidents before them that I'd given the same kind of speech to, he just gravitated toward it. 00:50:16.880 --> 00:50:23.440 Ran a referendum, the students voted, because we can't tell them how to vote, we just encourage them to vote. 00:50:23.440 --> 00:50:25.280 You can say yes or no. 00:50:25.280 --> 00:50:34.320 You want to tax yourself $215 every semester, $438 a year, to build this wreck center. 00:50:34.320 --> 00:50:36.400 And the students voted, right? 00:50:36.400 --> 00:50:37.760 The majority said yes. 00:50:37.760 --> 00:50:38.320 Wow. 00:50:38.320 --> 00:50:40.079 So I was able to sign that off. 00:50:40.079 --> 00:50:42.079 That is a culture change. 00:50:42.079 --> 00:50:53.360 That money times my population gives us the other $66 million that we are now using to build the $86 million health and wellness center that will be state of the art. 00:50:53.360 --> 00:50:54.400 It's incredible. 00:50:54.400 --> 00:50:59.440 You know, but that's the kind of culture change that we've had on campus that the infrastructure is there. 00:50:59.440 --> 00:51:01.280 It'll be a showpiece for the campus. 00:51:01.280 --> 00:51:05.920 It's why people want to come and get some of what Dominguez Hills is offering. 00:51:05.920 --> 00:51:17.920

But that's the kind of culture change that we've had on campus where we've unlocked another one of those shackles that kept us in the way things were rather in the way things might be if we just dreamed about what was possible. 00:51:17.920 --> 00:51:19.679 So I love the journey. 00:51:19.679 --> 00:51:21.039 Still love it. 00:51:21.039 --> 00:51:25.920 But it's just time for me to step back and say, it's been real. 00:51:26.239 --> 00:51:33.440 Well, and and that's another part of leadership is knowing when to pass a torch and giving someone else the opportunity to follow. 00:51:33.440 --> 00:51:42.400 Um, you know, it's incredible the the stories and the journey that you have, and we just very touch touch the surf uh surface here. 00:51:42.400 --> 00:51:44.559 Um thank you again for your time. 00:51:44.559 --> 00:51:46.400 I I can't say that enough. 00:51:46.400 --> 00:51:52.480 Hopefully we can have a part two and we can tour your campus before you go or something, and I can take a camera crew over there. 00:51:52.480 --> 00:52:02.480 But I really do appreciate your visionary, your leadership, your support, your your your willingness to give to the community, really give your time and your life to the community. 00:52:02.480 --> 00:52:06.719 Um, it really does show the type of person you are, and I I look up to it quite a bit. 00:52:06.719 --> 00:52:13.360 Um, from a distance, obviously we don't know each other quite quite much, but I really do appreciate um your time being here today. 00:52:13.599 --> 00:52:14.400 I thank you. 00:52:14.400 --> 00:52:15.440 I appreciate it. 00:52:15.440 --> 00:52:17.679 And again, thank you for the invitation. 00:52:17.679 --> 00:52:19.039 You're always welcome. 00:52:19.039 --> 00:52:22.800 Again, I'm the president, but I'm just that regular brother from around the way. 00:52:22.800 --> 00:52:25.119 So you don't need an excuse to come knock off the doors. 00:52:25.119 --> 00:52:26.559 You'd like to come. 00:52:26.559 --> 00:52:29.920 And if we want to do part two before I leave, come on down to the campus. 00:52:29.920 --> 00:52:31.199 Let's set it up and we'll get it done. 00:52:31.199 --> 00:52:31.760 Thank you. 00:52:31.840 --> 00:52:32.159 Thank you. 00:52:32.159 --> 00:52:34.480 Well, thank you for joining us today's episode. 00:52:34.480 --> 00:52:37.360 I'll put um the link to your gala on there. 00:52:37.360 --> 00:52:48.000 Um, any information about Cal State Dominguez Hills and any information about California leaders, we are expanding um from Los Angeles to California because there's such a great amount of leaders here in the state. 00:52:48.000 --> 00:52:51.119 And I look forward to uh having more conversations like this. 00:52:51.119 --> 00:52:52.000 So thank you for your time. 00:52:52.239 --> 00:52:54.400 We should also mention the folk because you asked about the gala. 00:52:54.400 --> 00:52:56.239 The gala is November 14. 00:52:56.239 --> 00:52:57.039 Perfect. 00:52:57.039 --> 00:53:04.960 It is at 5:30, starts the reception down at the beautiful JW Merritt Hotel right in LA Live in downtown LA. 00:53:04.960 --> 00:53:11.840 And we will be looking forward to both celebrating a legacy, but also raising needed scholarship dollars for our students. 00:53:11.840 --> 00:53:13.119 We hope lots of folks. 00:53:13.360 --> 00:53:14.719 Uh I'm I'm here to support. 00:53:14.719 --> 00:53:20.800 And then if you need uh someone to chair your fundraising uh team, I'm I'm here to help. 00:53:20.800 --> 00:53:22.239 So thank you again for your time. 00:53:22.239 --> 00:53:23.840 Yeah, thank you for being with us. 00:53:24.079 --> 00:53:29.920 Thank you for joining us on this episode of the California Leaders Podcast, hosted by Christopher Luna. 00:53:29.920 --> 00:53:34.320 We hope you find our conversation as inspiring as we did. 00:53:34.320 --> 00:53:39.119 Don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform. 00:53:39.119 --> 00:53:42.400 Your feedback help us bring more of the content you love. 00:53:42.400 --> 00:53:48.480 And be sure to follow us on social media for updates, behind the scene content, and to join the conversation. 00:53:48.480 --> 00:53:53.679 Until next time, keep leading, keep innovating, and keep making a difference.