Matt Parlow, Longtime Educator and Administrator, Becomes Chapman University’s 14th President
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The venerable Orange County university announces new leadership, maintaining longstanding traditions of educational excellence coupled with a focus on the future
“I think that fundamentally the greatest force for social mobility is education generally, and higher education specifically.”
So says Matt Parlow, who was welcomed as Chapman University‘s 14th president, about learning. The son of lifelong Los Angeles public school educators and a multidisciplinary educator, administrator and lawyer, Parlow has a long history with the university, having served multiple roles at the university over his 12-plus-year tenure.
Chapman, the midsized private university with a student population of 10,000 on campuses in Orange and Irvine, selected Parlow to succeed President Daniele Struppa after his announced retirement. Upon entering his role as president, Parlow has taken the reins of a diverse campus that has experienced extensive growth and a meteoric rise to both prominence and prestige in the 21st century.
However, to Parlow, his role of president will be as much what he named “cheerleader in chief” for the university and student body as a leader. The role of university president, he says, consists of “helping to open doors and build bridges into the community for our faculty and for our students. It’s being an ambassador to spread the good word of Chapman, both in academic circles but also throughout other industries. It’s finding those meaningful partnerships that are going to help advance our mutual interest, goals and mission,” he said.
In addition, Parlow said, “It’s being present and being at things to show how much I value the work that happens.”
A goal of his presidency, he noted, was to be as involved as he could on the “micro” level (attending campus events, sports, student gatherings, etc.) in order to gather pertinent information to shape his leadership. “When you see and you get to experience them on a more individual or small group basis, it helps remind you of all the macro-level stuff that you have to work on as a president to make sure that the institution is thriving,” said Parlow.
Parlow is no stranger to this hands-on style of leadership and teaching. His love of education came from an early age, as his parents instilled what he called an “intellectual curiosity” that gave him a drive to seek out knowledge. “Ever since I started going to school as a kid, and this includes college and law school, I loved that I was going to learn something new,” he said.
He brings this infatuation to his role fully, where he wants to help steer Chapman University into the mid-21st century deftly by adopting new technologies, new ways of thinking and ensuring that each student who graduates is fully prepared to enter a rapidly evolving job market, including giving a strong background for utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) tech. “We have a task force that has been set up to really imbue AI throughout our curriculum to make sure that our students are not only using it but really figuring out how to best develop their skills for the workforce of the future,” said Parlow. “To me, that’s exciting – it’s an opportunity, given how much tech there is in Southern California. With technology, medical tech and all these different specialized companies anchored here, there are opportunities for building bridges to create even greater opportunities for students and faculty.”
This said, Parlow maintains what he calls a “reverence for education” and also a deep admiration for Chapman’s ethos and traditions. While the university has switched locations a few times since being founded in the Northern California town of Woodland in 1861, the campus, now tucked into charming Orange County, has found its permanent home. Like this location, Parlow says, there are certain things about the university that will never change.
“We talk a lot about the Chapman Family,” he said. If one were to come to campus and they were to walk around, they would see those interactions. I think our students feel supported. I think that they feel like the faculty and staff are invested in their futures. I think our volunteers, our alumni, our donors, our board members – they feel like they’re part of something bigger than themselves. And I think that we’re in this together.”
This familial nature has been maintained as a guiding principle even as the university has experienced rapid growth in the last 25 years, fueled by robust fundraising via “Inspire: The Campaign for Chapman University,” a program Parlow oversaw prior to being named president. The campaign has raised an incredible $420 million to date for scholarship programs and other funding to aid the student experience and the university’s mission to provide world-class education.
While the numbers are impressive, Parlow has no interest in slowing this fundraising down. “Our endowment is within reach of a billion dollars,” he said. “My hope is that we’ll be crossing that threshold very soon, because it will have shown how far we have come, how far we have grown – it really starts to put a sense of magnitude on the kind of impact that we can have on the best and brightest students coming to Chapman.”
