The changing of the guard has taken place at Chapman University.
Chapman on Oct. 10 inaugurated Matt Parlow as its 14th president, succeeding Daniele Struppa, who served as president for nine years and is returning to the mathematics faculty.
Parlow said his first month as president has been “off to a great start,” marked by exceeding its enrollment target for the semester, bouncing back from a 2% enrollment decline for the 2024-25 school year caused by government delays in financial aid distribution.
“Financial aid worked well, which is why we were able to exceed our goals and have a really talented group of students that have matriculated, and our retention numbers were good,” Parlow told the Business Journal.
Chapman held a series of events throughout the week of Parlow’s inauguration, featuring actor and comedian Keegan-Michael Key, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and Chapman Presidential Fellow Nadia Murad, and Anduril Industries co-founder Palmer Luckey.
Before becoming president, Parlow was executive vice president and chief advancement officer, having led Chapman’s $500 million comprehensive campaign for the last two years.
The campaign, which has raised more than $420 million to date and is set to conclude in 2028 is “way ahead of schedule,” according to Parlow.
In addition to the $500 million goal, the campaign seeks to increase the endowment to $2 billion by 2037.
In July, Chapman named Jessica Berger as Parlow’s replacement and last week announced Mike Ibba as permanent provost. Ibba, who has been at Chapman since 2020, previously serves as the dean of the. Schmid College of Science and Technology.
Berger was vice president of university advancement and executive director of the foundation at California State University, San Marcos. She also contributed to fundraising efforts at Harvey Mudd College and Polytechnic School in Pasadena.
“She’s already helped secure some big gifts and we have new ones we’ll be announcing pretty soon,” Parlow said.
Berger recently facilitated a partnership with Marymount Education Foundation, an organization that helps students who otherwise couldn’t afford to go to private universities through scholarships and mentorship.
Chapman was the fourth school to be chosen as a partner and will start with a cohort of four to six students next fall, Parlow said.
Moves Up in Rankings
Among Parlow’s focuses as president is academic excellence and having that reflected in Chapman’s national ranking.
Chapman this year climbed 11 spots to No. 110 on U.S. News & World Report’s ranking of the best colleges in America. It ranked within the top 25% of the 434 universities included on the list.
The school attributed the jump to student retention with first-year retention rates averaging more than 91%, as well as improved graduation rates.
Chapman entered the national rankings in 2019 and has “moved up significantly” since then, according to Parlow.
“We had a nice jump this year,” Parlow said.
“We want to keep moving on the trajectory to really make ourselves one of the top elite institutions academically in the country.”
Another large focus for Parlow is increasing interdisciplinary collaboration on campus.
“We’re looking at degrees, programs and opportunities for our students to learn not just their majors or minors but also across disciplines because that’s what employers are going to be looking for,” Parlow said.
He sees artificial intelligence making interdisciplinary problem-solving skills even more necessary. As a result, the school has launched a task force dedicated to integrating AI into academics across all disciplines.
New Quantum Physics Institute Opens
This summer, Chapman opened the Daniele C. Struppa Research Park, named in honor of the retiring president.
It’s the new home for Chapman’s Institute for Quantum Studies and Advanced Physics Laboratory after it renovated the historic Lydia D. Killefer School, which was one of the first schools in California to voluntarily desegregate in 1944, 10 years before the Brown v. Board of Education ruling.
Chapman purchased the facility near the university in 2020 and adapted the historic building’s interior for research, offices, meeting spaces and community exhibitions.
Parlow said that some of the building’s original details have been preserved, such as the bell tower and the windows.
“It has a great history,” he said.
The facility includes a quantum research hub funded by a $2.43 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation. The hub brings together a team of theoretical physicists, experimental physicists and philosophers to “explore some of the deepest unanswered questions in quantum theory,” according to Chapman.
The grant will also support external collaborations with the University of Toronto and University of California, San Diego.
The next capital project for Chapman is likely to be a new student success center, but “that’s not in the immediate future,” Parlow said.
Chapman, Vanguard Business School Deans Exit
Two local universities recently made big leadership changes to their business schools.
Henrik Cronqvist in May stepped down as dean of Chapman University’s Argyros College of Business and Economics, the largest private business school in Orange County, after three years in the role.
“During my time as Dean at Chapman… we worked tirelessly to drive bold, student-centered innovation: in programs, in outcomes, and—most importantly—in mindset,” Cronqvist wrote in a LinkedIn post.
“Yet between the AI revolution sweeping through education, tectonic shifts in public policy, and a changing narrative around the value of a degree, it’s clear that the traditional model in higher education must evolve faster than ever.”
He added that he was stepping down to focus on advancing behavioral finance through research and writing, as well as building and advising ventures “at the intersection of education and finance.”
Cronqvist is still a professor of finance at Chapman.
Former Chapman business school dean, Tom Turk, is serving as interim dean until a national search is launched, according to a spokesperson.
Costa Mesa-based Vanguard University, said to be the oldest four-year college in OC, also announced that Tom Arnold, founding dean of the Patty Arvielo School of Business and Management, stepped down this month.
Arnold was named founding dean last April, coinciding with the launch of the new business school that received an undisclosed gift from Patty and Rick Arvielo, co-founders of Tustin mortgage lender New American Funding.
“I feel like I’ve been training for this my whole life,” Arnold, previously an assistant dean at Chapman, said at the time of his appointment.
No reason was given as to why Arnold stepped down.
Vanguard Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs appointed Ismael López Medel as acting dean while the school looks for a permanent replacement. Medel joined Vanguard this fall as a professor and chair of the department of communication.