Photo by Jeff Farsia/CSUDH
CSUDH President Thomas A. Parham announced Monday in an email to all CSUDH employees that he has been diagnosed with cancer.
“This medical challenge will demand my attention while I continue to provide leadership and manage the affairs of this university,” Parham wrote in the email, which came from the Office of the President and was sent at 10:04 a.m. “Please know that I have a hopeful prognosis, excellent medical care, a strong body and mind, loving family and friend support, an enlivened and positive spirit, unwavering faith, and a commitment to confront this challenge with every fiber of my being.’
Here is the full text of the email:
Dear Toro Family: I hope this message finds each of you well and thriving as we embrace the dawning of this Spring season. The past nine months since your First Lady, and my partner Davida and I arrived at CSUDH have been a richly fulfilling experience, and we both thank all of you – faculty, staff, students, administration, alumni, strategic partners, political legislators, and community residents – for your kindness and welcoming energy.
Together, with all of you, we have already begun to make important progress on student growth and retention, faculty lines, programmatic initiatives, deferred maintenance, and increased campus visibility, highlighting just a few of the distinguished endeavors that occur on this campus each and every day. We have also begun to impact the institutional culture, endeavoring to create a renewed, spirit of “not settling for what is and striving for what can be”, and acknowledging the TORO spirit and campus experience that continues to “transform lives that transform America.” Certainly, many of these elements were on display during last month’s inauguration week activities and investiture ceremony, and in the magnificent DOMINGUEZ TODAY Winter 2019 magazine which is a first in class portrait of our outstanding institution. There are few experiences in life that are as humbling and affirming as the recent inauguration activities and investiture ceremony. Davida and I thank the entire Toro Nation for your support and for celebrating and lifting up our University.
In a book I authored in 2002, I wrote in the preface section a simple phrase: “along the way to dreams and aspirations, life happens”. My intention then was to place an intellectual footnote on the pages of that manuscript that had been nearly eight years in the making. While I had visions of completing the project years earlier, this thing we call life just kept intruding into the time I had for generative and creative spaces to think, compose, and write. The good news: the book did get written and published. I recall that circumstance, now some 17 years later, as dreams and aspirations for my latest life’s journey as your president have been intruded upon by a very recent life circumstance that commands my fullest attention and commitment. I have just received a cancer diagnosis. This medical challenge will demand my attention while I continue to provide leadership and manage the affairs of this university. Please know that I have a hopeful prognosis, excellent medical care, a strong body and mind, loving family and friend support, an enlivened and positive spirit, unwavering faith, and a commitment to confront this challenge with every fiber of my being. We also have very capable senior administrators who serve on our cabinet, and are prepared and positioned to manage the affairs of the university with me so that the progress we are making, and the trajectory we are on, is sustained. Also, our CSU Chancellor and Board of Trustees are informed and very supportive.
I will continue to see you all on campus, in meetings, or at events, as I continue to provide leadership to our wonderful university. On those occasions when circumstance will not allow me to be with you in person, I thank you in advance for your understanding, and know that members of the cabinet will represent me whenever possible.
Along with my desire to be transparent, I also request that you kindly respect my privacy as my family and I navigate this journey together. Please know that your president will be fine and I appreciate your ongoing support.
Lastly, I ask that you keep my family and me in your thoughts and prayers as we traverse this pathway to greater health and healing. I am also cognizant of the fact there are others of you in our Toro family who are challenged with similar or different life adversities that intrude on your own dreams and aspirations. So, I encourage you to hold on, keep sustaining movement and momentum in the face of whatever challenge you may be confronting, and believe in the possibilities that things can and do get better. Sincerely, Thomas A. Parham, Ph.D.PresidentCalifornia State University Dominguez Hills
