Craig Parks is a Senior Partner at Ideas for Action, LLC and is Associate Vice President for Health Sciences, federal accreditation liaison, and professor of Psychology at Washington State University. He is an expert on institutional and professional accreditation and compliance, land-grant mission fulfillment, academic degree and program development, institutional and unit strategic planning, and shared governance models. He began at WSU in 1993, spending one year as a visiting professor before moving onto the tenure track. He held leadership positions in the university’s Faculty Senate for four years, culminating in a term as Senate Chair. From there he served seven years as the university’s Vice Provost for Systems and Policy before moving into his current position. In 2017 he received the Sahlin Award, WSU’s highest award for institutional leadership.
Craig has extensive experience with federal compliance and policy matters. He co-led WSU’s most recent accreditation review, which resulted in the largest number of commendations ever issued by WSU’s federal accrediting body. He has served as an accreditation self-study consultant for numerous R1 and R2 public institutions and is frequently called upon by federal accreditors to assist with review of proposed structural and operational changes at institutions of higher education. He has advised the US Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions and the US House Education and Labor Committee on policy matters, and regularly works with members of the Washington federal legislative contingent.
Craig is also well-established in strategic planning and development. He was part of the executive team that developed WSU’s current system strategic plan and led the creation of the first campus strategic plan for WSU’s flagship in Pullman. His analysis of organizational structures at multi-campus institutions of higher education led to a redesign of WSU’s system management structure. He recently conducted a similar analysis of sustainability plans at land-grant institutions and is currently studying land-grant approaches to community economic outreach and development. He was charged with gaining federal approval for WSU to open a medical school and leads projects to establish new instructional sites, including international sites.
Craig is a social psychologist by training, with a doctoral minor in measurement and quantitative analysis. He holds AM and PhD degrees in psychology from the University of Illinois and a BA in psychology from Michigan State University. His areas of expertise are interpersonal and intergroup cooperation, and group decision-making processes, and he continues to actively publish on these topics.