Heather R. Parker

Dr. Heather R. Parker is Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and Professor of History at Saint Leo University. She earned her Ph.D. in history from UCLA where she began her academic career examining interethnic political interaction in mid-20th-century Los Angeles. While she has devoted much of her recent career to administration, she continues to engage in research and is now focused on interethnic religious interaction and the political implications of these relationships in Florida. Related to this work are two ongoing projects. The first of these is her East Pasco County African American History Archive, which houses a collection of digitized images, oral histories, and data chronicling the lives and experiences of African Americans in East Pasco County, FL. The other is her Community Memory Oral History Collection and Archive in which digitized images, oral histories, and documents related to the history of Saint Leo University and its surrounding communities are housed. She has also been researching the ways in which college administrations and faculty can provide effective mentoring for both traditional and non-traditional minority students. The result of this research is the launch of the Saint Leo Minority Mentoring Project in 2018.