Dr.
Arvind Singhal, Hendrix College’s 2018 Mellon Scholar, on Thursday, October 4
will present the lecture “The Positive Deviance Approach: Solving Complex
Problems from the Inside Out” in the Bertie Wilson Murphy House on the Hendrix
campus. The lecture begins at 4:15 p.m., with a reception to follow. Positive Deviance (PD) is a
novel approach to individual, organizational, and social change based on the
observation that in every community there exist certain individuals or groups
whose uncommon behaviors and strategies enable them to find better solutions to
problems than their peers, while having access to the same resources and facing
worse challenges. The PD approach has been employed in some 50 countries to
address a wide variety of social and organizational purposes, including
decreasing malnutrition and infant and maternal mortality in Vietnam and
Pakistan; reducing school dropouts in Argentina and in the U.S.; and reducing
hospital-acquired infections in the U.S. and Colombia. A leading scholar of the PD
approach, Singhal has taught courses and implemented workshops on the positive
deviance approach for educators, health practitioners, government officials,
and business leaders in some 40 countries of Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa,
and Latin America.
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