CONWAY, Ark. (September 11,
2018) – 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 Lecture Hall B of the Mills Center for
Social Sciences on the Hendrix campus. The lecture begins at 4:15 p.m., with a reception
to follow.
Singhal is the Samuel
Shirley and Edna Holt Marston Professor and Director of the Social Justice
Initiative at the University of Texas at El Paso, and since 2009 has been
appointed as the William J. Clinton Distinguished Fellow, Clinton School of
Public Service, University of Arkansas. He teaches and conducts research in the
diffusion of innovations, the Positive Deviance approach, organizing for social
change, the entertainment-education strategy, and liberating interactional
structures, and his research and outreach spans sectors such as health,
education, sustainable development, civic participation, and corporate
citizenship.
“Dr. Singhal’s visit is an
exciting opportunity to introduce many of our students to Positive Deviance,
and to invite those in attendance to think about how they might use it to
revolutionize problem-solving in their various fields,” said Amber Jackson,
program manager for the Hendrix College Office for Diversity and Inclusion.
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. He has written nearly 200 peer-reviewed essays in leading
journals of communication, public health, and social change, and written or
edited 13 books, including Inspiring
Change and Saving Lives: The Positive Deviance Way (2014); Health Communication in the 21st Century
(2014); Inviting Everyone: Healing
Healthcare through Positive Deviance (2010); and Protecting Children from Exploitation and Trafficking: Using the
Positive Deviance Approach (2009).
His visit to Hendrix as
Mellon Lecturer is made possible through a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
supporting diversity and inclusion initiatives at Hendrix.
About
Hendrix College
A private liberal arts
college in Conway, Arkansas, Hendrix College consistently earns recognition as
one of the country’s leading liberal arts institutions, and is featured in Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That
Will Change the Way You Think About Colleges. Its academic quality and
rigor, innovation, and value have established Hendrix as a fixture in numerous
college guides, lists, and rankings. Founded in 1876, Hendrix has been
affiliated with the United Methodist Church since 1884. To learn more, visit www.hendrix.edu.