Fardad Fateri

Early life

Fateri was born in Tehran, Iran to Mohamad Fateri and Farideh Fateri who were both from the City of Babol in the province of Mazandaran in Northern Iran. Fardad’s father grew up in a very poor family and worked as street vendor until he was a teenager. Then he got into residential and commercial real estate as well as cotton farmer and processor which led to him exporting cotton to Germany. At the age of 12, Fardad's parents sent him to attend the well-known international boarding school Institut Le Rosey in La Rolle Switzerland. Fardad has said that he was the poorest student at Le Rosey which is known to be one of the most expensive schools in the world with a student body historically made up of royalty and children of billionaires.

After completing his elementary and secondary schooling at Le Rosey in Switzerland, Fardad joined his parents in California in 1981. Fardad started working to cover his expenses so he found a position at Carl's Jr., a fast food restaurant. His father did not financially support him after high school. Fardad worked over 40 hours a week while going to college full-time. After Carl's Jr, Fardad started working full-time as a security officer at the Irvine Company headquartered in Newport Beach, California. Later, he worked as a construction worker and construction supervisor until he started his doctoral program when he started teaching courses in business, and psychology. Fardad always worked full-time while going through his undergraduate, graduate and post-doctoral education.

Academic life

After completing his studies at Le Rosey, Fardad came to the United States to attendUniversity of California in Los Angeles (UCLA). He was accepted to several premier universities in the United States but decided to attend UCLA because of the recommendation of family members living in California. However, upon his arrival in the United States, he decided to transfer to University of California in Irvine due to the close proximity of the university to his parents’ residence. In the spring of 1985, Fardad graduated from the University of California, Irvine with a Bachelor of Arts degree in social science. He completed his bachelor's degree in three years. He then went to California State University, Fullerton where he earned his Master of Arts degree in social science in less than a year. After graduating with his master’s, Fardad enrolled in Alliant International University’s doctoral program in San Diego, California. At AIU, he earned a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in leadership and human behavior with a specialization in industrial and organizational behavior. Fardad was 24 years old when he earned his doctoral degree, one of the youngest in the U.S. to earn a Ph.D.

Fardad’s doctoral dissertation examined the leadership behavior and gender-role identity of female managers working at technology companies. Fardad collaborated with Sandra Bem at Cornell University to conduct his doctoral research. After earning his doctoral degree, he conducted other studies to better understand management behavior and leadership behavior of top executives in large corporations. Sandra Bem was instrumental in developing Fardad and shaping his cognitive construct and related behavior of superior leaders in corporate America.

Later, after several years of working, he went on to complete his Post-Doctoral Fellowship at Harvard University in management and leadership in education.

Professional life

At 24, Fateri was one of the youngest individuals to have been awarded a tenured track professorships in the cross-disciplinary field of organizational behavior in the United States. Fardad was fascinated with the fields of business and psychology and discovered empirical synergies between these two inter-related and co-dependent disciplines.

At that time Fardad decided to work in higher education. During his years as an academic, Fardad conducted many research studies and published many articles mostly on topics influencing organizational effectiveness, leadership and diversity.

After a few years as a researcher and professor, Fardad realized that his true passion is anchored in the practice of management and leadership in higher education. Therefore, once he mastered the art and science of management and leadership as a theorist, he became a practitioner. Since then, Fardad has managed and led thousands of employees for several large organizations. Fardad’s belief in the capacity of people to do good and their incredible ability to achieve the extraordinary by designing and promoting winning organizational cultures have made him a coach and mentor to many top executives in higher education.

Fardad’s career in higher education began at the United States International University, Irvine campus in 1988 prior to the merger with California School of Professional Psychology to form Alliant International University. There, Fardad served as assistant director handling all educational related units. While serving as the assistant director, Fardad was also a professor of business and psychology for undergraduate and graduate courses. During this time, he also published his dissertation, "Sex-Role Orientation & Perceived Leadership Behavior of Male & Female Middle Managers in Electronic Firms". He also published numerous articles during his tenure at USIU.

In 1990, Fardad continued his tenure with United States International University serving as the executive director for the Irvine campus overseeing all campus operations. While there, he served as a member of the Multi-Cultural Task Force[2] for the city of Irvine. Additionally, Fateri served as a member on the Board of Directors for the Historical and Cultural Foundation of California.[3]

In 1995, Fardad served as the dean of Student Affairs for DeVry Institute of Technology in Pomona and Long Beach. Later, Fateri took on the role of Campus Dean of DeVry located in Long Beach California while concurrently serving as the regional dean.

Fateri was appointed to president of DeVry University in 2002. During his time as president, Fateri continued publishing articles in educational journals including: Journal of Ethnic Studies & Ethnic Bibliography, California Career Education Association Journal,[4] and Fifth National Conference, Students in Transition. Serving as the keynote speaker at the Long Beach Unified School District Conference, Fardad’s speech was entitled "The Road Ahead: Opportunities in an Era of Transformation". He also gave a speech at the ABC Unified School District Education Forum called "Higher Education in the 21st Century". These speeches highlighted changes and opportunities in the education industry. During his tenure at DeVry, Fardad also served as a professor teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in business. He also maintained his connection with the research community by serving on numerous dissertation committees at various universities.

Fardad served as chief academic officer for Corinthian Colleges between mid-2004 to late 2007. During his time there was one of the largest career colleges in the industry. During that period, Corinthian Colleges has 145 campuses and around 110,000 students. It was listed 79th on CNN's fastest growing companies in 2009.

As chief academic officer for Corinthian Colleges in 2004, Fardad continued using the knowledge he had gained as a professor and educator to shape Corinthian Colleges’ academic vertical.[clarification needed] He oversaw policies, programs, libraries, academic services and over 5000 faculty members at 145 college campuses.

Fardad joined Corinthian Colleges to address the many opportunities related to regulatory compliance, faculty recruitment, faculty development, academic services, student learning, student persistence, and the student experience demonstrated through superior student retention and graduation rates. In the short 3.5 years he was there, Fardad transformed the entire academic continuum that resulted in excellent student retention and graduation rates. Fateri left Corinthian Colleges in January 2008 to pursue his passion of changing student lives at a much smaller postsecondary organization.

Fardad started serving as the president, chief executive officer and board director of International Education Corporation(IEC) in early 2008. IEC is a private multi-site and multi state postsecondary career education system offering short-term programs in high demand jobs.

In 2011, he joined Cogswell Polytechnical Colleges member of the Board of Trustees.

Professional Research Interests

In the past 25 years, Fardad Fateri has shown deep interest in several key research areas mostly focused on corporate culture, leadership behavior, learning, future of higher education and classroom of the future.

He is part of a select group of academics who believes in practitioner-oriented research as opposed to strict theoretical research. This mode of investigation subscribes to the paradigm of putting into practice what is learned concurrently with the research findings. Equally as important, he subscribes to the practice that promotes experimentation with concepts, ideas and constructs in real life projects and initiatives. Fateri suggests that the concept of incubation took off from this pattern of thought that allows for real time disruption and innovation. Many of the emerging technology disruptions by practitioners are representative examples of this paradigm.

Earlier in his graduate academic career, Fateri studied under Igor Ansoff and Max Lerner. Then, he started collaborating with Sandra Bem who did most of her work at Stanford University and Cornell University. During this period, Fateri was interested in management and leadership behavior. He wanted to understand what separated effective managers and leaders from others. Fateri wanted to learn and put in practice the attributes and traits that allowed managers and leaders to become successful. Later, once he became a manager and leader, he put in practice what he had learned and became a significant contributor to the growth of many other managers and leaders who now run very successful organizations.

Soon after, Fateri became fascinated with culture and more specifically organizational culture. Although he studied all business, management, and leadership principles, theories and models, he became one of the strongest advocates of organizational culture insisting that organizational culture is the most important component of organizational success over time. He deliberately spends ample time in building cultures and sustaining organizational cultures at every organization he has led. Fateri holds that customer satisfaction, financial success, quality, and more importantly, sustaining peak performance over time are all emerging properties of effective organizational cultures.

In the past ten years, Fateri’s focus has been on the future post-secondary education. How do students learn in an increasing digital ecosystem? What does the classroom of the future look like? What does the college of the future look like? What purpose will colleges serve in the future? What purpose will college degrees have in the future?

Fardad Fateri has been collaborating with several top internationally recognized thinkers, futurists, innovators and educators such as Peter Diamandis , John Seely Brown, Pablos Holman, and Brian Rouch to understand, learn, incubate, innovate and inevitably create sustainable learning landscapes for students of the future. Several of this team’s ideas are in practice now and along the work of other forward thinking educators, learning communities as we know them today will start shifting in decades to come.

Published work

Fateri is a prolific writer and his essays, articles, and opinions have been published extensively. The following are several pieces that have been found in various outlets: From College Degrees to College Education: A Paradigm Shift in the Higher Education Ecosystem (published in numerous national print and digital media); The American Narrative Re-Visited: A Multidimensional Comparative Framework for Disruption; An Open Letter to Congress[2] [2] ; The Fall of American Education[3] (Op-ed published by numerous national media outlets); Legendary Education: Transforming Scholars into Luminaries (contributing author) (Intercultural Education); The Profile of the Successful Educational Enterprise in the Year 2010 (California Career Education Association Journal); Designing the Future of Education through Partnerships, Technological Infusion, Measurable Learning Outcomes, and Career-Related Programs (California Career Education Association Journal); Valuing Diversity in America: The Challenge of the 21st Century (Journal of Ethnic Studies & Ethnic Bibliography)

Speaking engagements

Fateri is an invited guest speaker and presenter at many annual engagements, workshops, symposia and conferences on numerous topics like the following: The Role of Career Education in American Higher Education (Numerous national conferences); The Fall of American Education[4] (Numerous national and regional engagements); Who is the Architect of Your Future?[5] (Commencement Address at Mount San Antonio College); Assessment of Student Learning Outcomes Using Capstone Courses (Western Association of Schools and Colleges, 79th Annual Conference); Do Student Expectations and Levels of Satisfaction have an Impact on Assessment of Student Learning (Western Association of Schools and Colleges, 77th Annual Conference); The Road Ahead: Opportunities in an Era of Transformation (Keynote Speaker)(Long Beach Unified School District Conference); Stimulating Business and Commerce in the New Economy (Inland Valley Economic Development Conference); Higher Education in the 21st Century (ABC Unified School District Education Forum); Integrating Academic and Student Affairs Functions to Increase Student Persistence (Fifth National Conference, Students in Transition); Forum on Workforce Preparation (Panelist)( Panel sponsored by the Assembly of the California Legislature); Senior Design Projects at DeVry Institute of Technology (American Society of Engineering Education, Pacific Southwest Section Conference)

Professional activities and community service

Fateri has always been fully engaged serving the higher education community as well as the community at large. He has been a City Commissioner and is known to serve on various non-profit and philanthropic boards. Fateri is also involved in the following Board, committees and activities: Member, Board of Trustees for Cogswell Polytechnical College (2011–present); Professor of business, Keller Graduate School of Management; Dissertation Committee member, University of La Verne; Dissertation Committee member, Alliant International University; Dissertation Committee member; University of Southern California Dissertation Committee member, Pepperdine University.