Diversity Messages Blog

Welcome to Diversity Messages!

Welcome to Diversity Messages, our blog promoting positive messages about diversity, inclusion, understanding, civility and acceptance. In this chaotic world, we felt the need to put another voice out there touting the benefits of embracing diversity. We live in a diverse world, especially here in the United States. There are over 100 different languages spoken here in the state of Minnesota alone, which is also home to the largest Somali population in the country. Most Americans’ ancestors come from somewhere else, whether we want to acknowledge it or not.

Who are we? Dr. Leo and Julie Parvis. Dr. Leo Parvis is a retired cultural diversity and world geography professor from a college of technology in Minneapolis. Julie Parvis is a writer and marketing professional passionate about embracing diversity. Together, they have established National Diversity Day (the first Friday in October), created the Embrace Diversity logo and product line, built diversity websites and published several diversity-related books. Dr. Leo also did presentations at national and regional conferences. 

This blog will focus on discussing issues, disseminating information and occasionally commenting on related current events. We hope to support diverse people, educate and enlighten people, show support and perhaps change a few minds. The meaning of our Embrace Diversity logo says it all: “The shapes and colors express diversity in its many forms. The square, angled, is both a diamond and a square, and with it askance, it brings to mind ‘a square peg into a round hole,’ which we all in our own diversity, have felt at times. The gear wheel is not only a different shape; it also represents working ‘in sync,’ the cog and wheel, moving forward together. The circles are embracing the other shapes, bringing us all together as a whole to make a better world. The whole is greater than the sum of its many diverse parts.”

We hope you will join us in this journey of discovery as we explore differing aspects of diversity at home, school, places of worship, work and daily life. 

All the best,

Dr. Leo and Julie Parvis

Bios

Dr. Leo Parvis, our company president and diversity director, a Christian Persian Democrat, taught cultural diversity and global studies at Dunwoody College in Minneapolis for almost 20 years. He served on the Board of the League of Minnesota Human Rights Commissions, and the Chaska (Minnesota) Human Rights Commission for 5 years. Dr. Parvis is a past member of the National Association of Multicultural Education, the National Association of Ethnic Studies, and the International Leadership Institute. He is a diversity speaker, consultant, and author, currently working on multiple diversity publications for various age levels. See his books, "Understanding Cultural Diversity in Today's Complex World" and others in our online store.

Julie K. Parvis is an award-winning marketing diva and writer who is an overweight Lutheran Democrat, with a Scandinavian, Native American, Syrian, Basque, Irish, English (and probably more!) background with a life full of an amazing array of diverse friends and family. She was raised to be open-minded and accepting. Even as a little girl, her parents read stories to her about diverse people, they enjoyed a wide variety of ethnic foods, and watched a variety of diverse TV shows and movies (her favorite shows growing up were "Julia," featuring Diahann Carroll playing a widowed single mother who was a nurse; "Bridget loves Bernie," a show about a young Jewish man and a Christian girl who get married against their parents' wishes; and many other shows featuring diversity in a number of ways). She is the author of 1 published and 4 unpublished children's books dealing with diverse issues. After editing all of Dr. Leo's publications, Julie has become pretty familiar with diversity education herself!