Bill Parent is Associate Dean for Administration at the Luskin School of Public Affairs at UCLA, where he also serves as the acting Director of the Center for Civil Society.

In that position, he has instituted an annual regional nonprofit survey as part of the Center’s State of the Sector report (Resilience and Vulnerability, 2009; Hard Times, Impacts Actions and Prospects, 2010; and Stressed and Stretched, 2011-2012), which has been a catalyst for regional philanthropic and nonprofit policy initiatives.

He teaches courses on Leadership and Management of Nonprofit Organizations and Leadership in the Public Interest and has collaborated on research on graduate education in nonprofits and philanthropy. He writes an annual chapter on California politics for California Policy Options, a publication of the Luskin School.

He previously served as Associate Dean for Advancement and Assistant Dean overseeing the Policy Forum at the Luskin School. Before coming to UCLA in 2000, Bill was on the senior staff of the Harvard Kennedy School for 14 years, including five years as executive director of the Harvard University-Ford Foundation Innovations in American Government Program. He is a former newspaper reporter and also worked in the California Governor’s office and for the New York City Board of Education.

He holds an Ed.D. from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.