Parke’s unwavering devotion, unshakeable faith earn MC’s 2024-25 Distinguished Professor Award

Ivan Parke, MC professor of Christian Studies, received the Distinguished Professor of the Year Award for 2024-25.

For 27 years, Ivan Parke has followed his calling at Mississippi College, joining beloved colleagues in teaching the Bible to young men and women who, in turn, will bear fruit for the Lord.

“I have lived a dream,” Parke said. “It has been a joy, more than a job.”

This spring, Parke’s zest for education was recognized by his students, who nominated the popular professor of Christian Studies to deliver the MC Mortar Board Honor Society’s Last Lecture and to receive the Faculty Champion Award from the Office of Student Success and the Faculty of the Year Award from the Student Government Association.

Parke, assistant to the chair in the Department of Christian Studies at MC, capped one of the most memorable semesters of any teaching career by receiving Mississippi College’s Distinguished Professor of the Year Award for 2024-25.

“I am incapable of expressing adequately how meaningful it is to be affirmed by colleagues and students,” Parke said. “In Heaven, awards are plentiful – no deserving saint is overlooked. On Earth, however, worthy candidates outnumber available awards. Therefore, I am honored and humbled to be the recipient of the Distinguished Professor of the Year.

“I now join a small group of renowned faculty whose impact at MC is legendary.”

Parke’s colleagues consider the term “legendary” too small to describe the impact he has made on MC students’ lives. Throughout the spring semester, Parke courageously maintained his faculty duties at MC despite being diagnosed with ALS in January 2025.

“Dr. Parke is a Christian gentleman who embodies the fruit of the Spirit found in Galatians 5:22-23,” said his friend and former instructor, Wayne VanHorn, MC professor of Christian Studies. “He is a Biblical scholar of the first rank. He has the rare ability to take the complex matters of textual issues and present them to undergraduates in a very understanding manner.

“He has been a laid-back, calm colleague willing to do anything to help the rest of the department faculty. He has modeled God’s grace in his daily deportment and helped all of us witness a true Christian in our midst.”

VanHorn met Parke at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary when Parke enrolled in his Job class. Parke distinguished himself as one of VanHorn’s top five students of all time.

“He still holds that standing,” VanHorn said.

At seminary, Parke wrote his dissertation on Job; three decades later, he authored a book on the subject, “When Life Meets the Soul: Everyday Lessons from the Book of Job.”

“His book is timely, and its effect has been divinely magnified by Dr. Parke’s battle with ALS,” VanHorn said.

Faculty members’ admiration of Parke isn’t limited to the Christian Studies department at MC. Christopher Weeks, MC associate professor of biology, director of the MC Honors College and a former student of Parke’s, is among a host of colleagues who sing his praises.

“Dr. Parke has a long history of academic rigor, infectious enthusiasm for his subjects taught, and deep interest in cultivating both the minds and lives of his students,” Weeks said. “Ivan has also been a tremendous colleague to work with. He is always seeking to better the lives of those he is surrounded by, be they students or faculty, or administration.

“He is respected by students for what he brings academically. He has given them high academic hurdles to clear, all the while helping them connect these academics to their hearts.”

The son of a cardiologist, Parke was born in Bombay, India, and immigrated to the U.S. at the age of 2. His family lived in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts before settling in Ormond Beach, Florida, which he claims as his hometown. As a freshman in high school, Parke preached his first sermon at First Baptist Church Ormond Beach.

Parke attended Baylor University and New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, where he focused on pastoral ministry, intending to become a full-time pastor. While earning his M.Div. and Ph.D., Parke befriended Les Hughes, an MC alumnus who would become chair of the Department of Christian Studies at his alma mater. In 1998, Hughes arranged for Parke to teach Old Testament at MC.

“I learned that God’s call to ministry is to follow wherever he leads,” Parke said.

Parke would go on to teach Introduction to the Old Testament, Introduction to the New Testament, Exegesis in Poetic and Wisdom Literature, Exegesis in Pentateuch, and Elementary and Intermediate Hebrew.

He became active in numerous organizations on campus and volunteered as sponsor of Shawreth Men’s Service Club. Parke served as Faculty Council president from 2005-06; a London Semester professor in 2004, 2013 and 2019; and director of the MC Spring Break Tour from 2023-24.

He spearheaded the establishment of the Alpha Mu Phi chapter of Theta Alpha Kappa in 2016 to recognize the academic achievement of Christian Studies majors, created the “BIB 322 Distinctive Theological Ideas in the Bible” course, and wrote two books: “Reclaiming the Real Jesus” in 2004 and “When Life Meets the Soul.”

Nominated twice as the Distinguished Professor from the School of Christian Studies and the Arts, Parke received the 2017-18 Student Government Association Outstanding Faculty of the Year Award. The 2013-14 Tribesman was dedicated in his honor.

He said MC and the Parke family are “inextricably linked.” His wife, the former Mary Ann Jones, taught in the Math department as an adjunct professor for 22 years. Their son, Jonathan, daughter, Anne Marie, and son-in-law, Micheal, graduated from MC; Parke is proud to have taught all three. As a sophomore, Anne Marie was also part of the group Parke led to London for the spring semester.

Parke’s favorite memories at MC include watching the Shawreth men’s service club announce that Anne Marie had been chosen as its freshman sweetheart, delivering the Mortar Board’s Last Lecture in 2025, and joining Beth Stapleton, MC professor of modern languages, to lead a sizeable group of travelers, including nine MC students, to Israel, “my favorite place to be after my couch,” just before airports closed for the COVID-19 pandemic in spring 2020.