Dr. Ashok Joshi and Dr. Pam
Perlich have been chosen to receive honorary doctorates as part of Salt Lake
Community College’s 2018 commencement ceremonies on May 4.
About 15 years
ago, the award-winning scientist and now philanthropist Dr. Joshi told himself,
‘Giving back will give me the biggest happiness.’ He started in his home
country India, at first funding a mobile library that relied on people with
bicycles to rotate books weekly between 21 schools in rural villages. From
there he began building and expanding schools, including one in Wai that serves
mentally-challenged children that was in danger of closing. “I said, ‘Well,
that’s not acceptable to me. Those children are God’s children. Tell me what I
should do for you.’”
Dr. Ashok Joshi
What began in
India spilled over into Joshi’s involvement locally with colleges and their
students, who he still mentors today on an individual basis. He has funded
trips for students to India to help out in schools and villages, including with
women for whom he helped start small businesses with microloans. A past Salt Lake
Community College Trustee, Joshi now considers himself retired, though recently
he was executive director of Technology Holding LLC. Known as a serial
entrepreneur, he has ten ventures under his belt and 137 patents, mostly in the
electrochemical area, that bear his name. Joshi received his undergraduate
engineering degree in India, which he left in 1967 and soon followed with
master’s and doctorate degrees in material science from Northwestern University
in Illinois. One of his greatest professional accomplishments in a long career
was receiving the Industrial Research Institute Achievement Award in 2009 for
exceptional work as an entrepreneur, scientist and philanthropist in the
research and development industry.
Dr. Perlich started
her career teaching at what is now Tulsa Community College for seven years
before traveling for a year and then moving from her home state of Oklahoma to
the Beehive State in pursuit of her PhD in economics at the University of Utah.
“The fact that it is the community college makes it so meaningful for me,” she
said about the honor from SLCC. “And I so respect and admire (SLCC) President
Huftalin’s leadership, vision, passion and effectiveness, her commitment to
diverse populations and inclusion, which is a core piece of my work.” Perlich
is currently Director of Demographic Research at the Kem C. Gardner Institute
for the University of Utah, having previously taught economics at the U of U
and Westminster College. Perlich also held the post of research economist for
the Utah Governor’s Office of Planning and Budget from 1993 to 2000. Her job as
a demographic researcher then and now has far-reaching impacts throughout Utah
in government, education, business and beyond.
Dr. Pam Perlich
Over the years
Perlich has compiled research on and spoken to SLCC about the state’s changing
demographics and student population, dissecting data from multiple categories
to help the college with initiatives in areas like diversity and inclusion and
student success. That commitment and dedication to community colleges, notes
SLCC President Deneece G. Huftalin, is why Perlich was chosen to receive the
honor. Perlich calls community colleges “the people’s place,” where anyone can
get a higher education regardless of what you look like or where you came from.
She adds, “Community colleges, at their best, are much more nimble as far as
being able to develop and implement creative programing adapted to new student
bodies and their situations.”