“When someone asks me why I teach here, my first response is, ‘I believe God called me to North Park,’ and, secondly, ‘I love it here!’” says Dr. Helen Hawkins, associate professor of music and coordinator for the bachelor of music: music in worship degree program.

Hawkins teaches theory and analysis, aural skills, music history, and church music, along with co-directing the Gospel Choir. She also helps coach the student-led worship teams that participate in campus worship each week.

Hawkins brings her own concentrated studies in music cognition, post-tonal music, and theory pedagogy to her classrooms, where she helps students develop their own musical abilities as well as find their place in the community of the School of Music.

Hawkins intentionally keeps a faith perspective in all her classes and draws on 20 years of experience as a church musician and conference worship leader in Chicago-area churches to inform her mentoring of worship leaders in training. She currently serves as a music minister at Second Baptist Church in Evanston, Illinois.