Dear members of the North Park Faculty and Staff,
As each school year begins, we welcome new undergraduates to our campus at a celebration we call “Threshold”—a symbolic crossing from one place or time or period of life to another. At commencement we usher graduates across another threshold, this time leading away from their years at North Park toward another season in life—now directed as a life of significance and service.
I’m writing today to inform you that Linda and I have decided to cross a special threshold of our own this year. Last week I confirmed with our Board of Trustees my intent to retire as university president, and Linda as a professor, at the end of the current academic year.
This past September we joined with alumni and friends to celebrate North Park’s 125th anniversary. As I considered the story of the University over these many years I also reflected on my own, more limited, years on our campus. I found this to be a valuable exercise which prompted some larger questions for Linda and me.
In my inauguration address, I spoke about the unique voice each individual brings to life. Then I asked whether an institution might also have a voice. I commented: “Might North Park University have a voice? Might North Park have a particular syntax and diction, punctuation and grammar that are uniquely its own?”
As a campus community, we have worked together over the past 11 years to build upon the school’s legacy commitments by advancing learning on our campus today in ways that are particular to North Park. This is the voice I hear at North Park today:
- Out of a commitment to inclusion and student success, together we have cultivated a campus-wide spirit of hospitality to welcome all to North Park; we “contribute to the needs of the saints (and) extend hospitality to strangers.”
- We have advanced in impressive ways the Board’s 1995 objective to significantly increase diversity at North Park, accomplished in a pronounced way in student enrollment; “people (are coming) from east and west, north and south, to eat at the kingdom of God” on this campus.
- We are actively leveraging our location in a global city as we embrace Chicago as our classroom; today we “seek the welfare of the city.”
- With the deep generosity of friends from across the country—“like trees . . . which yield their fruit in its season”—we successfully completed Campaign North Park, leading to the design and construction of the Johnson Center to advance learning in the classroom and far beyond.
This is an exceptional voice in the higher education landscape. We have much to celebrate!
Linda likewise has been part of the campus community during our years here. She has taught side-by-side with dear colleagues who love Spanish as much as she does. Beyond this, she has shaped learning at North Park by designing and teaching in the Honors Congress. Most significant, perhaps, has been her mentorship with a small number of students each year applying for Fulbright awards. We have achieved 10 consecutive years of successful student applications and in multiple years the University has been named a “Fulbright Top Producer.”
Our decision to retire is set in these contexts. The past 11 years at North Park have been personally and professionally fulfilling for both of us. We have come to deeply love this institution, its students, and each of you. Together with you, we have made good (perhaps on occasion even great!) strides toward important objectives. Now is a good time for someone else to step into leadership and guide the school into the coming years. You’ll have the great privilege of being part of this transition to a new leader, remaining constant in faith, learning, and service at North Park.
This has been a special community for Linda and me. Consider this: over these past 11 years, you have mourned with us the passing of our four parents, and you have celebrated with us the birth of our six grandchildren! Thank you for welcoming us when we came in 2006, and to all who have joined the University since that time please know of the joy you brought to us in your own choice to be part of North Park. Linda and I have been honored to be your colleagues.
Linda reminds me often that in Spanish the verb “to retire” is “jubilarse,” literally translated as “to make oneself jubilant!” Our plans for personal life after transitioning from North Park remain fluid. We will return to the east coast to be close to children and grandchildren, and we’re confident further plans will come into focus in due time.
Most certainly we look forward to being together with you during the remaining weeks of the academic year. We’ll celebrate as our graduates cross their threshold from North Park, and Linda and I will follow soon after as we greet the next season of our own life.
With fondness for each of you,
