North Park has served five generations of students and continues to grow in diversity, academic relevance, and Christian commitment. Our Chicago location is a great asset that reflects the School’s global reach and outlook.
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North Park offers more than 40 graduate and undergraduate programs in liberal arts, sciences, and professional studies. Classes average 17 students. 84% of our faculty have terminal degrees. Academics here are rigorous and results-oriented.
North Park Theological Seminary prepares you to answer the call to service through theological study, spiritual development, and the formative experiences of living in a community with others on a similar life path.
The Office of Alumni Engagement fosters lifelong connections by engaging alumni with the university and one another in activities, programs, and services that support the university’s mission and alumni needs.
Community Shines as North Park Begins its 124th Year
Opening week highlights include Threshold, Athletics, and Convocation
CHICAGO (September 4, 2015) — This week marked the start of the 124th year at North Park University. Students and families from across the country and around the world caught a glimpse of the journey ahead of them over the next several years.
On Monday, August 31, the University also welcomed back returning students and began new classes for graduate students, both on campus and online across the country. Throughout the week, incoming first-year students participated in a series of events known as Threshold Welcome Week, meant to symbolize their passing through a gateway from one stage in life to another.
Below are some of our favorite memories from the week. Scroll through the photos to see what North Park students have been up to, and some of the things ahead for the coming year.
New Academic Programs Prepare Students for Tomorrow's Careers
In addition to new majors, Professor of Chemistry Dr. Izabel Larraza also credits "the first-class facilities" in the Johnson Center that provide the "space and technology support needed to engage more than ever in high-quality teaching and innovative research.”
Two undergraduate science majors, a math certificate, and a master of organizational leadership available this fall
CHICAGO (August 31, 2015) — This academic year, North Park University launched several programs that uniquely prepare students for careers in some of the fastest-growing and most sought-after fields in the job market. By equipping students to succeed in the careers of the future, the University strengthens its mission to prepare them for lives of significance and service.
While North Park’s biology program has a long history of guiding students toward careers in medicine and health professions, a new major, molecular biology and biotechnology (MBBT), trains students who are interested in biotechnology and other specialized biology research.
Biotechnologists use modern techniques and knowledge of biology, chemistry, biochemistry, and mathematics to find solutions to problems and develop new products with living systems and organisms. The MBBT program focuses on molecular biology in order to enhance the theoretical foundation and applications of the fastest-developing field of modern biology.
Certificate in Actuarial Science
Actuarial science is a branch of mathematics and statistics that focuses on risk and managing risk. Consistently ranked among the top jobs in the Jobs Rated Almanac, actuarial careers are some of the most sought-after and high-paying positions in the market today. North Park will offer undergraduate students this certificate to complete alongside their major, equipping them for careers in statistics, business, or economics.
Master of Organizational Leadership
The School of Business and Nonprofit Management will offer a new master’s degree this fall, the master of organizational leadership. Designed for senior executives and entry-level employees alike, the program combines leadership theory, ethics, and the advanced skills necessary to prepare students to become effective leaders in business and nonprofit sectors.
Besides preparation for graduate school, students will begin a path that will allow them to contribute to the improvement of drugs, therapies, vaccines, and diagnostic tests that can improve human and animal health. Some estimates say the biotechnology sector could add over 100,000 new jobs in the coming years.
“The training includes building research and experiment skills as well as critical thinking abilities, which are required for the future biotechnology and bio-research fields,” said Assistant Professor of Biology Dr. Timothy Lin. “By developing essential skills in these areas, students can be successful in both research and industrial careers.”
Another rapidly expanding discipline, biochemistry, focuses on the study of chemical processes and transformations associated with living organisms. For students who enjoy working at the crossroads of biology and chemistry, the new biochemistry major will be a fitting option as they prepare to pursue medical school, pharmacy, dentistry, or veterinary science.
The biochemistry program will provide a foundation for careers in a diverse range of fields, such as pharmacology, agriculture, environmental studies, forensic chemistry, food science and nutrition, and genetic engineering. Biochemistry majors will also be equipped for graduate school programs in many areas of cutting-edge research.
“Biochemistry echoes the type of learning required for students in the 21st century,” said Professor of Chemistry Dr. Isabel Larraza. “Because of its relevance to modern medicine, the major resonates with North Park’s desire to prepare healthcare practitioners in an era of high demand. With the first-class facilities in the Johnson Center, we have the space and technology support needed to engage more than ever in high-quality teaching and innovative research.”
North Park University, which offers more than 40 undergraduate majors in addition to 19 master’s degrees, began its 124th academic year on Monday, August 31. For more information about academic programs at North Park, please visit www.northpark.edu/academics.
Michael Emerson on Race, ‘People Cities,' and the Potential of North Park
Michael Emerson, North Park University's provost, began his appointment on July 1. He said he was drawn to North Park's Christian, urban, and intercultural values.
A conversation with the University’s new provost
CHICAGO (August 20, 2015) — Dr. Michael O. Emerson, North Park University’s new provost, moved around a lot growing up. He was born up the road from North Park in Evanston, Ill., and spent time in Detroit, all before his family settled in Minneapolis. And like most kids, he was unsure of what he wanted to do with his life.
“I graduated high school and moved to Los Angeles because I had seen it on TV, knew that it’s warm there, and thought, ‘Well, if I can’t find a job, I can at least sleep outside and I won’t die.’”
His candor and light-hearted retelling of his origin story are a far cry from what he would become, a renowned scholar and thought leader on race, religion, and urban sociology. It was a long journey, with some parts deliberate and others caused by circumstance.
After his brief stint in California, Emerson made his way to Chicago and Loyola University. He thought he’d become a banker, and chose Chicago because of its energy and the excitement he found riding the 'L' train around town.
He also rode the train to a class at the downtown campus, and the education he received as part of that helped set him on his future trajectory.
“That experience fundamentally changed me,” Emerson says. “I got off the train for class and I could see the housing projects, Cabrini Green, which were notorious. And you walk a few blocks and there’s the Gold Coast, and all the prosperity associated with it. You just couldn’t have a more dramatic contrast so close together. I had no idea how this had happened and why you’d see people of different color in these two places. I kept asking myself why, and that started my journey to what I ended up doing.”
He switched his major from psychology and statistics to sociology, and after graduation, immediately entered graduate school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. That began a long teaching career, with faculty appointments at the University of Notre Dame, Bethel University, St. John’s University, and most recently, Rice University.
Emerson’s scholarship focuses on the urban context. He was the head of the International Global Cities Program, charged with creating a strategic global network of researchers, institutes, and programs. He was founding director of the Center on Race, Religion, and Urban Life, and the Kinder Institute for Urban Research, and also developed and directed Rice’s Community Bridges Program, integrating service learning, course instruction, and community development in Houston. In addition, he was founding associate editor of Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, a journal of the American Sociological Association.
Before the start of the 2015–2016 academic year, Emerson sat down for a conversation about his research and North Park’s potential in the world.
North Park: You’ve been at North Park less than two months. What’s your impression so far?
Michael O. Emerson: We have a collection of really hard working people. They do a lot with what they have, and I’ve been really impressed. So far I have talked one-on-one with 63 faculty members, all of the deans, and various people around campus. So I am very, very impressed with people’s dedication to what they’re doing.
NP: One of your books, Divided by Faith, received acclaim in academic and church communities. It discusses the role of evangelicals in preserving America's racial chasm. It’s been 15 years since it was first published. Given the prevalence of race in the news with events in Ferguson and Baltimore, what’s changed since the book came out?
Divided by Faith, co-written in 2001 with Christian Smith, sheds light on the persistence of segregation in America's churches.
Emerson: In the last 15 years there has been a dramatic shift in the Christian world when it comes to talking about issues of race. And there has been a movement toward having multiracial congregations. We have failed many times, but there’s more focused activity around it. Conversations around questions such as, If we’re segregated, how can we desegregate? If we have inequality, what can we do about it? If there’s injustice, how can we address it?
At the same time, there’s another book that came out a few years back called The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander. It showed how we have re-institutionalized the past, but we do it through the prison system. Once you’re in prison, you’re a second-class citizen for most of the rest of your life and there are things you simply cannot do. You can’t access government housing, you can’t get money to go to college, and the list goes on and on. I think that book raised awareness that there’s injustice in the criminal justice system itself, and people then had a way to name it.
What is now happening around the country, what we keep seeing on TV is people saying “No.” This isn’t some event that happened just because somebody misbehaved, it’s part of this bigger system, and we’re going to say “No more.”
NP: Are there examples of how churches have responded in new ways?
Emerson: We just had another tragedy happen in Cincinnati involving an unarmed black man. There has been a very strong movement in Cincinnati in recent years of starting to worship together, of white pastors who have formed relationships with black pastors and are part of their organizations. When this event happened, instead of just black pastors standing in protest over the death of a young black man, you immediately had white pastors standing there too. Not taking over, because they’ve learned that’s not what you do. But being there in support. And they have actually developed principals: You must act right away, you must do it together, and it has to be clear who speaks and who doesn’t speak. That didn’t happen much 15 years ago. People have been working at it so that when events like this make national news, there’s a set response.
NP: You followed up Divided by Faith with another book, United by Faith. The first attempts to diagnose the issues, while the second argues that multiracial congregations can be an answer to the problem of race. Taking a step back, as an academic, is it ever enough to just diagnose a problem? Do you always have to propose solutions?
Emerson: At first I thought it was enough to just diagnose a problem, but my own pastor at the time told me something that really impacted me. He said, “I just ate up your book. I was reading it late into the night. I was lying in my bed and I got to the last page and I finished . . . and then I threw the book across the room.” He said I didn’t tell him what to do now. I heard many stories like that. People who said we helped them understand the problem, and they wanted to do something about it, but didn’t know where to start.
Yes, sometimes it is enough to just diagnose an issue. There are great strides we need to make in that area. Although personally and in my own field of sociology, I would say we’ve spent a hundred years diagnosing the problems, but the next hundred years of the field are going to be about how we can use our research methods and tools to suggest how things might improve. And also to test those suggestions to see if they work.
NP: Chicago is an important place for understanding race in America. Given our campus location here, what potential does North Park have to influence issues of race in a positive direction?
Emerson: I told the faculty when I interviewed here that I think that North Park can be the next great American university. We have a desperate need for more great American universities. We have a lot of universities, but many of them are doing pretty much the same thing. It’s a standard set of secular training and when it is done, you move on and you get a job. We have an opportunity here because of our location, because of our history, and because of our mission. We can address major issues of our time.
We are now a world of urban people and we have never been that before. For the first time people don’t access cities and experience them and then go back somewhere else. Increasingly, people spend their entire life in cities and across generations, and they access the countryside or other rural places as tourists. But their life is in cities. We haven’t yet figured out how to design cities as places where people will spend all of their lives across generations. To this point, cities have been designed as places to come and make money, be entertained, and move on. When we look back we’re going to realize that this was a period when we finally, as humans, figured out how to do cities for human beings themselves.
That is one of the roles that I can envision that North Park will have. Collectively, across all of our disciplines, we can work on creating a better Chicago and a better urban life for the people that are pouring into cities across the world.
NP: You spent the last year living and studying in Copenhagen, Denmark. What was that like?
Emerson and his family spent a year in Copenhagen, a city he says is focused on producing the "best quality of life possible" for the entirety of its citizens.
Emerson: I couldn’t have been more stunned. I thought, "I study cities, I know how cities work." And things kept happening that seemed unbelievable. I’ll give you a couple of examples: We hadn’t been there more than two weeks and we got a letter in the mail from the city government of Copenhagen and it said, “In honor of the support of raising your family, we’ll be depositing money into your bank account each month.” And they did! Not to mention the free healthcare and the free education. For instance, you can be 28 and in medical school and you’re getting paid for that. And you’re getting subsidized housing by the city, you’re getting a stipend on top of that for living expenses. I couldn’t understand what was going on. So that’s really the focus of a new book I’m working on.
With but a few exceptions, American cities are what I call “market cities.” They are cities designed to make money and increase regional wealth. Such cities see themselves as existing to recruit jobs, lure big businesses, and grow. That combination, in such a view, makes for a great city. People then will have good jobs and increase their wealth as they wish.
In a place like Copenhagen, they don’t think like that at all. That’s not what a city is about. A city is about producing the best quality of life possible for the entirety of your citizens. So they may think about recruiting businesses if that helps contribute to that, but it’s never their main goal. They’re thinking about how the city can be used as a vehicle to increase the quality of life for its citizens, as a tool to solve human issues like climate change, as a place to be sustainable and promote healthy people. For instance, research shows that people are a lot healthier if they commute to work on a bike instead of riding in a car. So Copenhagen spends major amounts of time, money, and other resources creating a city that encourages its citizens to choose biking rather than driving. They have been amazingly successful. Clearly, they have a fundamentally different approach to city building.
NP: What are the “people cities” in the United States?
Emerson: Portland is one that stands out, as does a place like Minneapolis. My colleague and I developed a one-to-five continuum to classify cities around the world from “strongly market city” to “strong people city.” We have no strong people cities in the U.S., just a few of what we call “lean toward people cities.” We have, though, built a lot of strong market cities.
We classify Chicago as a “lean-toward-market city” because though its dominative motif remains market growth, it’s trying to do some things that are people-focused. It develops wonderful parks. It’s trying to be the bike capital of the U.S. Currently, according to all research and experience, the city is doing their bike lanes incorrectly. But the city is trying. It will get there eventually.
NP: What’s wrong with Chicago’s bike lanes?
Emerson: The current bike lanes put bikers at risk rather than protecting them, leading to dangerous hazards. This would not be tolerated in a place like Copenhagen. Chicago is still “cars-first” but attempting to make allowances for bikes. In the U.S., we typically ask, “How can bikes share the road with cars?” That’s the wrong question. Research is clear: Cars and bikes cannot share space. Cars always win. The error in our current Chicago and U.S. city design is that we have a lane of parked cars, then we paint a strip that says, that’s the bike lane, and then we have moving cars. To be frank, such a design invites death—vehicles must always and continually move across the bike lane to park or reenter moving traffic, constantly putting the biker in harm's way.
The simple solution is to switch the parked-cars lane and the bike lane. By doing so, you create a protective barrier for the bikers and you eliminate cars pulling across the bike lane to park or go.
NP: Shifting topics a bit, we talked about North Park’s identity as an urban institution. What about its identity as a Christian university? What is the role of a Christian university in academia today?
Emerson: We have to begin by asking why Christian universities were founded, and the historical progression they often undergo. Typically a group of people at some point say something like, “Oh, our current universities are really secular. We need to create a place where our students can integrate faith and learning. So we’re going to create a school focused on Christianity.” What then typically happens over the course of 100 years or so—and it happens over and over and over again—is that as the university becomes more successful and attracts more people, pressure mounts to pull back on the Christian aspect of the university. This happens for all sorts of interconnected reasons.
The challenge is how do you, as a university, keep that faith commitment to actually create the better world that you say you want? I think that’s where North Park is situated perfectly. If we’re in this time of trying to figure out how to do new urban life together, you can’t do that without thinking about the great questions behind such a process. What does it mean, life together? What is life for? Why do we exist? We need some sort of guide and direction for the sacrifices it takes to do things that make it possible to make better lives. We need faith and deep, principled motivation.
One of my frustrations when I was in a secular university was having to stop short of talking about why we might want to do these things or asking the underlying questions. Many students, faith commitment or not, think we should have a better world. We have to treat people right, they say. Where does that come from? And when push comes to shove and you can make a lot of money by not treating people right, what are you actually going do in the end?
We need to have that discussion. Humans can’t operate without some sort of moral compass. So let’s talk about that moral compass. At a Christian university, we don’t have to ignore it.
NP: To ask a more personal question, how has your transition to Chicago been? Have you settled in a neighborhood?
Emerson: As a family we were looking for a diverse neighborhood close enough to walk and bike to North Park. We also wanted to be within walking distance of the 'L' train. We found all of this just six blocks south of campus. Chicago, to me, is the greatest American city bar none. There are all sorts of reasons why. Compared to the livability of many European cities, it has a ways to go. But it can get there. The American way of understanding cities is fairly limited, as we talked about. There’s improvements that can be done, but that’ll be the fun part.
NP: What makes Chicago the greatest American city?
Emerson: It’s the incredible foresight that doesn’t happen in most cities. It’s the one that years ago said we’re going to take our most valuable land, the lakefront, and keep it for the people. The ordinance that said there are no commercial buildings to be built east of Lake Shore Drive. That’s incredible. I don’t know how that happened. I’ve read lots of things about it, but I still don’t understand how the business leaders of the time and the political leaders agreed to do that. And what a difference that has made.
North Park University Receives Grant to Preserve Records of First Swedish Church in Chicago
CHICAGO (August 17, 2015) — The Swedish Council of America recently awarded North Park University and Archivist Anna-Kajsa Anderson a $3,500 grant for the St. Ansgarius Records Conservation and Digitization project.
St. Ansgarius Church was the first Swedish congregation in Chicago, an Episcopal church established in 1849 in what is now the River North neighborhood. Its records from the years 1849-1896 are held by the archives in North Park University’s Brandel Library as part of the Swedish-American Archives of Greater Chicago. These records are significant to both the city of Chicago and Scandinavian American history for the role the church played in the fledgling immigrant community and because of their survival of the great Chicago Fire of 1871.
The fragile records are currently restricted from public use until they receive conservation treatment covered in part by the SCA grant.
“We are so grateful for the support of the Swedish Council of America, as it helps to not only ensure the preservation of these unique and important records, but also greatly increase their accessibility,” Anderson said.
Archives staff will make digital images of the records produced by this project freely available online through its website. The archives is also working with the Center for Scandinavian Studies at North Park University, the Swedish-American Historical Society, and the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago to develop events for next year, which will include a symposium, an exhibition of the St. Ansgarius Church records, and a Eucharist service.
Since 1975, the Swedish Council of America has made 352 grants to museums, schools, language camps, art galleries, archives, theaters, libraries, musical groups, lodges, festivals, language camps, genealogical societies, and dozens of other organizations, all with an eye to preserving Swedish heritage or promoting Swedish culture to an ever-wider audience.
North Park University was founded in 1891 by the Evangelical Covenant Church (ECC), a denomination formed by Swedish immigrants. North Park University maintains a connection to its Swedish and Scandinavian roots through academic programs and other cultural exchanges.
“I want to be a voice with the voiceless,” says Sharon Irving, a 2008 graduate preparing to perfom in the next round of America’s Got Talent. Irving will debut a full-length album of original works in the coming months.
North Park University graduate Sharon Irving to perform live this month on America’s Got Talent
CHICAGO (August 10, 2015) — It was three days before Sharon Irving was to audition for the TV series America’s Got Talent. Mere hours before her rendition of “Take Me to Church” by Hozier would bring the crowd and judges to their feet and earn her an automatic trip to the live rounds in New York City. But the 2008 North Park University graduate had her mind on another gig.
She was in Angola, Louisiana, at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, also known as the “Alcatraz of the South.” She was performing with the Willow Creek Community Church worship team in front of hundreds of inmates as part of an ongoing prison ministry.
“I didn’t want to do it because I thought, ‘I have to save my voice for America’s Got Talent,’” Irving says. “But I think God lined that up because it put things in perspective.”
Irving tells the story of a community of people with amazing voices who sang their hearts out that night. Some of them came up to her after and told her to think of them when she’s up in front of the judges.
“During my sophomore year at North Park I started saying that I want to be a voice for the voiceless,” Irving says. “It kind of evolved to I want to be a voice with the voiceless, because I’m all about empowering people. That’s what I wanted my music to be about.”
So when she walked on stage, she wasn’t thinking about the celebrity hosts or the bright lights. She was thinking about the men in Angola who sang their hearts out. “It’s easy to focus on the wrong things because it’s a competition,” Irving says. “You get nervous and you start to compare yourself with other contestants. I’ve been reminded constantly that this is bigger than me.”
Music as a bridge to healing
Irving was born and raised on the South Side of Chicago. She grew up singing in her grandfather’s church, Greater Mount Moriah Baptist. “Music has always been a part of my upbringing,” she says. Her parents have videos of her writing music when she was five years old, before she was even aware that her father was a premier musician himself, a former musical director for jazz legend Miles Davis. “I really believe that this is something that I was born to do.”
“Sometimes people have a gift where we can move our hearts, and you moved every heart in this room,” America’s Got Talent Judge Howie Mandel told Irving on stage on June 9. America’s Got Talent airs live on NBC on Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 8/7c. Irving’s first live performance will be either August 11, 18, or 25.
The pieces were there that linked music with a larger purpose. Irving describes how in “black culture, music is closely linked to our struggle,” and with that, she also speaks about the example of her grandfather, who marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “When the slaves had to run for their freedom, they came up with these songs that carried them through. And so for me, that tradition is passed on from my grandparents. Music is healing and it bridges the gap between people.”
It was when she came to North Park in 2004 that she started to link those elements together and find her own identity and purpose with music.
Irving says she feels a responsibility and a calling to be a prophetic voice through her music, a “mouthpiece” to create an atmosphere of freedom where people “would feel reconciled to God and to each other.”
“I had a professor at North Park, Dr. Rupe Simms, and he was one of the first professors that taught me about what it means to live in this world as an agent of change and to take the path of least resistance,” Irving says. Simms, professor of Africana studies, takes his students on a journey through history from an Afrocentric standpoint, and considers the ways that African Americans, Afro-Mexicans, and Mexican Americans experience life in the United States today. The role of music in that context is essential.
Irving was a communication arts major, and minored in sociology. These areas drove her interest in understanding how things work in society, specifically with issues of race and class, and figuring out ways to use her talent to speak to those issues.
It was around the same time that she began leading worship with Collegelife, a weekly communal worship experience on North Park’s campus. She says this experience shaped her “in a big way.” She found her voice, not just in melodies or songs, but also with different forms of communication, specifically a type of poetry known as spoken word.
“I started writing about my experience growing up in Chicago and what that was like,” Irving says. “It’s one thing to have a talent for writing songs in your room that no one hears, and it’s another to actually use that voice for good.”
As part of the worship team for Collegelife, Irving helped to record an album for the North Park community, which featured a spoken word performance. You can listen to the track from that album here: Listen
After graduating from North Park, Irving worked as a vocalist at Willow Creek Community Church for several years. She recently left that position to focus on her music career full-time and is nearing completion of an album due out sometime this fall. It’s titled 69th and Bennett, the address where she grew up, paying homage to foundations that continue to influence her.
Though Irving does admit her upbringing is not the only influence on her music. She boasts of a surprisingly eclectic taste in music, which presents opportunities and challenges her as an artist.
“Being a black girl from the South Side of Chicago, I think some people might be surprised to find that I love Dolly Parton. I love Bjork, Sufjan Stevens, Radiohead, and Led Zeppelin.” She says she is influenced by what feels good, and is drawn to artists who are thoughtful about the entire musical experience, including stage design and wardrobe. “I love old school because I’m an old soul, but I also love world music, and any music that uses a lot of different instruments.”
Her brother is also a musician, doing mostly underground instrumental work, and Irving says he is one of her biggest inspirations.
Some people in the industry tell Irving it would be easier if she clarified whether or not she was a Christian artist, or picked some kind of pre-defined category. That would be easier to sell. But that wouldn’t be true to her as an artist, and especially to the breadth of her musical influences and interests.
Live show
Irving can’t reveal the song she will sing for her first live performance in New York City. She does hint that it will be closely tied to her identity and mission as an artist. “I’ve been really encouraged by the process,” Irving says. “Television is a whole different world for me. I thought they would try to make me more commercial or do things I didn’t want to do.”
Instead the opposite happened. She has worked with producers and musical coaches who have encouraged her to share her message of hope. They told her she was the only artist on the show with a mission to her music, and that wasn’t something to hide from.
“It is not just about entertaining people,” Irving says. “I hope that the music I sing in New York can break down those barriers that divide us as humans.”
America’s Got Talent airs live on NBC on Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 8/7c. Irving’s first live performance will be August 11, 18, or 25.
NPRESS students and their sponsoring faculty members gathered on Friday, July 24, to present findings from their 8-week research projects.
Students complete first summer of new research program
CHICAGO (August 3, 2015) — When the spring semester ends and the last finals are complete, most undergraduate students head out on their own summer adventures. But for a group of ten students, in collaboration with ten faculty partners, a new academic opportunity was just beginning.
“North Park has been around for almost 125 years and I can tell you there has never been a summer quite like this,” North Park University President David Parkyn told a full room on Friday, July 24, in the Johnson Center.
The audience was there to hear final presentations of the first group of NPRESS students. The NPRESS (North Park Research Experience for Summer Students) program provides opportunities for North Park students to conduct research with a North Park faculty mentor for eight weeks over the summer. It was the brainchild of a core group of faculty, and funded by a small group of donors, allowing students to dive into a topic in a way that the constraints of an academic year do not always allow. Students received a $3,500 stipend and were given the opportunity to live on campus, making it possible for them to focus solely on research.
“The donors who support NPRESS are individuals who are deeply committed to your experience here at North Park,” Parkyn told the students. “They want invest in you, and figure out the kinds of things that can change the game for our students.”
The NPRESS program had a number of communal learning experiences, including a historical architecture tour of Chicago.
More than 30 students applied for the program, with 10 chosen. They worked with a faculty member on a topic and submitted a research proposal to the selection committee. The committee looked for diversity of topics, in addition to students who had laid the foundation for further research throughout their time at North Park. A number of students conducted research in the sciences, while others did work in theology, English, and accounting. A complete list of participants and projects is below.
“Some of the students were sitting on the fence as to what their future holds as far as academia,” said Dr. Rajkumar Boaz Johnson, co-director of the NPRESS program alongside Dr. Aaron Kaestner. “This is going to give them the gusto, the strong thirst for more research, and it will probably have a positive effect on the larger student body and faculty.”
Students spent time in private research and in conversation with their sponsoring faculty member, but an important part of the NPRESS experience was communal learning. Together, they listened to panels of North Park faculty experts, hearing stories of their current research projects. They also attended the Justice Conference in Chicago, and participated in a guided architecture tour of the city. It was part of an effort to demonstrate that research is a communal project, and while individual topics may be different, there are many points where they interconnect.
"All learning is a creative process,” Parkyn added in his message to the students. A significant amount of the research presented today took advantage of our location in Chicago, reinforcing the idea that this city is in fact our classroom.
Matthew Davis, a senior double major in history and conflict transformation, studied the ambiguous status of female prostitutes in Roman imperial religion with Dr. Joel Willitts. "I believe the greatest strength of the NPRESS program is the ability to be mentored by faculty," Davis said. "Dr. Willitts helped me become a better thinker and writer, and for that it is an invaluable experience."
Alexandria Slavik, who is heading into her senior year at North Park as a double major in psychology and Spanish, said NPRESS was a valuable experience for her because she “was able to learn every step to the research process.” Her project investigated the relationship between personality, religiosity, and vocation in North Park University undergraduate students. The goal was to understand the relationship in order to develop a model for prediction of vocation based on personality and religiosity measures, aiding advisors, students, and student support offices with career counseling and development. “This opportunity was important because when I graduate from North Park I will be pursuing a master's degree in occupational therapy. That is a growing field and I will benefit from basic research about practices and treatments.”
The NPRESS program will continue next summer and applications for interested students and faculty members will be available in the coming months.
2015 NPRESS student and faculty participants:
Samantha Wagner with Dr. Kezia Shirkey (Psychology) Gender Differences and Health Change: Physical and Psychological Changes in Students Enrolled in Stress and Health
Alexandria Slavik with Dr. Elizabeth Gray (Psychology) The Association between Personality, Vocational Interest, and Religiosity in College Undergraduates
Susannah Thorngate, a senior double major in secondary education and English, participated in poetry events around the city as part of her research on poetry and social justice in Chicago. "NPRESS was a great chance for me to see the value of performance poetry in terms of shared human experience," she said. "I was able to expand my understanding of research, social justice, and community all at the same time." The performance above took place at the Green Mill, a historic jazz club in the Uptown neighborhood of Chicago. View more of her performances on her Tumblr.
Kristin Lundeen with Dr. Stephen Ray (Physics and Engineering) Modeling Pedestrian Comfort in an Arbitrary Geometry
Oluwakemi Oshimokun with Dr. Suzen Moeller (Nursing and Health Sciences) Rethinking the Trauma Center Placement on the Southside of Chicago
Yavor Todorov with Drs. Matt Schau and Drew Rholl (Biology) Detecting and Characterizing Human Pathogens in Ixodes scapuloris
Matthew Davis with Dr. Joel Willitts (Biblical and Theological Studies) The Status of Prostitutes in the Religious Communities of the First Century City of Rome
Debbe Elfren Espejo with Mr. Mark Gavoor (Business and Nonprofit Management) The Relationship of Inventory Turns and Cash using Managerial Accounting Performance Measures
Erika Husby with Dr. Ilsup Ahn (Philosophy) Pedagogy of Centro Autónomo: Popular Education as Postcolonial Resistance and Recovery
David Potter with Dr. Mary Trujillo (Communications) Sustainable Social Change through Contemplative Activism: An annotated typology of self-care practices
Susannah Thorngate with Dr. Kristy Odelius (English) Poetry and Social Justice in the Chicago Community
Incoming North Park Freshman Invited to White House for Youth Summit
The Beat the Odds Summit, hosted by First Lady Michelle Obama on Thursday at the White House, focused on sharing tools and strategies to help more students successfully transition to college and complete the next level of their education.
Part of First Lady's Reach Higher initiative
CHICAGO (July 24, 2015) — Incoming North Park University freshman Cesar Bustos, a graduate of Steinmetz High School in Chicago, was invited to attend a youth summit at the White House on Thursday. He was one of 130 students from across the country selected to attend the Beating the Odds Summit, hosted by First Lady Michelle Obama.
The event was part of the first lady’s Reach Higher initiative, which is intended to get more U.S. students to continue their education after high school. Bustos participated in workshops and panels focusing on obtaining the tools and strategies to help more students successfully transition to college and complete the next level of their education. Students attending the summit come from a variety of backgrounds, all of whom had "overcome substantial obstacles to persist through high school and make it to college," the White House said in a statement.
“The experience sounds so surreal,” Bustos told the Chicago Sun-Times in an interview before leaving for Washington, D.C. “Being undocumented, I never believed I would ever go to the White House or even meet the first lady. I never thought this would happen to me. As undocumented immigrants, we come to work and hope we can provide better for our children. That’s what my mom wanted for me from the beginning.”
On Thursday, Michele Obama told incoming college students that "education should be cool again. This should be the cool thing to do in life."
A panel consisting of Obama, Education Secretary Arne Duncan, E! News co-anchor Terrence Jenkins, rapper Wale, and college senior and education activist at Brown University, Manuel Contreras, discussed the keys to success in college.
“Failure is a necessary part of growth and success,” Obama said. “Don’t let that be your mental barrier. Roll up your sleeves, don’t be afraid to work hard, and if you fail, recover. Get over it."
“Nothing can prepare you for teaching more than actually submerging yourself into the teaching profession,” says Steve Smrt, who began an assignment this summer at Robeson High School with the Golden Apple program.
North Park University junior sees teaching as a kind of ministry
CHICAGO (July 23, 2015) — Steve Smrt, a Rockford native and North Park University junior, had intentions in high school of becoming a youth minister. But by the time he got to campus his freshman year, he began to “feel a tug in a different direction,” as he describes it.
“I felt a calling towards teaching, but I would say that teaching is still a kind of ministry,” says Smrt, a double major in secondary education and history. It’s a calling to serve and invest in young people, though the environment may be different.
That calling was affirmed this spring when Smrt received the Golden Apple Pathway Scholarship, the second year in a row a North Park student received the award. Beyond financial assistance to complete his teaching degree at North Park, the Golden Apple award also provides career development and mentoring opportunities throughout his undergraduate program and into his teaching career.
This year, 200 college students from Illinois were selected for the Golden Apple Pathway Scholarship, bringing the total number of statewide participants to more than 1,800 since its inception in 1989. The program is designed to prepare future teachers to thrive in the most challenging high-needs school environments where more resilient teachers are needed.
Smrt’s first-hand experience has already begun this summer, as he received a teaching assignment at Robeson High School in the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago. He is teaching a small class of seven high school students, leading many of the classes alongside a cooperating teacher from Robeson. It’s a credit recovery course in social studies, his favorite subject, which allows the Robeson High School students to earn credits to move on to the next grade level.
Steve Smrt, second from right in top row, with additional 2015 award recipients from the School of Education.
Front Row, left to right:
After teaching all morning, he and his fellow Golden Apple award recipients then regroup from their teaching assignments for additional classes and workshops on the art of teaching.
The demand of the program thus far has been challenging, Smrt admits. “But it also inspires me to become a better teacher. It’s my first experience inside of a classroom. I’m not only bettering myself in my content areas, but also learning how to reach different kids. People learn in different ways and it’s about differentiating your teaching.”
“I am impressed by Steve's love for learning, professional and personal integrity, and willingness to collaborate with others,” Maduram says. “I am sure his experiences with Golden Apple are enabling him to become a thoughtful educator. I know he will distinguish himself as an excellent teacher.”
After his upcoming junior year at North Park, Smrt will receive another teaching assignment for next summer as part of the Golden Apple program. Once he does graduate from North Park in 2017, he plans to continue teaching history or social studies to high school students, preferably in an urban setting. As part of the Golden Apple Pathway Scholarship, Smrt has committed to teaching in a high-need school in Illinois for five years following college graduation.
“We applaud these young people for making the selfless choice to inspire and lead future generations of students through a career in education,” said Dominic Belmonte, Golden Apple president and CEO, in a release. “As teachers they will experience the reward of improving the lives of thousands of children. We know from experience that excellent teachers produce successful students and we welcome this new class of future educators with deep gratitude and enthusiasm.”
In the early 2000s, the Ultimate Frisbee team got its start playing on the Hump behind Old Main.
The Lost Boys, 15 years later
CHICAGO (July 9, 2015) — In the spring of 2001, a group of North Park University students would gather a few times per week on the Hump. That’s what the rolling green space behind Old Main is called. It has served many purposes over the years, including for these students as a makeshift Ultimate Frisbee field, with bushes and trees acting as end zones and out-of-bounds markers. The games were casual, something to do after class and to meet people.
That year, one of the team members got in touch with a rival college west of Chicago and asked if they wanted to come to North Park for a formal game.
“I remember them showing up with jerseys and cleats and thinking, ‘This is the sport I want to play,’” says Luke Johnson, who was a junior at the time. “At that point I went from a casual observer and casual player to spearheading a movement that year that we needed to form a club.”
The ragtag group of guys lost the match that day, but that summer Johnson, along with fellow student Jeff Keyser, approached the University’s student government association about turning their casual group into a formal school club. They eventually got their own set of jerseys and over the last decade have risen to become a regional power in the sport of Ultimate Frisbee. “I can tell you we haven’t lost to that team very often since that day on the Hump,” Johnson adds.
The Lost Boys, originally known as Extend, has three goals: brotherhood, fun times, and winning games. “The idea behind Extend was to use Ultimate Frisbee as a platform to talk about Jesus,” says Johnson. “Even though it’s not called that anymore, it instilled a value set that still exists today.”
Since the formal inception of Division-III Nationals in 2010, the North Park team has made it there every year except one, finishing as high as third. That is made even more impressive by the fact that only one team per year from the region earns a bid to nationals. At one point, the team was ranked as the 38th best collegiate Ultimate team, which includes teams from Division-I and Division-II universities.
And although leery of the name change at first, Johnson came to appreciate its purpose. “When they changed the name to Lost Boys I think it really captured well the spirit of the team,” he says. “There is this group of guys that really don’t belong in the sport. They are not the jocks or have much experience at all, but here they are competing at the highest level.”
Case in point, by 2009 the club had improved and was competing regularly with teams across all college divisions. Johnson tells the story of a young student at North Park, who was not particularly athletic, still working on his English, and trying to find his community on campus. One day that student was walking by the Hump and spotted the group of guys running around throwing a Frisbee. He asked them what they were doing, and quickly earned an invitation to play.
“He fell in love with the spirit of the team and the friends,” says Johnson. “He came to every tournament, played maybe two-to-three points in a whole weekend, but he’d warm up, be in huddles, and he didn’t care. I’m happy to be a part of a club that can have a guy like that on the team. That’s what makes this team so special.”
More than Frisbee
The Lost Boys is ultimately about something more than an official 175-gram disc and formal jerseys. Johnson knows this firsthand, as his journey with the club ventured far beyond his days as an undergraduate.
The team's original name, Extend, instilled the values of brotherhood and character that persist today.
After graduating from North Park in 2003 with a double major in youth ministry and philosophy, Johnson moved to Oregon to serve in a church. By 2009, he was thinking about graduate education, and pursuing a master of divinity through North Park Theological Seminary.
“It might sound silly, but a huge factor in considering North Park Theological for seminary was knowing that I could come back and play college Ultimate,” Johnson says.
His eligibility had not expired—in college Ultimate the five-year clock starts ticking once you play your first game—so he decided to move back. And that decision paid off in more ways than one. At his first tournament in St. Louis he met a North Park undergraduate student, Kelly, who was an Ultimate standout in her own right and still the only female to ever play for the Lost Boys. She also starred for Allihopa, North Park’s women’s Ultimate Frisbee team.
It turned out a few years later the two would get married, and Kelly would go on to play for the Seattle Riot, a women’s professional Ultimate Frisbee team in Seattle, where she would help them to win the 2014 World Championship in Lecco, Italy.
What’s more, Luke Johnson turned his love for Ultimate Frisbee, born out of the Lost Boys, into a partnership with the American Ultimate Disc League. Johnson’s company, Fulcrum Media Group, works on video production for the men’s professional Ultimate Frisbee league, which has seen an incredible amount of expansion in recent years.
The North Park Women’s Ultimate Team, Allihopa, is a group of dedicated ladies who love to play Frisbee and love the Ultimate community of friends and fun. Allihopa formed as a club sport in the spring of 2003.
The fundamentals of Frisbee
On a warm sunny day in late June, a current member of the team, Adam McDowell, and coach and former player, Cameron Hodgkinson met us on the field at nearby Von Steuben High School to toss around a Frisbee. McDowell, sporting his Lost Boys jersey, was taking a break from a summer physics course on campus, while Hodgkinson, a 2011 alum, stopped over on his lunch break wearing work pants and black leather dress shoes.
At its most basic form, the point of Ultimate Frisbee is to pass the disc from one end of the field to the other without dropping it. It’s free flowing, relying on the integrity of the players, with no referees.
“The game itself fits right into the spirit of the Lost Boys, and becomes a perfect avenue for players to fully embody what it means to play with character,” says Luke Johnson.
There are two main positions, McDowell and Hodgkinson explained, cutters and handlers. They can be thought of as wide receivers and quarterbacks. There are a number of throws in Ultimate Frisbee, including some complicated ones like the hammer and the chicken wing. But the two basics are the forehand and the backhand.
“Other teams try to get fancy with their throws and it can look nice, but we rely on fundamentals,” Hodgkinson says.
Each fall, the Lost Boys bring in fresh recruits with little experience for basic training. The first thing is to teach them how to throw, and players line up across from one another for a simple game of catch. It can get tedious, but after the fundamentals, they then move on to the team’s signature on-field strategies.
On offense, a team usually plays what’s called a horizontal stack or a vertical stack, basically how they line up on the field and where the players run. The Lost Boys prefer the horizontal stack, though they will switch it up, and prefer deep throws to a collection of short ones. The team is mainly known for its defense, and its execution of a zone. Most teams play man-to-man. It’s simpler and requires less strategy. But the Lost Boys practice the zone, and take advantage of the windy conditions of the Great Lakes region. They count on the other team’s inability to successfully complete a series of passes, and more often than not, it works.
Yet despite all of the strategy, and practicing, and game plans, for Hodgkinson, like Johnson and everyone else who came before, the Lost Boys is about more than winning.
“Since we are not a varsity sport we don’t make any cuts,” he says. ”It doesn’t matter if you’re in shape, whether you were a star athlete in high school. We could care less if we win or lose. Obviously we want to win, but we just want to be with our friends.”
It’s a spirit born out of the North Park experience. “You are becoming an adult, figuring out life, and just spending so much time together,” Johnson adds. “That brotherhood is a natural thing.”
Setting the mark
“When they changed the name to Lost Boys I think it really captured well the spirit of the team,” Johnson says. “There is this group of guys that really don’t belong in the sport. They are not the jocks or have much experience at all, but here they are competing at the highest level.”
In April 2014, the Lost Boys suffered a shocking defeat in the quarterfinals of the Great Lakes Regional to Indiana Wesleyan. It meant the first time the team wouldn’t get the one and only bid to nationals for D-III since its officially inception in 2010.
This past April, the team had an opportunity to earn back its place as the premier D-III Ultimate Frisbee power in the region with a return matchup against Indiana Wesleyan in Rockford. That Indiana Wesleyan team happened to feature the D-III national player of the year, yet the Lost Boys started fast and won 14-11, securing its place at Nationals.
They returned a few weeks later to Rockford for the national tournament, and would exceed expectations, finishing in a tie for 11th. After the tournament, the team posted on its Facebook page:
“Thanks and good luck to all of our seniors. It was a pleasure playing with you guys for the past 4 years! The team will take some time off and enjoy the summer, but are already gearing up for a trip to North Carolina next May for Nationals.”
On North Park University’s campus, you’ll still see a fair amount of Frisbees flung around the Hump, whether it’s a small game of Ultimate or a group of freshmen learning about the infamous secret disc golf course. The team now plays at a larger park down the street on Foster Avenue. In the fall, they will put up posters and recruit new students to join them for practice a few times per week. Nationals is the expectation now, and probably will be for some time. There is no shortage of belief. It’s a far cry from that day in 2001.
Still, the spirit of the club remains the same. “It’s the community that keeps me around,” says Hodgkinson. “I want to be a part of continuing this tradition however I can.”
The last game of the day for the North Park Lost Boys was a tough one. There was one player though who stood out for the boys from Chicago. Check out his highlights and final words of the day to his teammates.
Andrea Mitchell Receives Fulbright to Teach in Latvia
“No matter where I am, whether that’s getting the opportunity to teach in Latvia or after the Fulbright, North Park has given me tools to meet people where they’re at,” said Andrea Mitchell, 2015 alumna and the University’s 18th Fulbright recipient in the last seven years.
CHICAGO (June 24, 2015) — A third North Park University graduate from the 2015 class has received a Fulbright award, bringing the University’s total to 15 students and three faculty members who have earned the honor over the last seven years. Andrea Mitchell, an elementary education major from Austin, Texas, will travel to Latvia this fall to serve as an English Teaching Assistant in either a university setting or as part of the community with younger students.
“No matter where I am, whether that’s getting the opportunity to teach in Latvia or after the Fulbright, North Park has given me tools to meet people where they’re at, to care for the 'whole person,' Mitchell said. “That is a life of significance and service, and it’s an honor to have been given much to serve with.”
“It’s the people who have most shaped me at North Park,” Mitchell added. “Yes, I got an education. But I also was challenged to be a young adult who follows and seeks after Christ with all that I have.”
After serving in Latvia, Mitchell plans to return to Chicago to teach at the elementary or middle school level.
“Andrea's wit, intelligence, and depth of analysis will enable her to be a very effective English teaching assistant in Latvia,” said Dr. Angelyn Balodimas-Bartolomei, professor of education at North Park. “She has greatly researched into the customs, language, and life of the country. It has been said that a powerful teacher displays several of the same characteristics of a great actor or actress. Andrea's zeal makes her do just this. She will mesmerize her students while teaching them about our language and country.”
The Fulbright Program was established by the U.S. Congress in 1946, and is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State. It is the largest U.S. international exchange program offering opportunities for students, scholars, and professionals to undertake international graduate study, advanced research, university teaching, and teaching in elementary and secondary schools worldwide.
Author Mireille GallegosPosted on Categories Stories
