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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.
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President Parkyn addresses MAP Grant funding and North Park’s commitment to affordability
The Monetary Award Program (MAP) has provided grant funds for Illinois residents to attend college in the state since 1967. The State of Illinois budget, which includes authorization for this program, ran out on July 1, 2015, leaving many students and universities (including North Park University) vulnerable to funding shortages. Significant coverage has been given by news outlets to the impact of the budget impasse on higher education.
Last month, Professor Jon Peterson offered some background on how the state arrived at this point, as well thoughts on what must happen at the state level to restore these funds. Director of Financial Aid Carolyn Lach also addressed the issue in the Spectrum, North Park’s student magazine.
Here, in an open letter to future North Park students and their families, President Parkyn addresses concerns related to MAP Grant funding and other financial aid issues.
By Dr. David L. Parkyn, President of North Park University
Many of us here at North Park University and around the state of Illinois have been carefully monitoring the budget impasse in Springfield. The standoff involving the governor and both sides of the legislative aisle represents a real threat to the way all colleges and universities across the state are able to provide students with a high quality of affordable education. This confrontation has left the Monetary Award Program (MAP) awaiting funding for the current (2015–2016) budget year as well as for the next (2016–2017) budget year. No one in the state knows when funds for MAP may become available. However, as the legislature reconvenes this spring for its next session, we are hopeful for some good news.
I wanted let you know that all of us at North Park University are keenly aware of the sacrifices that students and families make, and the careful considerations that you will be making about where to attend college in the fall. I want to assure you that, despite threats from the state, North Park University is strongly committed to making every effort to support our incoming students and their families to make attending North Park a reality.
Here at North Park, we often think about who we are. Our core values of being Christian, urban, and intercultural are clear to anyone who steps onto our campus. Along with these values, we like to reference something our founders mentioned 125 years ago. They said North Park would be an institution where “hospitality is especially insisted upon.” Hospitality offers the sense that everyone is welcomed. In higher education, it means that students feel valued in their learning environment. At North Park, it means that each student is a treasured member of our tight-knit community.
North Park decided over a decade ago to offer a private, high-quality education at a price point well below our competitors. Since that time, we have kept our tuition at a competitive level, and with substantial financial aid from the University, our students graduate with close to the lowest amount of debt for Chicagoland colleges and universities (as reported last month by Crain’s Chicago Business). We’ve remained committed to offering an affordable education to align with the integrity of our Christian identity.
As such, we encourage our incoming students to contact us about the affordability of a North Park education. Please continue the conversation with our admission staff to determine the best way to finance your education with us, including a review of institutional aid opportunities, user-friendly payment plans and ways to ensure appropriate student loan indebtedness upon graduation. Take us up on the offer to learn about the welcoming family that is North Park University.
In doing so, I am confident that, as I have come to experience, you will feel the promise of our hospitality and love of our community.
A dispatch from North Park’s annual writing retreat
By Andie Roeder Moody
Note: As web content manager and writer for University Marketing and Communications, I spend the majority of my days holed away in my office on Spaulding Avenue, writing about what’s happening across campus. A few weeks ago, I had the rare privilege to join some of our students and faculty for a writing and hiking retreat. I was there to observe, write about the trip, and teach. Below is my account of the weekend.
CHICAGO (March 29, 2016) — It’s the Friday before midterms, and we’re loading up vans in the lot behind Burgh Hall. The students are discussing all the homework they’ll be trying to disremember for the next few days. They don’t get credit for attending this, and it’s not mandatory. Students of all majors are welcome, but there’s a strong showing of English and philosophy majors. “They’re about to take on the final push before spring break,” Karl Clifton-Soderstrom, associate professor of philosophy, tells me. “It’s a breaking point in the semester where most of them could really use a rest. The trip is good for that.”
On the six-hour drive to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, students sing, reminisce, and discuss philosophy. A few know each other already; most of them are breaking the ice. When we arrive at Covenant Point Bible Camp, just past the Wisconsin border, it’s been snowing all evening. The grounds are coated in a thick layer of powdery snow, and our van struggles to make it up the hill to the cabins. I didn’t anticipate having no cell phone service. The faculty make no apologies for that—or for the length of the drive. Though there are closer places we could hold the retreat, Covenant Point is special to them. It’s remote and wooded; it feels connected to a tradition of nature writers, whom they harken this weekend: Thoreau, Emerson, Dillard. To get to our sessions, we walk several minutes from where we’re staying to the isolated Nature Center, which is surrounded by trails and forest. Once there, we put our chairs into a circle around the fireplace, where one devoted student builds and tends the fire all weekend. For a few days, we get a slower pace of life than Chicago—or even other camps—offer. Before long, no one misses their cell phones much. A student tells me she’s really enjoying not knowing what her friends are up to on Facebook.
Saturday and Sunday, our full days at the camp, are structured around meals and learning sessions, with time in between to write and two readings to share your work. Professor of Philosophy Greg Clark opens the retreat with a lesson on tracking animals. We walk around a snowy field and follow the tracks of rabbits and deer. Greg—whom the students refer to by first name—sends them off to track animals. He asks them to come back with a story: what the narrative of the animals’ movements might be. One group of students tracks the path of a rabbit they imagine to be a Rambo-style secret forest police officer. Another group finds tracks so big that the only imaginable solution is a Yeti. I suggest snowshoes; they are unconvinced—and share a poem they wrote about the Yeti.
The lessons build off each other. A quote from Greg’s tracking session becomes a writing prompt for the day: “The tracks tell you the story of what happened.” Students read us their stories about tracks of all sorts—scars, train lines, tattoos, a friend’s suicide, a carpenter father’s hands. Liza Ann Acosta, professor of English, leads an experiential session on walking. (Listen to the students read their responses to her prompt here.) After we eat dinner together, Karl teaches on his two passions—philosophy and photography. We close the day by having students read a piece of published writing they enjoyed. On Sunday, I lead a session about how writing has allowed me to learn to pay attention to the world around me. Kristy Odelius, professor of English, follows me that afternoon with a talk about, essentially, finitude, which she called “the dilemma of the day.” Kristy and the authors she referenced offer one answer—play.
This was perhaps the lesson that we were all learning most acutely that weekend. Though the sessions and the writing time were powerful and thought-provoking, what felt most remarkable was the shared experience. Afternoons spent—faculty and student alike—tubing carelessly down hills and pegging each other with snowballs. An evening when we took on the “polar bear plunge,” which consisted of sitting in a sauna to get warm before jumping in the frozen lake. The students, in their invincibility, were so delighted with the feeling of the plunge that they did it two or three more times each. Kristy’s seven-year-old son, Caleb, reminding us all of how the world looked from a few feet lower, chiming in with a childlike perspective during heady conversations, and keeping us laughing. On our last day, a pack of us cross-country skiing and snowshoeing across the mile-wide lake to explore its islands, where we discovered yurts and giant swings. “I think when you play together, it’s the best way to get to know each other,” Markus Tenfält, a Swedish exchange student, told me. “People relax when they have fun—it breaks down the barriers.”
Several international students were on the trip, in part to improve their English. Some were self-conscious about sharing writing in their second language, but Kristy commended their work’s clarity, beauty, and strength. I agreed. “International students don’t have a home to go home to during the breaks, like the Americans have,” Axel Rejler, a Swedish exchange student, told me. “So this is our chance to get off campus, calm down, and think.” Looking around the snowy terrain, he said, “Really, it looks like home. This could be Sweden.”
But the weekend was more than recreation. There were chunks of time devoted to writing on your own, and the students took it seriously, preparing earnestly to share new pieces of writing on Sunday night. What they exhibited throughout the weekend in playfulness, they matched with vulnerability. One shared a poem about the shame he once harbored over his mother’s vocation as a home cleaner. Another, a ballad about surviving depression. Another, Bob Dylan-inspired lyrics about Swedish politics. The prompts given in all of our lessons were represented—poetry from a creative writing assignment Kristy gave, essays about walking. I cried as a student read her reflections about the power of paying attention. I’m not sure what I was expecting from the students’ writing, but what they shared throughout the weekend far exceeded it. I’ve collected some of it here, because I think what they wrote is beautiful and worth reading.
Students protested as we packed up our vans to head back to Chicago Monday morning. I wanted to protest too. Kristy calls this trip a “high-impact learning experience.” Classroom time, writing, and exams are present at all universities, but this is the kind of thing that sets North Park apart. In exit interviews with seniors, she often hears the writing retreat brought up as a highlight and formative experience.
At the outset of the trip, a student told me he was thinking about transferring; he hasn’t been able to make good friends in his first year at North Park. Over the next four days, I see a change in him as he learns and writes with his peers—he’s more open, happy, understood. I don’t know where he is in his decision now, but he did tell me the retreat was the most meaningful experience he’s had at North Park so far.
When asked to describe the weekend in one word, students said “restful,” “peace,” “emotional,” and “rejuvenate.” My word would be “connected.” This, to me, is the heart of the weekend: connection. A college education is more than the sum of one’s syllabi or credit hours. It’s the connections of those things with other, memorable, cherished components—conversations, experiences, relationships, intellectual revelations. It’s the connections between disciplines: What does it look like to be a writer when you’re majoring in government? What does an adult life of balance and connection look like? What we began on the retreat with the students is a start towards what we hope they’ll do throughout their time at North Park and beyond: live connected, think deeply, play, pay attention.
Dr. Jon Peterson offers background of how Illinois arrived at the current budget impasse, as well as thoughts on what must happen at the state level to restore MAP grant funds.
Editor’s Note: The Monetary Award Program (MAP) has provided grant funds for Illinois residents to attend college in the state since 1967. The State of Illinois budget, which includes authorization for this program, ran out on July 1, 2015, leaving many students and universities (including North Park University) vulnerable to funding shortages. Significant coverage has been given by news outlets to the impact of the budget impasse on higher education. Here, Professor Jon Peterson offers some background of how the state arrived at this point, as well as thoughts on what must happen at the state level to restore these funds.
The current issue of the Spectrum, North Park’s student magazine, addresses this issue in a letter from Carolyn Lach, director of financial aid.
By Dr. Jon Peterson, assistant professor of politics and government
We currently have no MAP grant funds because Governor Bruce Rauner and the Illinois General Assembly (that is, the state house and the state senate) have failed to pass a state budget. We do not have a state budget because our Republican governor and our Democratic legislative majorities have very different opinions about how to fix the serious problems in our state’s finances.
Last spring when Governor Rauner and Democratic legislative leaders (like House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton) began negotiating the budget, the state estimated it would collect about $32 billion in taxes in 2016. The problem is, just to keep state services at last year’s levels, the state needed $38 billion. So, to fix a $6 billion gap in state finances, our state leaders had three choices: 1. cut services by reducing spending; 2. collect more money by raising taxes; or 3. some combination of both.
Governor Rauner chose the first option. He proposed a budget with no tax increases and steep spending cuts. Democrats in the General Assembly rejected the governor’s proposal and chose the third option. They passed a series of budget bills that increased taxes and cut spending. But according to the governor, those bills did not cut spending enough, since they would have spent $4 billion more than the state would have collected in taxes. As a result, Rauner vetoed every budget bill except the one that paid for public elementary and secondary schools.
Since the governor and state legislators failed to pass a budget, every state agency and program (other than public schools) technically ran out of money on July 1, 2015. But a series of court orders has forced the state to continue paying state workers and funding state programs at about 90 percent of their 2015 levels. The budget gap remains, however, and Illinois is now spending money faster than it is collecting it. By the end of June, we will overspend by more than $4 billion.
This budget standoff forms the backdrop of the MAP grant debate. The bill funding MAP grants was one of the budget bills that Governor Rauner vetoed last spring, so the program is currently unfunded. At the end of January, the General Assembly approved Senate Bill 2043, which included full funding ($373 million) for MAP grants. Governor Rauner vetoed the bill on February 19, arguing that the state does not have the money to pay for the program. He also wants the General Assembly to give him new authority to make spending cuts during financial crises. Republicans in the legislature have introduced a bill that would give the governor this authority and fully fund MAP grants. But they do not have enough votes to pass the bill, and Democratic legislators are unwilling to give up budget power to the governor.
The Illinois Constitution gives the General Assembly the ability to override a governor’s veto, but they need 3/5 of their members to agree to do it. As long as Republican legislators side with the governor, the Democrats did not have enough votes to override the governor’s veto. On March 1, a motion to override the governor’s veto was filed in the Senate, and it arrived to the House on March 2. However, the 3/5 majority vote to override was not successful, and the veto of SB2043 stands.
Looking forward, any successful MAP grant bill is going to need the support of both a majority in the Illinois General Assembly and Governor Rauner. And until that happens, 130,000 college students across Illinois will be left without their much-needed MAP grants.
Dr. Jon Peterson is assistant professor of politics and government at North Park University. His expertise is in the areas of American government and politics, public opinion and voting behavior, and religion and politics.
Singers to bring classical and contemporary works to Covenant Congregations over Spring Break
North Park’s University Choir and Chamber Singers perform throughout the year under the direction of Dr. Julia Davids.
CHICAGO (March 4, 2016) — Today, North Park University students, faculty, and staff are putting the final touches on months of choral preparation. Next weekend, they’ll be in the Pacific Northwest, nearly 2000 miles away from campus, on a five-city tour over the course of four days.
North Park’s University Choir and Chamber Singers will tour the Pacific Northwest over spring break, March 12–15. Forty-one students, from undergraduate and graduate music programs, in addition to several non-music majors or minors, will make stops at six Evangelical Covenant Church congregations and a Covenant retirement community in Portland, Ore.; Mercer Island, Wash.; Seattle, Wash.; Mount Vernon, Wash.; and Bellevue, Wash.
The tour, titled “Be the Light,” will feature a diverse array of both classical and contemporary sacred and secular works from composers including Ivo Antognini, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, René Clausen, Keith Hampton, Don Macdonald, Edwin Fissinger, Johann Sebastian Bach, James MacMillan, Anders Edenroth, Frank Ticheli, and Larry L. Fleming.
“The Chamber Singers will perform a ‘Real Group’ arrangement of Swedish and Finnish folk songs that nod to our school’s unique heritage,” Davids added.
In the spirit of North Park’s vision to be a “campus without borders,” the tour complements student musicians’ formal training with experiential learning and real-world performances.
“I get to experience what it means to be a committed choral member and musician,” says senior vocal performance major Emily Swearer. “Choir tours mean singing under pressure, when you may not be feeling your best, when you have a million other things you need to do, and singing beautifully and intentionally anyway. It means being in close quarters with the same people for several days and choosing to work together, despite frustrations or fatigue, to make beautiful music.”
The tour also provides an opportunity to see the world beyond Chicago and build relationships with choirmates and faculty. Students room with local families during the tour and enjoy bonding during the bus rides between destinations.
“With my family and church family so far away, they never get to see me perform with the North Park choirs—I can’t wait to look out into the crowd and see their faces,” Swearer says. “This is my last year at North Park, and it’s also possibly my last choir tour ever. To have the end of such an influential chapter of my life close at home, is like coming full circle. I’m thankful.”
School of Music touring ensembles regularly visit parts of the country where there are concentrations of University alumni and ECC congregations.
“I always enjoy seeing students grow and meet the challenges we’ve given them,” said Davids. “It’s also a pleasure to serve as an ambassador for the University.”
All performances are free and open to the public:
Saturday, March 12, 6:30 pm, at Evergreen Covenant Church, Mercer Island, Wash.
Sunday, March 13, 11:00 am, at First Covenant Church, Seattle, Wash.
Sunday, March 13, 7:00 pm, at Bethany Covenant Church, Mount Vernon, Wash.
Monday, March 14, 7:00 pm, at Milwaukie Covenant Church, Portland, Ore.
Tuesday, March 15, 7:00 pm, at Highland Covenant Church, Bellevue, Wash.
Four of seven student applicants granted awards in 2014–2015
Kate Asnicar C’2015 (left) is serving as an English Teaching Assistant with the Fulbright Program in Malaysia. She began her assignment at a secondary school on the island of Borneo in January, with a primary focus on encouraging her students to use the English language.
In a recent email to Dr. Linda Parkyn, she said, “I am having an excellent time here, surviving the 90-degree heat, and am having a hard time coming up with reasons to ever leave. Thank you again for all your support and allowing me to have the best experience of my life!”
CHICAGO (March 2, 2016) — North Park University has once again been named a top-producer of students winning Fulbright awards, keeping company with schools that include the University of Chicago, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Villanova, and more. The Chronicle of Higher Educationpublished this list in conjunction with a February 22 article exploring Fulbrights’ efforts to diversify the students and scholars who participate in this international exchange program.
This honor as a top-producer is based on the 2014–2015 academic year, when seven North Park students applied for the program, and four were granted awards: Kate Asnicar, Andrea Mitchell, Christina Phillip, and Natalie Wilson. Since 2008, graduating North Park students have consistently won awards taking them around the globe, including to Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico, Andorra, Poland, Romania, Latvia, Bulgaria, Malaysia, Ecuador, Turkey, and Colombia.
Dr. Linda Parkyn, professor of Spanish, spearheads North Park’s efforts around Fulbright awards, serving as mentor and encourager to student applicants. She has been a Fulbright Scholar and twice a Fulbright Senior Specialist, and readily admits to having “Fulbrightis.” Good candidates, Parkyn says, have stellar grades, a keen interest in some other part of the world, involvement with immigrants and/or refugees at home, and knowledge of another language. “Fulbright is a prestigious award,” says Parkyn. “But to have this experience early in your life, to give back your first year out of college and become an American ambassador sharing language and culture, it will affect your career choices for the rest of your life—and affect change for good in our world!”
Parkyn has been working this academic year with student applicants, but official decisions on who will win student awards will be revealed by the Fulbright Program later this spring. “I can’t give anything away about our student applicants, but we do anticipate more North Parkers to travel the world with Fulbright this year,” she said. “We have three Fulbright semi-finalists for the 2015–2016 year.”
The February list of top-producing institutions is categorized by institution type, and North Park falls into the “master’s institution” category, a reflection of standard Carnegie Classifications for higher education institutions. This is the second time North Park has earned this distinction.
The Fulbright Program, the U.S. government’s flagship international educational exchange program, is sponsored by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the United States Department of State. Since its inception in 1946, the Fulbright Program has provided more than 300,000 participants—chosen for their academic merit and leadership potential—with the opportunity to study, teach and conduct research, exchange ideas and contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns.
Clergy, congregations, and students invited to March 5 event
Metropolitan Kallistos Ware’s lecture, “The Unchanging Gospel in an Ever-Changing World,” will offer practical wisdom and suggestions for congregations in the task of keeping the Gospel clear and central to faith for all generations.
CHICAGO (February 23, 2016) — Metropolitan Kallistos Ware will present the inaugural lecture at North Park University’s Engaging Orthodoxy Speakers’ Series, a free, single-day conference, Saturday, March 5, 2016, from 10:00 am until 3:30 pm. The author, professor, and bishop, perhaps best known for his book The Orthodox Church, will present a two-part lecture, followed by responses from other theologians.
According to Dr. Bradley Nassif, professor of biblical and theological studies at North Park and organizer of the Speakers’ Series, “Orthodoxy is on the cusp of a major theological renaissance in the 21st century. This annual event will help establish Orthodox theology as a vital religious force in American life and thought. Kallistos Ware is the right person for that. Coming from Oxford University, he is one of those rare individuals who come along every hundred years in the history of Christianity who is both brilliant and humble. He is a person of the academy, but also of the church. He’s a living legend in our time.”
Orthodoxy on an Evangelical Campus
As host of this event focused on Orthodox faith traditions, North Park University is highlighting the unifying elements of world Christianity. Nassif, a pioneer in North American ecumenical dialogue, has devoted much of his career to bridge-building between Orthodoxy and evangelicalism, building on both traditions’ roots in historic Christian theology and confession. Though Eastern Orthodoxy in the United States is a minority religion, it is one of the oldest faith traditions in Christianity, growing out of “the cradle of Christianity” in the Middle East, according to Nassif.
“I’ve worked to bring these two traditions together because I believe in both of them,” he said. Nassif teaches courses in Eastern Orthodoxy as well as others that explore faith connections across traditions. Bringing Kallistos Ware to campus is one way to introduce students from all faith traditions to the Orthodox vision of life.
Centered in the Gospel
Nassif organized the Speakers’ Series, with funding from the John C. Kulis Foundation, in the hope of providing practical resources for congregations and ministers across Christianity in the work of spreading the gospel. “We’re addressing a topic of central importance to Christian identity,” he said. “What is the gospel, and what difference does it make in the life of the church?”
North Park student Jeanette Habash shares her journey as an Orthoox Christian.
Ware’s lecture, “The Unchanging Gospel in an Ever-Changing Culture,” will reach to the heart of the question for our cultural atmosphere. “We’re living in a time when Christianity is constantly being redefined in order to fit the agenda of contemporary culture rather than the gospel of Jesus Christ,” Nassif said. “My greatest hope is that Bishop Kallistos will help people understand that the solution to the world’s problems is found most comprehensively in the witness of historic Christian faith. As a result, I hope pastors and people alike will learn how to keep the gospel clear and central for each generation—the very thing that is most urgently needed in Christianity today.”
The event has received an official endorsement by Demetrios, the Greek Orthodox Archbishop of America. “North Park’s efforts combined with the generosity of the Kulis Foundation will provide a new forum for engagement with the essential role and power of the Gospel in our Orthodox faith,” Demetrios said.
Respondents to Ware’s lecture include Father John Behr, dean at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Seminary; Dr. Hauna Ondrey, teaching fellow in church history at North Park Theological Seminary; and Dr. Marcus Plested, associate professor of theology at Marquette University.
For more information and to register, visit www.northpark.edu/orthodox. For those unable to attend in person, Ware’s lectures will be available online through live-stream video at www.northpark.edu/live.
In year of diversity milestones, University launches cross-cultural campus discussions
President David Parkyn and Dean of Diversity and Intercultural Programs Terry Lindsay led a campus conversation on inclusion and diversity.
CHICAGO (February 12, 2016) — When North Park University was founded by Swedish immigrants 125 years ago, its student body was entirely Swedish, with all curriculum taught in Swedish. Today, as the University achieves significant diversity milestones and is recognized nationally for doing so, its institutional makeup is considerably different.
This school year, for the first time in North Park’s history, there is no racial or ethnic majority in its undergraduate population. No group of students, including Caucasians, reaches above fifty percent, highlighting the University’s commitment to creating a diverse campus community. Last week, the Chronicle of Higher Education called attention to the fact that North Park is “one of the few evangelical colleges where the number of minority students now equals white students.”
“David L. Parkyn, the college’s president,” said the Chronicle, “attributes that success to several things, including a historic commitment to diversity, which he talks about frequently, and being located in a diverse city like Chicago.”
Indeed, as Parkyn told a group of students, faculty, and staff in a campus conversation event earlier this week, “Today, we’re trying to make a shift from an objective of becoming multicultural—being comprised of people who come from diverse backgrounds, which is about composition as an institution—to being intercultural. How does the crossing of cultures get ingrained into the DNA of an institution?”
The conversation focused on diversity, inclusion, and the role that individual members of the North Park community play in continuing to shape the campus community. “We are a multicultural campus in terms of composition,” said Dr. Terry Lindsay, North Park’s dean of diversity and intercultural programs and associate professor of cultural studies, at the event. “But how do we move to being intercultural? How do we prepare our students for the world that we’re graduating them into?”
‘Moving Beyond Individualism Towards Community’
Parkyn and Lindsay opened the conversation by explaining that it would be the first in a series of campus-wide discussions in which issues surrounding diversity could be raised and engaged. As they opened the floor to questions, several members of the faculty and staff, as well as some students, asked about particular areas of cross-cultural initiatives on North Park’s campus, including the need to focus on “intracultural” work.
“For me, if intracultural isn’t happening while we’re doing intercultural work, we’re missing the boat,” said Lindsay. “I hope as we’re doing intercultural competency and development, we’re also helping students to think about who they are, their own identity. How those identities were formed. Who influenced the way they view the world, and the way they interact with cultures. And that’s the goal of this new project. We want to have some of those conversations.”
Throughout the semester, Lindsay and Provost Michael O. Emerson will hold a series of conversations, “Tessera to Ubuntu: Moving Beyond Individualism Towards Community,” featuring faculty and staff. “North Park grows increasingly diverse, which offers our community many advantages,” said Emerson. “But diversity in and of itself is not the goal. We seek to be a community within our diversity, to model how people from many different backgrounds can work together to encourage our faith, our studies, and our impact on the larger world. Our Tessera to Ubuntu Series is about how we can do exactly this, together.”
The first conversation, “Reclaiming Your Cultural History,” will focus on the metaphor of the tessera, an individual tile used to form a mosaic; the second, “Understanding Self,” will explore how cultures form; and the third, “Living in Community,” will highlight cultural immersion.
“We want North Park to be a diverse and inclusive environment, one which leads to deep learning and equity of experience for all students,” said Parkyn. “If we achieve this, our graduates will be positioned to cross cultures in the workplace and engage their communities in a socially responsible and transformational manner.”
CHICAGO (February 8, 2016) — Since its founding in 1891, North Park University has been thought of as “a work just beginning.” The phrase, made popular by the University’s first historian, Leland Carlson, in 1949, described a hopeful community, ready to live into its mission of preparing students for lives of significance and service.
As North Park begins its 125th year, that same hopeful spirit is alive and well across campus, propelling the University community to seek new ways to lead and serve in Chicago and around the world for God’s glory and neighbor’s good.
Throughout 2016, students, faculty, staff, alumni, and the wider Chicago community will have opportunities to explore North Park’s rich past, reflect on its present, and peer into its promising future. Celebrations will culminate on September 23, 2016, when the community gathers for an expansive quasquicentennial homecoming event, featuring art, music, scholarship, and other highlights from North Parkers past and present.
“2016 will be a great opportunity to remember where we have been,” said North Park University President David L. Parkyn. “But equally important will be the ways in which we imagine who we can become. North Park University’s mission has remained constant throughout its history, and with that as its foundation, we can build a promising future for our students and the communities they serve.”
Class of 1972 graduate and widely renowned composer Marvin V. Curtis has been commissioned to craft a piece that will be performed by student musicians at the event in September. Curtis, dean of the Ernestine M. Raclin School of the Arts at Indiana University South Bend, has a history of being commissioned to write prominent works, including one for President Clinton’s 1993 Inauguration, “City on a Hill.” He is the first African American composer commissioned to write a choral work for a presidential inauguration.
“The School of Music is honored that alumnus Marvin Curtis has accepted our invitation to compose a musical piece for North Park’s 125th anniversary celebration,” said Dr. Craig Johnson, dean of the School of Music. “The piece will be written for choir and a chamber instrumental ensemble, using a text that will be meaningful for the occasion. We very much anticipate the performance of his music, and we are confident that it will be a highlight of a very memorable celebration.”
The University’s F.M. Johnson Archives and Special Collections, led by Director of Archives Anna-Kajsa Anderson, will host a series of digital and in-person exhibits throughout the year. This includes an online version of the first 40 years of The Cupola, North Park’s yearbook, which contains essays, poems, songs, artwork, photographs, and more. Working with historians and former North Park professors Phil Anderson and Kurt Peterson, as well as current North Park Theological Seminary Professor Hauna Ondrey, the archives will also create a series of exhibits to display artifacts from the University’s history.
North Park’s present and future will also be on display in 2016 through the telling of 125 stories from 125 current students. The project, which will take place over the course of 12 months and two or three stories per week, will highlight the wide array of students who have been drawn to the University, and how they will help shape its next 125 years.
More announcements will be made throughout the year regarding new events and projects surrounding the University’s quasquicentennial. Visit www.northpark.edu/125 for more information and to hear how you can be part of the celebration.
Amanda Detchman completes exchange program, internship in Stockholm
Amanda Detchman, shown here in Uppsala, Sweden, is completing an internship at Immanuel International Church.
CHICAGO (February 5, 2016) — Amanda Detchman had a decision to make. Having just wrapped up her exchange program semester in Stockholm, Sweden, Detchman was preparing to return to the United States when she received an email asking if she was interested in staying in Sweden to fulfill an internship requirement.
Detchman, a master of divinity student at North Park Theological Seminary, was torn. “I was already in Sweden, immersed in the culture and eager to learn more,” she says. “However, signing the contract meant being away from home for another year. There was a lot of prayer and discernment involved.”
Detchman’s advisor, Professor of Ministry and Director of Field Education Dr. Tim Johnson, had gotten word that Immanuel International Church in Stockholm was seeking an interim youth pastor. “I forwarded that email to Amanda with a little note asking if she’d be interested,” he says. “The next thing I know, the match had been solidified. She had interviewed with them and impressed them, and it happened fairly quickly.”
“It was evidently God’s work,” Detchman says, “because I happened to be attending Immanuel for the four months prior, and already felt at home there. With the Spirit’s peace and God’s courage, I agreed to work as their youth director.”
Today, Detchman serves in an internship as youth director for Immanuel’s International Congregation. “Immanuel is very unique, because it’s made up of three congregations,” says Detchman, “Swedish, International, and Korean. The church staff work in the same building and have meetings and events together, but on Sunday, we hold three separate services at the same time.” In her position, Detchman helps oversee a summer camp, a conference for international youth across Europe, overnight “lock-ins,” and partnerships with homeless and elderly ministries.
As has been the case throughout her time in Sweden, this ministry context gives Detchman a uniquely global learning experience. “The joy I receive working with youth from around the world is challenging, eye-opening, and live-giving,” she says.
‘A growing experience’
It’s the kind of experience that Johnson hopes Seminary students will have through their field education opportunities, whether international or domestic. “We try to have every student have some experience in a cultural context that’s different from what they’re used to,” he says. “That’s a key part of the experience at North Park.”
Johnson had recommended the internship to Detchman, in part, because of her “evident interest in pastoral care,” he says. “On campus, she would often offer to pray for students or faculty members. I had an aunt that died, and I mentioned it in a chapel service. She later asked if she could pray about that with me. It’s bold as a student to come up to a faculty member and ask to pray for them, but that’s kind of how she’s constituted.”
Detchman in Stockholm with other THS exchange program students
Prior to her internship, Detchman came to Sweden through the Seminary’s exchange program partnership with the Stockholm School of Theology (THS). She applied for the program because “the courses sounded insightful, and I have a heart for understanding cultures other than my own,” she says. Once there, she found that “THS was a growing experience. I learned so much about myself, my writing, and the world.”
Among Detchman’s highlights of her time at THS were an Urban Theology course, which required hands-on work with a range of churches throughout Stockholm, and a Christians of the Middle East course, which included a trip to Jerusalem. “We had amazing guides and professors,” she says. “We met with a variety of religious leaders, toured the Holy Land, and engaged in field studies of surrounding communities.” In addition to Swedish students, Detchman enjoyed getting the opportunity to study alongside classmates from Burma and India.
Director of Seminary Recruitment and Admission Amy Oxendale believes that the exchange program is born out of North Park’s “passion for the global church and justice issues,” she says. “Many of the classes focus in this area and provide opportunity for our students to have an enriched learning experience—learning about issues of justice from a different part of the world and different cultural perspective.”
Oxendale hopes that “students would be able to return here with a different perspective, not just on theology and Scripture, but on who they are and who God is.” For her part, Detchman seems well on her way to doing exactly that. “The people I do ministry and work with here accept me and love me so well,” Detchman says. “They have taught me what it means to love deeply and engage fully in life’s adventures.”
The student team behind the free event invites peers and neighbors to campus February 5–6 for conversation and action
CHICAGO (February 2, 2016) — What can be done to bridge the gap between an understanding of social justice learned in the classroom and the application needed on the streets of Chicago? How can the academy, the community, and the church come together to engage issues of justice?
These are the questions that drove the 10 North Park University students who make up the Urban Outreach Programming Team to put together a new conference. They’re calling the event Love Mercy Do Justice, a name taken from Scripture: “And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8). After several months of planning, the students are inviting community members as well as their peers to join them for the conference on Friday and Saturday, February 5–6.
“For both the academy and the church, it is often easy to separate theology/theory and application/praxis,” the team says. “It is our hope to bridge the divide between the intellect and the heart, by creating a space where millennials and the broader church can interact with contemplative activists, who see the primacy of mercy and justice as a tangible expression of their spirituality.”
The conference, which will be hosted on North Park’s campus, is free and open the public. “We’re able to engage everyone, whether it’s university students, the church, the community,” said Stefanie Cortez, a sophomore member of the Programming Team. “Being in a city as diverse as Chicago, we’re hoping to engage a wide spectrum of people from all walks of life in a conversation. With that conversation, we can take an action.”
The schedule of the event reflects this turn from conversation to action. Friday’s programming focuses on learning: a prayer breakfast, lectures, panels, and a celebration of the arts. Speakers include Rev. Marshall Hatch, Father Michael Pfleger, Rev. Sandra Van Opstal, Reesheda Washington, Rev. Dominique Gilliard, North Park’s provost and president, and staff of the Evangelical Covenant Church.
Saturday’s schedule will engage attendees in practicing justice. The morning starts with a prayer walk through the Albany Park neighborhood lead by clergy, and the event closes with a call to action, facilitated by local organization Communities United and North Park’s Faith and Justice group. The closing session will focus on justice reinvestment, a data-driven approach to improving public safety, reducing corrections and related criminal justice spending, and reinvesting savings in strategies that can decrease crime and reduce recidivism.
“As students, we quickly get lost in the justice conversation,” said Abigail Page, a junior and member of Programming Team. “We’re busy with classes. We’re maybe 20 years old. We don’t necessarily feel like we can do a whole lot. But we have a very important role as future leaders. This conference is a great opportunity to practice that.”
Students and community members are welcome to attend single sessions throughout the day. Attendees can register for free online or at the door. The Love Mercy Do Justice Conference is a collaboration between the Evangelical Covenant Church Love Mercy Do Justice mission priority and North Park’s University Ministries.
Author tomgabrysiakPosted on Categories Stories
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