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Dr. Mary Trujillo is one of the primary faculty members for the conflict transformation studies program, teaching courses that include Conflict and Community and Mediation.
Conflict transformation studies major launched in Fall 2014
CHICAGO (January 29, 2015) — For North Park students, the second weekend of May is often one of celebrating the close of the school year with friends and family. Many pack up to head home for summer jobs or move to new places to begin careers after graduation.
This year, for 15 students, that weekend will begin a unique international study trip to Northern Ireland—the first trip offered as part of the University’s new conflict transformation studies major. Students and faculty in the International Conflict Transformation course will dive deeply into the forces of history, religion, and art in the experience of conflict. The group will partner with the Junction, a peacebuilding and community service organization in Derry, Northern Ireland. Their itinerary includes walking tours of public murals that are statements of both suffering and transformation; experiences of how music and art interact with spiritual dynamics in conflict; and conversations with community leaders and ex-combatants on trauma, understanding, healing, and reconciliation.
“We’re going to listen, to learn, and to observe,” says Dr. Robert Hostetter, professor of communications and co-director of the conflict transformation studies program. He hopes this trip will be an academic experience that builds connections between theory, practice, and the real-life complications of creating peace in a challenging landscape.
The questions in conflict
Conflict transformation studies began as an undergraduate certificate at North Park ten years ago and transitioned to a full undergraduate major in Fall 2014. The major offers interdisciplinary courses that tackle the pressing questions that emerge out of conflicts in places from Northern Ireland to Chicago, and the Middle East to Ferguson, Missouri: How do communities in conflict begin the process of healing? Where do individuals find safe avenues to express the experience of living through conflict? What good can come out of tension, anger, or misunderstanding? Can we really create peace?
“Conflict is a universal experience—even though we don’t want it to be,” says Dr. Mary Adams Trujillo, professor of communications and co-director of the program. Students who are drawn to conflict transformation studies are expressing their desires to “change the world” and are people of compassion, grounded in a belief that there can be a way in the world better than conflict, she says.
Carmen Velazquez, a junior in the program, agrees with Trujillo’s assessment. “Conflict is part of our everyday life. It doesn’t matter what socioeconomic class you belong to, your gender, the color of your skin, or your race: conflict will always be around,” she says. “Conflict transformation teaches us to not try to remove conflict but to transform it into something positive and greater.”
Working for justice in communities
David Potter is one of the first conflict transformation studies majors at North Park and will graduate in December 2015. He came to the University after working at a nonprofit organization with youth and under-resourced communities. “While I was not aware of it at the time, the opportunities to work in several marginalized and neglected domestic communities—from large- and small-scale urban areas, to Native American reservations and Appalachian coal mining towns—instilled a desire to create healing spaces of justice and restoration.”
Velazquez also identifies a desire for social justice work as the driving factor in choosing the conflict transformation studies major. She grew up in an immigrant community in the Central Valley of California, and is preparing for a career in community organizing to advocate for her people. “This program has allowed me to realize the many issues in my own community; it has empowered me to strive for positive change.”
The work that Potter and Velazquez dream of is what is often referred to as “track two diplomacy,” or public diplomacy and hands-on conflict transformation efforts, according to Hostetter. Conflict transformation students learn the relational skills that allow them to work in long-term, sustainable community initiatives, not necessarily high-level political diplomacy that is focused on negotiation and resolving conflict. “We call this a conflict transformation program—not conflict resolution—because it is relationally focused,” he says. “Relationships are transformed, not resolved.”
Creative approaches to hard questions
North Park’s setting in Chicago provides a rich backdrop for students to gain hands-on experience learning about conflict in urban and international relationships. Students in the Community and Conflict course organize an annual one-day peace conference. The Performance and Social Change class does an ethnographic study of personal experiences around a particular topic in order to create a public performance that sparks conversation and action.
“Conflict transformation is evolving as we speak,” Trujillo says. New relational and creative approaches continue to emerge as the field broadens. Along with studying the history and context of global conflicts, courses provide opportunities for students to conduct research and analysis, and gain more self-awareness in an effort to pursue creative, nonviolent approaches to help in conflict situations.
In one course, Trujillo has her students create three-dimensional models that represent peace. “I tell students, ‘You’ve imagined it, you’ve created it with your hands. Now we’re going into communities to work on peace with people.’ I really believe that we can make a difference, that students can create peace,” she says.
Professors Trujillo and Hostetter invite their students to explore creative models of strategic peace building like these with the hope of equipping students to be advocates for positive change in global, national, and local communities.
Though the major is new, Velazquez’s testimony affirms that the program is on the right track. She says her courses have opened her eyes to conflict outside of her personal experience. “Coming from a rural community, I wasn’t aware of major conflicts that happen throughout the United States or all the injustices in the city of Chicago. Knowing that there are others also fighting for social justice helps me to acknowledge the power of my own voice and actions.”
North Park Commemorates Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with Call to Action
Social justice leaders from the Chicagoland area conducted civil rights discussions with North Park students.
Worship service and ‘teach-ins’ led by students, faculty, and staff
CHICAGO (January 21, 2015) — With recent events in Ferguson, Missouri, and New York City, North Park University’s annual commemoration of the life and legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday focused on the opportunities presented in this particular moment in history
“We know there is work to be done because there is inequality in our nation,” said Rev. Velda Love, director of justice and intercultural learning at North Park University, in her welcome address to the audience in Anderson Chapel. “We know there is work to be done because there is police brutality in communities of color.”
Ramelia Williams, a student at North Park Theological Seminary, echoed the call to action. “If we paid attention we might see the miracle of this millennial moment, a moment that has raged righteous anger like a fire storm across this nation.”
Their voices were part of Monday’s event, “What is Civil—What is Right? A Millennial Response.” The day included a worship service with music from the North Park University Gospel Choir and guest musician Bryan Johnson from Trinity United Church of Christ, Chicago. An emotional rendition of Sweet Honey in the Rock’s “The Women Gather,” performed by North Park students and staff, opened the service.
Rev. Dr. Karen E. Mosby, pastor of pastoral care and administration at Second Baptist Church in Evanston, Ill. spoke on the importance of intergenerational leadership in building momentum within a new social movement.
Students from North Park University Gospel Choir performed with Bryan Johnson during the worship service celebrating Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
“Out of the context of the perilous moments of 2014—which you have already heard here today—came a movement led by a new generation,” said Mosby. “I believe the legacy of Dr. King demands that we stop looking for another King and begin embracing the prophets that God has raised up in this millennial generation. To do so we must be willing to stop looking at the mountain tops long enough to gaze into the streets and classrooms where God is doing a new thing.”
Following the service, North Park students gathered in discussion groups guided by social justice leaders from organizations including the Chicago International Youth Peace Movement and Trinity United Church of Christ. Sessions included, “Civil Rights Movement: Then and Now,” “Millennial Activism is Here to Stay,” and “De-Spiritualizing Non-Violent Resistance.”
“This movement is not led by the voice of the majority race or minority race,” Ramelia Williams said. “Millennials move forward in persistence with a proactive voice that is louder and stronger than their individual voice.”
North Park Senior Presents Summer Research at Physics Conference
Olivia Chisman, a senior in North Park’s physics program, also presented her work in October at an American Physical Society Division of Nuclear Physics meeting in Hawaii.
Olivia Chisman's research recreates the conditions of the early universe to try and explain the world around us
CHICAGO (January 19, 2015) — Olivia Chisman spent the summer watching millions of tiny particles moving close to the speed of light crash into one another. It was part of a research program at UCLA, where she joined nearly 500 physicists from around the world in observing the outcomes of a particle accelerator that spans 2.4 miles underground.
“I got to be part of weekly phone meetings with expert physicists and present my research,” said Chisman, a senior in North Park University’s physics program. “The work is known as fundamental physics. By recreating the conditions of the early universe a few microseconds after the Big Bang, we can try to understand what makes up the world around us.”
Chisman was invited to present her research this past weekend at the American Physical Society’s Conference for Undergraduate Women, hosted at Purdue University. The goal of the conference was to support women physicists as they transition from a major to a career, and help combat the recent decline of women in the field. After a four-decade trend since 1965 that saw the percentage of women in physics rise from 5 to nearly 25 percent, that number has regressed to below 20 percent, according to the American Physical Society. Joining Chisman, who also presented her research to an American Physical Society Division of Nuclear Physics meeting this fall in Hawaii, were three additional students from North Park’s physics and engineering programs, Anika Zima, Azra Dizdarevic, and Nayelii Duran.
"Research experiences for undergraduates and giving papers at national conferences are incredible opportunities for our students," said Linda McDonald, assistant professor of physics at North Park. "The American Physical Society conference allows the students to make connections with well-known physicists from around the country. It also let’s them meet other young women who are sharing their same experiences and worries about their future. It helps knowing that you are not the only one."
Chisman's research, explained in the above video, included observation of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider in Upton, New York.
Like a number of students, Chisman did not take a direct route to a career in physics. “Since I was young I wanted to be a nurse, and I came to North Park as a nursing major,” Chisman said. During her sophomore year, she read some books and watched a few movies about cosmology and astrophysics, and then decided to have a conversation with McDonald. “I asked her what I could do with a physics career,” Chisman said. “She told me my options were limitless.”
Chisman recently submitted applications for a PhD in physics, and hopes to begin a program after her graduation from North Park this May. She is looking to continue the research she began last summer in the field of relativistic heavy ion physics and experimental nuclear physics. Chisman credits North Park’s science programs for preparing her for graduate school and beyond.
“The small class sizes and the way that North Park teaches physics forces students to take responsibility for their own learning, which is something that was infinitely important to my research this summer,” Chisman said. “I’ve been able to have direct contact with my professors, and as a result, they know me very well.”
McDonald is also excited to hear about Chisman's next steps in terms of education and research. "One of my joys is when alumni come back and tell me all about the things they are doing," McDonald said. "I know that North Park makes a difference in the world, and it is great to see it in action with people like Olivia."
North Park University Confers 254 Degrees at 2014 Winter Commencement
Graduating students were encouraged to reach beyond their future professions to find the essence of the image of God in every person they meet.
Graduates called to find God in their neighbors
CHICAGO (December 15, 2014) — A festive crowd gathered on Friday night in the North Park gymnasium to celebrate the achievements of students from across the University.
Students were led into the gymnasium by a procession of flags of the countries and territories in which graduates were born, are citizens, or have been residents. The flags of the United States, the city of Chicago, and North Park University led the procession, followed by the flags of Ecuador, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Jamaica, Mexico, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, Romania, South Korea, Sweden, and Ukraine.
In his commencement address to graduates and their friends and family, University President Dr. David L. Parkyn told the story of Dr. Paul Carlson. A North Park alum, Carlson was featured on the cover of Life and Time magazines 50 years ago this month after he was tragically killed while providing medical care in the Congo.
“What Paul Carlson discovered during his two years at North Park was a commitment to find God in his neighbors,” Parkyn said. “He was not a saint; he didn’t set out to be martyred and become a hero with his portrait in the national press. He simply set out to find and serve God in every person he met.”
Parkyn urged graduates that although they are not expected to meet the same fate as Dr. Carlson, the example he provided is what the University means in its mission of preparing students for lives of significance and service. “Become a teacher or a nurse, a social worker or psychologist, a research scientist or a community organizer, an artist or a programmer, a musician or a preacher, an entrepreneur or a business leader. Develop a command of digital design, market messaging, financial portfolios, political structures, or information systems. Make any one of these your professional goal,” Parkyn said. “Yet don’t stop with this. Reach beyond these good and honored professions and be a person, like Paul Carlson, who sets out to find the essence of the image of God in every person you meet.”
In addition to awarding degrees, the University also presented the Ahnfeldt Medallion, given to the undergraduate with the highest GPA, to Katherine Patterson, a biology major who graduated a semester early. In addition to her studies, Peterson was also active in North Park’s theater department and served as a peer-writing mentor on campus. Patterson also spent multiple summers at the Au Sable Institute of Environmental Studies and volunteered at Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium.
“Katherine’s love for nature stems from her love for God and the things God created,” said Bruce Bickner, chairman of the Board of Trustees, who presented the award. “Her sense of wonder and awe leads her to a mission field of woods and streams.”
The commencement program also included a reading from Proverbs, choral performances by the University Choir, a graduation litany, and a presentation of degrees by University deans.
The commencement ceremony also featured a benediction from Numbers 6:24–26, read by graduates in seven languages, including Arabic, Hindi, Tagolog, Swedish, Korean, Vietnamese, and Norwegian.
Peer-Mentoring Programs Responding to the Needs of Students
"After participating in the mentor program, I have so many faculty and staff members who believe in me and push me to go the distance,” said North Park University junior Tatianna Hughlett at ACI's annual public forum.
COMPASS and Lighthouse shared as models for student success at Associated Colleges of Illinois’s annual public forum
CHICAGO (December 10, 2014) — In recent years, North Park University’s peer-mentoring programs, COMPASS and Lighthouse, have served as models for student success among area colleges and universities. In collaboration with the Associated Colleges of Illinois (ACI), North Park joined two additional higher education institutions in building a “relationship bridge” between low-income, minority, and first-generation college students, the campus community, and the college’s social, academic, financial, and multicultural support services, with goals of college readiness and completion.
On Tuesday at ACI’s annual public forum at the Union League Club of Chicago, representatives from North Park University, including University President Dr. David L. Parkyn, Director of Student Success Dr. Barrington Price, and two students from the mentor program, junior Tatianna Hughlett and freshman Devin Childress, shared details about the programs and the impact they are making on the lives of students to an audience of community and higher education leaders.
For more than 10 years, North Park’s COMPASS program has brought select students to campus 10 days before orientation to prepare them for the academic and social challenges of college and adjust to life on campus. Students participate in mini-classes in the sciences and English, and form small cohort groups led by upperclassmen mentors that provide support throughout the year. This past summer, students studied toxicity levels in the Chicago River, read a book about the river’s history, met the book’s author, and participated in environmental service projects. In addition, over the course of the year students take a class in foundations for academic success and then a class in career planning, helping to identify a major and career path early in their journey.
“We focus on identifying student needs, helping them understand who they are, what their skills, interests, and abilities are, and find social and academic opportunities that lead toward students feeling a fit at the University,” said Price. “We work with many students who operate under the premise that they can’t do something, so a lot of our work involves restructuring that premise.”
Hughlett, who began her freshman year at North Park as a mentee in the program, now serves as a mentor to incoming freshmen. “Growing up I didn't have the best role models around me,” she told the audience. “I didn't have people telling me that I could be more successful. After participating in the mentor program, I have so many faculty and staff members who believe in me and push me to go the distance.” Hughlett is now considering graduate school after graduation in 2015.
“At the colleges and universities of the Associated Colleges of Illinois, we feel an obligation and a deep responsibility to open the doors to higher education and upward mobility,” said Parkyn. “At North Park University, we are especially proud of our peer-mentoring programs, and the talented and dedicated students who are nurturing one another as they progress toward success.”
North Park is one of 23 institutions that together form ACI, a network of private, nonprofit, residential colleges and universities that works with business and community leaders to design and implement programs tohelp underserved students prepare for and successfully graduate from college.
Nearly 79 percent of mentored freshmen from 2013–2014 returned for their sophomore year this fall, higher than the 74 percent national retention average of all students, and significantly higher than the average retention rate of low-income, minority, and first-generation students. This fall, North Park welcomed its largest-ever COMPASS class of 54 students. In addition, North Park’s newer initiative, Lighthouse, reciprocates COMPASS with a smaller cohort of students over the entire four years of an undergraduate degree with the additional support of scholarship funding. The program will soon be graduating its first seniors with a retention rate above 90 percent, and this year’s freshman Lighthouse cohort also welcomed its largest-ever class of 15 students.
“North Park University’s mission claims that we prepare students for lives of significance and service, and these mentor programs reflect our commitment to student preparation,” said Dr. Jodi Koslow Martin, vice president for student engagement. “Students who are mentored become acclimated to college life by their peers so that they find both academic and social success during their first year, which will lead to discovering how they will live a life of significance and service after they graduate.” Koslow Martin added that the retention rate of students in North Park’s programs reflect that the programs, under the guidance of Barrington Price, are working. “It shows how students who receive personal attention from mentors can find a fit at North Park University.”
Price and colleague Pasi Musaindapo, career programs manager at North Park, have been asked to speak further about North Park’s mentor programs later this week at the Illinois ACT State Organization conference.
“What North Park is doing represents a real victory,” said Price. “It is an accomplishment that will have lasting impact on the lives of the students we serve, will change the face of the communities in which they live, and, ultimately, will strengthen our economy and our society.”
As North Park University freshman Devin Childress told the audience, “I can only go forward. I cannot go back."
North Park University to Present Annual Festival of Lessons and Carols
This will be North Park's seventh year celebrating its Festival of Lessons and Carols. Prior to the event, the Chicago Children’s Choir and People’s Music School Youth Orchestras will perform a recital beginning at 3:30 pm.
Collaboration between University and neighborhood youth musicians begins at 4:00 pm, December 7, at Our Lady of Mercy in Albany Park
The University presents the Festival of Lessons and Carols at no cost to attendees, although because of capacity it is recommended that guests reserve tickets online. Limited seating is still available for the event that annually draws nearly 1,000 guests.
Festival of Lessons and Carols services originate in the Anglican tradition, with the first one held on Christmas Eve in 1880 in Cornwall, England. An alternating series of Scripture readings and music tell the story of Christ, from the creation of the world to the birth of Jesus. Musical selections include well-known advent and Christmas hymns, and pieces from contemporary composers, sung in multiple languages.
A hallmark of North Park’s service, now in its seventh year, is the collaboration between University musicians and neighborhood youth orchestra and choir groups. It’s part of a year-round relationship, as the Chicago Children’s Choir practices regularly on North Park University’s campus, and North Park students often serve as instructors at the People’s Music School Youth Orchestras at nearby Hibbard Elementary School.
“This gathering of different communities into worship at this time of year is one of the special traditions at North Park University,” said University President Dr. David L. Parkyn. “By celebrating our Christian heritage and the birth of Christ with the diverse group of performers and guests from our neighborhood, we reflect the unity in the Christmas message."
Dr. Julia Davids, associate professor of music and director of choral activities at North Park, says this year’s theme, Glory!, represents looking up towards the brilliance of Jesus's birth. She added, "Keeping our focus on Christ's glory can help us through this very busy time of year and redirect our thoughts to what is most important.”
Prior to the event, the Chicago Children’s Choir and People’s Music School Youth Orchestras will perform a recital at 3:30 pm. “Part of the Chicago Children's Choir's mission is to bring people from all walks of life together through the power of music,” said Youna Cho, Chicago Children's Choir—Albany Park Division neighborhood conductor. “With this collaboration among North Park University’s School of Music, the Chicago Children’s Choir, and the young musicians from YOURS Orchestras, we’re truly bringing together the Albany Park community.”
Our Lady of Mercy Church is located at 4432 North Troy Street, Chicago, approximately one mile from the North Park University campus. Parking is available in the two church lots and on the street.
Marisol Martinez to be Honored with 2015 Seminary Alumni Award for Distinguished Service
Martinez says North Park Theological Seminary instilled an awareness of "the realities of injustice and how as churches we needed to be involved in transforming our communities and our world.”
2004 alumna and president of the Covenant Church of the Central and South Districts of Mexico to be given award at Covenant Midwinter Conference
CHICAGO (November 25, 2014) — A year ago Marisol Martinez, 2004 alumna of North Park Theological Seminary’s master of arts in Christian ministry program, resigned from her job. In 2010 she had assisted in the founding of El Pozo de Vida (The Well of Life), a nonprofit organization combatting human trafficking in Mexico City. “I was sensing God telling me it was time for something new,” she says.
To her surprise, Martinez received a phone call last August asking if she would accept the nomination to become the president of the Covenant Church of the Central and South Districts of Mexico (IEMP). “For several years I knew I had a call to serve the church,” says Martinez, the first woman to hold the position. “God put in me a great love for the church and a great desire see the church involved in the transformation of our communities and our world.”
For her service to the church and the world, including her time as a missionary in Spain and different parts of Mexico, Martinez has been awarded the 2015 North Park Theological Seminary Alumni Award for Distinguished Service. She is the second recipient of the award, with the first given to Rev. Dr. Robert L. Owens in January 2014. The 2015 award will be presented on January 27 at the Evangelical Covenant Church’s Midwinter conference in Denver, Colorado, at a reception hosted by North Park.
“The North Park Theological Seminary Alumni Award for Distinguished Service honors a graduate of our Seminary, noting their life of ministry and service to their church, their community, and the world,” said Mary Surridge, vice president for development and alumni relations. “We are delighted to bestow this award each year at the Midwinter Conference, allowing colleagues and friends to rejoice with our recipient in this special honor. We look forward to honoring Marisol this year for her significant involvement in battling human trafficking and seeking justice and healing for victims. She is a true servant leader.”
Martinez came to North Park Theological Seminary after serving for several years as a missionary in Spain. “It was an easy decision,” she says. “Since I was a teenager in Mexico I knew I wanted to be a missionary. All the missionaries I knew were from the Covenant in the United States and most studied at North Park. It was clear to me that if I wanted to grow in my call as a missionary, then I had to go to North Park Theological Seminary.”
She received the Covenant Diversity Scholarship, now known as the Mosaic Leadership Scholarship, to attend the Seminary because of her active involvement in the Covenant Church in Latin America. “I ended up choosing more Bible classes than I anticipated,” Martinez says. “I realized I needed more knowledge there and a more solid foundation, and that continues to help me today.”
After Seminary, she looked for opportunities with social justice and community development organizations. “One of the things that spoke to me during my time in Seminary was the realities of injustice and how as churches we needed to be involved in transforming our communities and our world.”
Martinez recently visited the headquarters of the Evangelical Covenant Church in Chicago and sat down for an interview on a number of topics, including her new role. This video originally appeared in a story produced by the Covenant News Service.
She moved to Monterrey, Mexico, and began working with the Fundación para el Desarrollo Familiar (Foundation for Family Development). Martinez designed leadership development programs for teenagers and women from marginalized urban communities. During this time, she also earned a master of social work degree from the National University of Mexico.
In her new role as president of the Covenant Church of the Central and South Districts of Mexico, Martinez will help lead 46 congregations, and says she hopes to speak more about the social ills that plague her country.
“Marisol reflects the very best of North Park Theological Seminary,” says Seminary Dean David Kersten. “Her work with the poor and the marginalized, and her close work with the local church, make her a most deserving recipient of the Alumni Award for Distinguished Service. There is a true humility in the way she moves in the world. She is not self-seeking, but powerfully determined in her work of leadership and advocacy.”
Humanitarian Advisor and '07 Alum Returns to North Park
Johan Eldebo, 2007 alum of the politics and government major, has responded to international conflicts in West Africa, the Central African Republic, Somalia, South Sudan, and the Middle East. He will return to the South Sudan conflict in the coming months.
Johan Eldebo, senior humanitarian policy advisor at World Vision, spent a week speaking with students across campus
CHICAGO (November 20, 2014) — Johan Eldebo, senior humanitarian policy advisor at World Vision and a 2007 alum of North Park University’s politics and government major, has seen his fair share of crisis and conflict. There is one story in particular that he says is significant to his work.
While responding to the refugee crisis in Lebanon in 2013, a result of more than a million people fleeing the civil war in Syria, Eldebo was part of a team delivering food and water to the refugee camps. But there wasn’t enough aid to supply everyone in the camp, so Eldebo and his team had to decide which 30 percent of families were not going to receive any supplies. They then had to deliver the news.
“I had to go into these families’ makeshift tents, many of whom were formerly middle class in Syria, and tell them they were no longer going to receive food and water,” Eldebo says. “It was heartbreaking.”
But Eldebo’s story doesn’t end there. “After that trip, my team and I returned home to London and we relayed our stories to powerful officials in government and nonprofit organizations, people who had the power and resources to approve more aid to those in need,” Eldebo says. “Those stories made a real difference in the response effort. I realized I can be a voice for people who have no voice.”
Eldebo visited North Park earlier this month and told stories like these to classes and student groups across campus, providing what Dean Charles Peterson says is “an outstanding example to our students of living a life of significance and service.”
Eldebo, alongside Dean Charles Peterson, took in a Vikings football game during his visit to North Park.
“Students got a sense that it is possible to make a significant contribution to the world with their North Park education and gained a glimpse into international initiatives,” says Dr. Mary Trujillo, professor of communications arts and instructor in the conflict transformation program. “Johan was quite honest in sharing the dilemma of humanitarian relief effort, especially in the examples he gave of being an outsider in a conflict situation.”
Global perspective
A native of Sweden, Eldebo took an unusual journey to North Park. “I worked at a Covenant summer camp in New Hampshire for six years and a lot of people there went to North Park,” Eldebo says. “I figured once I finished high school in Sweden, I’d give living in Chicago for a semester a try. One semester turned into three years.”
Eldebo spent time as an EMT paramedic, led the North Park chapter of the Model UN, and had an internship with the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.
“My only interest in policy is because I think it should help people,” Eldebo says. “If you want to help people you have to figure out how the power structures work and who has influence over what. When you look around the world most problems are man-made. You have to figure out who’s in charge of what, who can actually make a difference, and what it takes to get them to a point where they want to make a difference. That’s the politics bit.”
Eldebo’s career after North Park includes work at the United Nations secretariat and a graduate degree at King's College London, where he did research on conflict prevention. He began working in World Vision’s London office in 2010.
That position has taken him to conflict situations around the world, including West Africa, the Central African Republic, Somalia, South Sudan, and the Middle East. He showed students pictures of flying around in UN airplanes in war zones, and tells stories of being awoken by nearby gunfire. It’s not always that eventful; Eldebo admits some of his important work includes sitting in his London office, “trying to get conference calls with influential people, helping to coordinate aid efforts in various countries, and figuring out how to convince the government to fund projects.” But sometimes adrenaline and fear are real parts of his job.
“I tell myself I will quit this job if I either stop caring about the people, or I stop being slightly scared of situations,” Eldebo says. “That’s one of the signs that you need to take a break. This cowboy mentality that people talk about where you are hurled into a war zone from an airplane without knowing what’s on the ground—we don’t do that. It’s more that there are calculated risks, with plans to mitigate them. Of course, the sequence of events rarely goes according to plan.”
Eldebo’s work will soon take him back to the armed conflict in South Sudan, where nearly a million people have fled their homes. He recently wrote about the situation there, including the lack of aid and media attention to the growing crisis. He plans to interview and document the real-life situations of local communities, including local children, and report back to London what needs to be done.
Roustabout: The Great Circus Train Wreck! opened November 7 and will run through November 15.
North Park Theatre Company season focuses on the relationship between alumni and current students
CHICAGO (November 12, 2014) — When the Chicago theater company Neo-Futurists premiered Roustabout: The Great Circus Train Wreck! in the fall of 2006, Joseph Schupbach was among the attendees. Schupbach, who had graduated earlier that year from North Park University having studied theatre and performance, was deeply moved by the play. “There’s something kind of idealistic about the show, but also tragic, and also hopeful,” says Schupbach. “So it matches really well with artists who are coming into adulthood.” Eight years later, things came full circle when Schupbach returned to North Park to direct the University’s fall production of Roustabout.
The play, about the real-life Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus train accident of 1918 that killed dozens of performers and circus workers, explores war and art, the actor and the play, and the power of entertainment. It opened last weekend at North Park and runs through Saturday, November 15. Also in the audience for Roustabout’s 2006 premiere was Professor of Communication Arts Chad Eric Bergman, who responded to the show’s “ensemble-driven story and physical theater aesthetic”—two attributes that he was eager to bring to the University this fall. “We thought Roustabout would have the perfect energy for the North Park Theatre Company,” he says.
Heading into the 2014–2015 season, Bergman knew that he wanted to collaborate with the Ruffians, a Chicago theater company of which University production manager and adjunct communication arts instructor Maggie Fullilove-Nugent is a member, along with Roustabout playwright Jay Torrence. Once Roustabout was decided on as the fall play, Fullilove-Nugent suggested Schupbach as the director. In 2013, Schupbach had worked with Fullilove-Nugent as assistant director on Burning Bluebeard, also written by Torrence, for the Ruffians.
“I had a fluency with the show and a close relationship with it,” says Schupbach, who had also seen two other productions of Roustabout. “They knew I was familiar with the kind of work that it is, I had assistant-directed with the Neo-Futurists, and I knew North Park,” he says. Schupbach especially appreciates directing students who are roughly the same age he was when he attended the premiere. “I saw it when I was 22, just after I had graduated, and I think it’s a really cool show for young people to do.”
Undoubtedly, Schupbach provides students with an exemplary trajectory for a career path after graduation. While at the University, he was placed in an internship with Barrel of Monkeys, an ensemble of actor-educators who lead creative writing workshops with Chicago public school students, then turn their stories into professionally performed shows. A longtime ensemble member, Schupbach became the company’s education coordinator in 2011. Earlier this month, he was promoted to artistic director.
“Most people don’t necessarily intern somewhere and then get a job where they’re in charge about seven years later,” Schupbach says about his experience at Barrel of Monkeys. “But until then, I didn’t quite know that there are jobs in the arts that are different from the ones you maybe heard about when you were younger.” In his new position, Schupbach spends half of his time in the office and half of his time in the rehearsal room. “For an artistic director at another organization, it probably looks different, but I’ll direct approximately eight shows a year, and I’m also working with a group of 60 company members,” he says. “It’s a dream situation as far as utilizing my degree.”
Before serving on staff at Barrel of Monkeys, Schupbach spent five years working with two different theater companies and an elementary school. “I didn’t know that was a job until I was learning how to do it,” he says. He challenges current North Park students to ask themselves now what kind of places they want to work for. “These students are leaving the program with incredible skill sets,” he says. Schupbach points out that cast member Annamarie Giordano is “a singer and a classic actor, but she’s also the assistant technical director, and she’s building things and getting to tell other people what to do. And I say, ‘Yup, you’re going to get a job. And you’re only a junior.’”
Alumnus Joseph Schupbach, who was recently named artistic director of Barrel of Monkeys, returned to North Park to direct Roustabout.
Bringing the season to life
Staging Roustabout at North Park presented the Theatre Company with some compelling challenges. Rather than seeking to replicate the Neo-Futurists’ space, the crew and cast strove to translate the theater’s energy to the University. One of the decisions made was to place the audience on stage with the cast. “That’s something we did duplicate: the intimacy with the actors, and in some ways, the simplicity of what is physically on stage.”
To give North Park students a vocabulary in the Neo-Futurists’ and Ruffians’ narrative style and sensibility, members from both companies were brought in to lead workshops on, among other areas, physical theater and clowning. “I was excited coming back here and about having students experiment with what was in some ways a different kind of storytelling for them,” says Schupbach.
The theme of theatre alumni returning to create productions is one that runs throughout this season. Krista Mickelson, who graduated last May and already works as a production manager throughout the Chicago theater scene, earlier this fall helmed Project 24, in which students write, stage, and present a series of original short plays over the course of 24 hours. In addition, the University will bring back alumni Chaz Evans and Joe Giovannetti in the spring to mount a sequel to North Park Theatre Company’s most successful production to date, Kung Fu Suburbia.
As they did for the original production, Evans, a 2006 graduate, and Giovannetti, a 2007 graduate, will co-write Kung Fu Suburbia 2: Cul-de-Sacrifice with Bergman. “In the writing of the original Kung Fu Suburbia, we looked carefully at how Shakespeare structured a play and used music, language, fights, and story to keep everyone engaged,” says Bergman. After working on The Duchess of Malfi with the Theatre Company two seasons ago, Bergman was inspired to think about working on a sequel.
Evans and Giovannetti were more than willing to accept the challenge. “I texted Chaz and Joe, and within seven seconds, both wrote me back saying, ‘I’m in!’” Bergman hears from alumni like Evans, an assistant professor of art and history at DePauw University, Giovannetti, who works as a professional freelance theater artist, and Schupbach, that their theatre and performance studies training has equipped them for a wide array of work in the arts.
Chicago theater professionals regularly report that North Park graduates “can do everything,” Bergman says. “As a result of modeling our program with the best of storefront theater, our students are cross-trained in many of the departments that put together a show. When you are blessed with a program that makes magic with limited resources, you think creatively to solve problems in real ways.”
Schupbach also found that there is another important attribute the program endows its students with: “North Park teaches you how to be nice,” he says. “The thing that nobody really tells you but you just figure out yourself is that people remember kind people who do their job well. If you can get those two things, you will do very well.”
Honoring tragedy through humor
Performances of Roustabout: The Great Circus Train Wreck! will be held November 13–15 at 7:30 pm in Lecture Hall Auditorium. Ticket reservations can be made online.
When Roustabout premiered in 2006, the wars in the Middle East were front and center for many Americans, and partially helped to inform the play’s content. In 2014, he finds that the show may serve a different purpose. “It’s very playful, but it’s also about war. We’re in a climate now where many people can forget that there’s foreign fighting.” Today, the play partly serves as a reminder not to forget about war, says Schupbach.
“The show is political without being sectarian or party-based,” Schupbach says. “But it is intense.” In the middle of the play, the characters discuss the merit of making fun of tragic circumstances. Schupbach finds that this section makes the weightier aspects of the play more digestible. “It comes at a really good place in the show.”
Sitting through the technical rehearsal, Schupbach still found himself moved by the play. “I think it’s really interesting for the students,” Schupbach says. “They’re discovering how you remember tragedy and honor it, how you can joke about something that’s not funny at all, and how that actually takes power away from horrific things.”
This year's Common Read, Short Girls by Bich Minh Nguyen, received the American Book Award and was named one of the Library Journal’s best books of the year in 2009.
Bich Minh Nguyen, author of Short Girls, visited North Park as part of this year’s Campus Theme
CHICAGO (November 11, 2014) — In early August, North Park University’s incoming freshmen received a package in the mail. It was a book, Short Girls by Bich Minh Nguyen. The book included a letter that described North Park’s Common Read initiative, and its connection to this year’s Campus Theme, "What Is Food?"
“The first question a lot of students asked after they received the book in the mail is if they were going to be tested on it,” said Dr. Linda Craft, professor of Spanish and coordinator of the Common Read. “The answer is no. This is about the pleasure of reading, and realizing you are going to be part of a larger conversation and a larger pursuit of learning.”
The Common Read, similar to initiatives like One Book, One Chicago, is in its second year as part of the Campus Theme. The idea is that incoming freshmen have a shared experience of reading the same book, which is selected based on the Campus Theme, and then gather throughout the year to discuss its meanings and implications.
Short Girls was chosen as this year’s book for a number of reasons, including the exploration of second-generation immigrants, gender issues, and often-overlooked difficulties in modern society—in this case, being short. In addition, food plays a prominent role in the book, from its place within the traditional Vietnamese home, to the workplace of one of the main characters, Linny. Similar to last year’s book, The Book of My Lives by Aleksandar Hemon, Short Girls also offers a cultural commentary of Chicago, the city where Linny lives.
“There are a number of tensions and dynamics at work in the book that tie into what students experience in their lives in and outside of North Park,” said Craft. “Reading is in some ways an individual thing, but when you come together and process your thoughts on a book—ask the 'why' questions—then it can be a way to create community.”
Last Thursday, students had an opportunity to explore the book even further as its author Bich Minh Nguyen visited campus for a lecture in Anderson Hall. Besides the award-winning novel Short Girls, Nguyen is also the author of the memoir Stealing Buddha's Dinner, a PEN/Jerard Award-winner and a Chicago Tribune Best Book of the Year.
“It’s fascinating to meet the author of what you just read,” said Craft. “These students came to North Park with a number of comments and questions on the book and we facilitated discussions. But it’s a whole different experience to ask the author directly.”
Campus Theme events will continue throughout the year. The schedule includes a film week in January; a February address from Kim Stein, a scientist at the Gatorade Sports Science Institute; and a March lecture from Dr. Norman Wirzba, professor at Duke University and author of Food and Faith: A Theology of Eating.
“Traditionally, the Campus Theme has been about a value or idea, for example, ‘What Is Community?’ ‘What Is Justice?’ ‘What Is Peace?’" said Dr. Karl Clifton-Soderstrom, associate professor of philosophy and the director of the Campus Theme program. “This year we wanted to address something more tangible. Eating is a daily human experience that all of us share. It is the most provocative of questions because first, it is so fundamental to human life, and second, because it bears directly on other values that we care about here at North Park—justice, compassion, community, theology, and cultural diversity.”
Author Mireille GallegosPosted on Categories Stories
“This gathering of different communities into worship at this time of year is one of the special traditions at North Park University,” said University President Dr. David L. Parkyn. “By celebrating our Christian heritage and the birth of Christ with the diverse group of performers and guests from our neighborhood, we reflect the unity in the Christmas message."
