Creating Welcoming Spaces and Initiatives for All Students
Vice President for Student Engagement Francisco Gaytán came to North Park University from Northeastern Illinois University four years ago. He first learned of North Park when a USA Today reporter interviewed him about Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs). At that point, Northeastern Illinois had been an HSI for well over a decade, but Gaytán heard that North Park had just appeared on a list as an emerging HSI.
Gaytán said, “I told the journalist that I thought North Park was the university of the future, that its roots were very deep with an immigrant experience.” Two years later, he saw a North Park job posting focused on student success and improving retention rates, all emphasizing the student body’s diversity. He felt called to the position.
We caught up with Gaytán to learn more about his accomplishments at North Park and how he’s helping put students at the forefront.
What were your initial priorities when you arrived at North Park?
It was still amid COVID-19. All schools, including North Park, were experiencing a breakdown of community and uncertainty. Students were experiencing mental health challenges, and we literally couldn’t fully see each other because we were all wearing masks.
I met with many first-year students who felt insecure and said they’d had enough of COVID at that point. It would’ve been a year and a half into being isolated, socially distanced, and taking remote online education. The students focused on being upset with the school and the administration.
While some things were understandable, I would say that my assessment as a social scientist was that they were upset at the context—that they’d been pulled apart from community. The real opportunity I saw, and the hope I had, was to help build more community among our students.
What has that looked like?
Some of the things that immediately came out were that some of our immigrant background students and students of color didn’t feel seen at the university. Some of our commuters didn’t feel connected. Some of our retention rates for our athletes, especially our athletes of color and specifically our black male athletes, were not that high.
I also noticed that our staff and faculty felt isolated from each other. There was a real irony there because here we were, a small liberal arts school that’s very relational and very historically community oriented. We had not been able to lean into that.
That led to wanting to focus on building a sense of trust and community first among my staff but also with the students. With a lot of work, we slowly built that trust to build a bigger sense of being in this together.
We also revitalized our University Ministries with global partnership trips, including a trip to India. We became more intentional about supporting students by creating peer student success coaches. We saw this culminate recently in the largest undergraduate graduating class we’ve had in more than a decade.
What does it mean to be able to connect with students on a personal level?
I think that’s something uniquely North Park. We’ve created this very tight-knit community within the city. It’s like having your block, neighborhood, and family within the city. From that, students can go out and explore and connect. It’s like the concept of being an immigrant community, who often congregate in enclaves, tight-knit neighborhoods.
Some people perceive that as self-isolation, but I think it’s how you find support. North Park builds that little enclave, a very relational community. That’s unique in higher education.
As a vice president, I easily knew the names of at least 100 of those 300 graduates. I had personal conversations with at least one-third of them. It was exciting to say their names as they walked across the stage and give them a thumbs up because we had that connection.
What are some student-focused initiatives you’re particularly proud of right now?
When I came in, a group was concerned about our commuter students. They felt that our commuter students were disconnected from the campus. I had many conversations with the Student Government Association—which has a commuter committee—and a commuter-focused registered student organization. I noticed many of their concerns were not only their wanting dedicated commuter spaces, but also not having enough to eat. Sometimes, gas money alone costs too much. Sometimes, childcare or medical issues will put them in a situation where they must decide between paying tuition and an important bill. We started to address some of those issues piece by piece.
In addition, our contract with our dining services vendor, Aramark, was up. We went through a process of looking for new vendors and took bids from three different ones, but we also involved commuter students. Because of that and the students’ activism and voice, Aramark had a great idea to renovate the Viking Market & Café so that its hours were open later, and they partnered with us to donate swipes. That way, we could give away more than $1,000 of free meals.
They also renovated the lounge adjacent to the dining hall, which is open for commuters to hang out and eat lunch there even if they don’t have a meal plan.
This summer, we plan to find a place to put a cabinet for a food pantry. If a student is looking for a meal, they can find one without shame. That’s connected to our Christian identity of serving others and caring for our neighbors.
University Ministries has taken charge of making people feel closer together. They’ve been great about doing outreach.
We hope that, in the future, commuter students can attend a fall retreat at one of the Covenant camps so they can experience what it’s like to have an overnight experience, make friends, and develop their faith. They will build community and enjoy being young and in nature.
With student engagement at North Park in general, we want to show Christ’s love, which is loving each other and caring for people. It doesn’t matter what background you come from; it doesn’t matter what identity you have. You can come here and find people who care about you and feel like you belong.
What else do you think our North Park donors would enjoy knowing?
The Student Care Fund has been phenomenal. It’s helped students with medical bills, rent payments, food, and childcare.
I’d also like to encourage them to come to campus. Any chance they have to be here and see what we’ve done and participate in what we’re doing, whether that’s offering internships, serving with us during service days, coming to worship with us at Chapel, checking out new spaces that we’ve built, they’re always welcome back to participate.
What’s one message you’d share with North Park students?
They will likely find a beloved community where they will fit in. I’ll say that I am a little timid by nature. It’s funny that I’m in this relational student engagement space, but it makes me sensitive to those students who sit on the margins, who maybe feel a little afraid or like they’re just going to hang out in their car between classes. What we want to make happen here is to find your community and people who care about you.