North Park’s Center for Civic Engagement provides opportunities for students to serve and learn with local communities.
Laying the Foundation
An East Asian philosophy class visits Chinatown and the Chinese Cultural Center to understand the community, its makeup and identity. A statistics class tours the Albany Park and North Park neighborhoods to better comprehend how redlining and zoning inequalities translate from classroom maps and data to real houses and real streets. And, students visit Cabrini Green, learning about the history of urban renewal, public housing, concentrated poverty, gentrification, and inequality in American cities. These are just a few examples of how North Park students have been serving and learning with local communities via the Catalyst 606 program since its inception in 2017.
Today, North Park University’s new Center for Civic Engagement—an outgrowth of Catalyst launched earlier this year—is incorporating, expanding, and deepening this work.
“Faculty and students learning and working alongside community leaders across Chicago is yet another example of North Park living into its mission of preparing students for lives of significance and service.” —President Surridge
“The main idea is to build more of a city-centered ethos on campus,” said Dr. Richard Kohng, assistant vice president for the Center for Civic Engagement. “We are enhancing and elevating North Park’s commitment to the just flourishing of cities by honoring the work that is going on in our neighborhoods.”
And those students—engaged through real-world learning in the city—love it.
Chase Friel—who graduated in May with a double major in politics and government and biblical and theological studies—served on the Catalyst Student Leadership Board throughout her undergraduate career and worked in the new center. She said she has been “thinking about civic engagement and our role as community members” and about “putting faith into action for the good of our neighbors,” ever since she met Kohng at a North Park Trustee Scholarship competition.
“There is such value in taking the concepts you learn in the classroom, like urban sociology or real estate zoning, and interacting with them in person, with your feet on the ground in the places you have learned about,” Friel said. “Engaging with communities—walking with them as they gain access to needed resources and develop skills for organizational care—is an act of faith.”
The center’s new Community Assets Cohort is a good example of how North Park works with local clergy to support their efforts and community aspirations. It is a partnership between the Center for Civic Engagement and the North Park Theological Seminary’s Lilly-Endowment-funded Academy of Church Leadership, designed to help address economic challenges facing pastoral leaders in the community.
“Honoring the stories of these individuals, seeing their faith in action for their community, and seeing a reflection of the Kingdom of God within the service and labor of our neighbors allows us to see the face of Jesus in a way we never have before,” Friel said. “Loving our neighbors is one of the greatest commandments and directives within our Christian faith.”
“Engaging with communities—walking with them as they gain access to needed resources and develop skills for organizational care—is an act of faith.” —Chase Friel C’23
Sydney Wirtz, another graduate who also served on the Catalyst Student Leadership Board, said the Cabrini and Pilsen experiences were among her favorites.
“At Cabrini, students walk with a lifelong resident of the neighborhood and see the former housing project turned into multimillion dollar condos and learn about gentrification. One side of the street has brand new, shiny high-rises and businesses while the other is fenced-off, abandoned apartments that were once home to hundreds of people in need of affordable housing, who were forced out and told that the buildings would be torn down to make room for new development,” Wirtz said.
After graduation, Wirtz will serve as a park guide for Pullman National Historical Park in Chicago. The park is the site of America’s first planned model industrial community. It is significant for the sleeping car magnate who created it, the workers who lived there, its influence on rail transportation, industrial innovation, urban planning, and the labor and civil rights movements.
“I’ve loved working with Catalyst since I first got here,” Wirtz said. “It’s one of the reasons I chose North Park.”
Building Community
Describing the significance of the Transform Capital internship, part of the center’s Community Development branch, Paul Hawkinson C’92, associate professor in the School of Business and Nonprofit Management and cofounder of the organization, refers to 2 Corinthians 9:
“Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. As it is written: ‘They have freely scattered their gifts to the poor; their righteousness endures forever.'”
“It reminds us of the calling of the church to be a generous people,” he said, “while also and equally experiencing the mutual transformation that comes with proximity to neighbors in need. We hope that exposure to the Transform Capital mission provides tangible evidence of the power of commerce when used for the benefit of others—and of the deep power in listening to, and learning from, our neighbors.”
“Through these relationships, I have been able to see how God is working through the lives of those serving and being served. I hope to continue using a faith-based lens when learning to navigate the workforce in the future” —Alana Nicholas C’23
Transform Capital, a nonprofit lending movement which aims to ignite generational advantage for others on the journey of asset ownership, provides internships each semester to North Park students.
After 17 years on Wall Street, Hawkinson, a former executive director of finance for the Evangelical Covenant Church, has devoted much of his time in the service of disinvested local communities.
Students in the cohort learn about asset based community development—a strategy to recognize the strengths and talents of individuals and communities, rather than their deficits, and to use those assets as building blocks for stronger communities. Collectively, students learn about innovation in nonprofit models and examine systemic issues that create the conditions for so many forms of injustice. They also identify specific projects of interest for deeper exploration, and they spend time engaging with the community for their project.
“Working through the center and Transform Capital has allowed me to look at what it means to serve and to work. It has shown me the power of being in relationships and sharing our stories. Through these relationships, I have been able to see how God is working through the lives of those serving and being served. I hope to continue using a faith-based lens when learning to navigate the workforce in the future,” said Alana Nicholas C’23, a former intern.
The internship program has served 24 students so far and has been funded through a generous grant from Covenant Initiatives for Care.
“Our goal is to make this a perpetual opportunity for North Park students,” said Hawkinson.