By Kristine E. Strand, EdD, CCC-SLP
Chair, Board of Trustees
The critical foundation on which North Park University has built the past, supports the present, and will scaffold its future is chiseled into the cornerstone of Old Main and reflected in the lives of all who are part of our community—faculty, administration, staff, and most of all, students: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Psalm 111:10).
It is our faith that binds our mission as a Christian university to our core value of nurturing Christian faith while welcoming students from all traditions. Our faith is also the foundation for our educational ideal that North Park is a place where “Christian faith, learning, and service meet” in a community that “is rooted in and committed to the Christian faith and its sacred text, the Bible.”
Søren Kierkegaard famously wrote, “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” The life of North Park University going forward must be understood and embraced within the Pietistic and Covenant history on which the mission, values, and ideals of this Christian university have been formed. It is within this context that our aspiration for North Park “as the leading city-centered Christian university during the coming decade and beyond” will be lived out, as stated in one of the seven planning objectives adopted by the Board of Trustees: North Park will “nurture spiritual growth for all students, faculty, and staff by advancing a University-wide community of learning centered in the Christian gospel and engaged in dialogue with the religious diversity characteristic of the 21st-century urban world.”
I envision that North Park University in the next decade and beyond will continue to encourage students to follow their curiosity, ask questions, try different things, and grasp new concepts firmly grounded in a Christian faith community. We are all familiar with the saying that the more things change, the more they stay the same. No matter what new things come along, there are some truths that never change. It is my hope and prayer for North Park that all connected with its future will continue to think outside the box but, at the essential core, forever remain the same—embracing justice, grace, and mercy as our founding Christian values, operationalized in new ways for new generations.
Kristine E. Strand EdD, CCC-SLP is an associate professor in the Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences at Boston University. She is also a senior speech-language pathologist in the Learning Disabilities Program, Neurology Department at Boston Children’s Hospital. Kristine is the former director of the Department of Hearing, Communication and Reading, Franciscan Hospital for Children, Boston, and former president and member of the board of trustees for New England Seafarers Mission. She is a member of Cape Cod Covenant Church, Brewster, Mass., where she is co-chair of the Missions Commission.