North Park alumni help Chicago thrive.
By Scott Baltic BA ’74
“For God’s glory and neighbor’s good.” This historic church saying is still relevant to North Park today. While there are many ways to interpret who your neighbor may be, alumni Jamey Lundblad BA ’95, Andrea Kersten BA ’01, and Daniel La Spata BA ’03 have put their passion toward helping their fellow Chicagoans.
Jamey Lundblad BA ’95
Deputy Commissioner for Marketing and Development, Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE)
Jamey Lundblad works to make the arts accessible to all Chicagoans. “I have a great passion for creative places and spaces that welcome all people to engage and connect,” said Lundblad. At North Park, Lundblad was involved in choir, the newspaper, and student government (first as a senator, then as student body president), all while double majoring in communication arts and Swedish. His classes were great, he said, but “It was those activities and the study abroad in Sweden that formed me as a person.”
Before landing at DCASE about a decade ago, Lundblad worked as a writer, editor, and event planner for North Park. He also held roles at the Chicago Public Library and global creative agency VSA Partners.
“I have a great passion for creative places and spaces that welcome all people to engage and connect.” —JAMEY LUNDBLAD
Currently, he and his colleagues are planning several noteworthy events, including the fifth Chicago Architecture Biennial—North America’s largest exhibition of contemporary architecture, art, and design—at the Chicago Cultural Center and citywide, and next year’s celebrations for Millennium Park’s 20th anniversary.
Also on his list is the Chicago Monuments Project, funded this past summer by a $6.8 million grant Lundblad’s team secured from the Mellon Foundation. The project will comprise eight new monuments emphasizing historically underrepresented events and people. One such monument will honor labor organizer Mary Harris “Mother” Jones, and another will celebrate gospel singer and civil rights activist Mahalia Jackson.
Andrea Kersten BA ’01
Chief Administrator, COPA
Even from a lawyer, the phrase “the love of the courtroom” can seem surprising. But it depends on what happens in the courtroom—and why.
“The courtroom can be used in wonderful ways in our justice system,” said Andrea Kersten. “I firmly believe in our justice system…but I’m not blind to its brokenness, either.”
Kersten—whose father, David Kersten, served as seminary dean— was confirmed in February of last year as chief administrator of Chicago’s Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA), an independent agency that investigates allegations of police misconduct. In 2022 alone, COPA concluded 1,065 investigations, including 33 officer-involved shootings.
A crucial part of Kersten’s North Park experience was an internship with Court Appointed Special Advocates of Cook County, where she did home visits to check on the well-being of children in the juvenile court system and then reported back to a judge. This, Kersten said, is when she started to feel “the love of the courtroom.”
“It’s not just about us as individuals, but about how we can impact those around us, the world around us.—ANDREA KERSTEN
Her North Park education, she said, “opened my eyes to the fact that…Chicago presented different experiences depending on where in the city you were living, and that your reality may or may not look like mine nestled in Albany Park.”
Kersten’s North Park experiences, she said, helped instill in her “the concept that it’s not just about us as individuals, but about how we can impact those around us, the world around us.”
Daniel La Spata BA ’03
Alderman, 1st Ward
It’s been going on five years since Daniel La Spata was elected to represent Chicago’s 1st Ward on the City Council, his first-ever run for political office. He has since been reelected to a second four-year term.
La Spata cites the impact of a North Park counseling psychology course with Don Klingberg, “in part because so much of how you govern is based in how you listen. Learning the actual skills around active listening in that class was important.”
He also served on the Student Senate and as student president of Urban Outreach, leading him to profound questions: “What is it that ails this city? Why do we have so many broken and hurting neighborhoods?”
After North Park, La Spata became involved in community development with the Logan Square Neighborhood Association, working on housing issues and becoming the group’s vice president before being pulled toward elected office.
As an alderman, La Spata has continued to champion housing issues. He backed an ordinance, later passed by the City Council, that slashed demolitions of “perfectly habitable” affordable housing in a rapidly gentrifying part of his and a neighboring ward.
“Our lives were made to be aware and curious and uncomfortable, and seek to understand the hurting of the world and to be an agent of healing.”—DANIEL LA SPATA
La Spata vividly recalled a memory from North Park, when Gospel Choir Director Rollo Dilworth premiered a composition based on the Gwendolyn Brooks poem “Truth.” Its last line is, “Sweet is it to sleep in the coolness of snug unawareness.”
“That can’t be what we’re called to,” La Spata insisted. “Not as Chicagoans, certainly not as Christians.” Instead, he said, “Our lives were made to be aware and curious and uncomfortable, and seek to understand the hurting of the world and be an agent of healing.”
The civic spirit of these three remarkable alumni, developed by a strong foundation at North Park, is apparent in their commitment to building their lives and careers in Chicago, serving the city and its people.