As a Christian university we acclaim—shout loudly from the cupola of Old Main—our enduring welcome. Immigrant, refugee, undocumented, Dreamer, Muslim: our campus is yours; our classroom doors are flung wide open for you to enter. You are invited to learn with us. You are welcome at North Park.
CHICAGO (January 31, 2017) — On Saturday afternoon, I attended a memorial service for Professor Frank Steinhart. Others from North Park joined me, including a group of students and many of our faculty and staff. Frank was our teacher, colleague, and friend. Dr. Steinhart began teaching at North Park University in 1973. He planned to retire this summer after more than four decades of service as a sociology faculty member, registrar, and assistant dean. Professor Steinhart loved North Park, completely.
Yet there is something more. I learned at this service that Frank was born in Latvia. When he was six months old his mother (along with his aunt, grandmother, and great-aunt) fled with Frank from their home, reaching Hamburg, Germany. For several years, little Frank and his mother lived in camps for displaced persons. They were refugees who eventually settled in Chicago when Frank was eight years old.
Is it any surprise that Professor Steinhart’s doctoral work at Loyola University Chicago focused on immigrant single mothers with children?
I now know why Frank loved North Park so completely. He saw himself reflected in the lives of so many of his students; his story as a refugee immigrant to America alone with his mother was also their story.
In a twist of irony, on the same weekend as Frank’s memorial service, our nation imposed an indefinite halt of immigration for citizens from Syria, a 90-day suspension of immigration for citizens from seven countries, and a 120-day suspension of refugees from anywhere in the world. While sitting in the service on Saturday afternoon, hearing these stories about Frank, I was struck clearly: if eight-year-old Frank and his mother, refugees immigrating to America, landed at O’Hare Airport today, they would be turned away, sent back, not welcomed in our country. Any potential little Frank held for teaching students at North Park for 44 consecutive years would be crushed, forsaken, quashed.
As students and educators at North Park, we have little immediate influence over executive orders issued in Washington, D.C. What we can do, and must do, is ensure that North Park continues to be a place of welcome to all who desire to study with us.
Recent changes in our national policy and practice relative to those who come to America from other countries raise real and significant concerns for some students on our campus today. This is true for international students who study with us for one or more semesters. It is disproportionately true for students recently new to America, those who have come with their families over the past decade or two. Documented or not, they face increased uncertainty about the level of welcome they can expect from America. It is also true for Muslim students whose religious commitment has been so mistakenly and despicably caricatured as inherently violent and terroristic.
As a Christian university we acclaim—shout loudly from the cupola of Old Main—our enduring welcome. Immigrant, refugee, undocumented, Dreamer, Muslim: our campus is yours; our classroom doors are flung wide open for you to enter. You are invited to learn with us. You are welcome at North Park.
It is for this reason that some weeks ago I signed a letter, along with presidents of 600 other colleges and universities across the country, to affirm our support for the continuation of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Program, and in support of our undocumented immigrant students.
We must do more than acclaim, however. We must turn our rhetoric into reality by actually receiving and welcoming all who study at North Park and whose residency in our country may be uncertain. Though meaningful, a signed letter is far from a sufficient institutional response. More significant is the daily care we extend to each other on campus. As president, I’m calling on all of us at North Park to be especially alert to the uncertainty and fear that now unsettles and disrupts the lives of some who study with us this year. We must care for each other.
Later this week I’ll be meeting with students who have expressed interest in having North Park declared as a “sanctuary campus.” Some colleges and universities across the country have already identified themselves in this manner, others have considered it and opted for alternative ways to support students, and many others are actively considering the potential for responding in this or other ways. I’m grateful for the initiative of our students to prompt this topic for discussion by our campus; certainly, it merits careful deliberation both for its real and symbolic value. Perhaps other students (as well as faculty and staff) will want to add their voice to that of these students as our campus discussion unfolds. In doing so we may also find other ways to stand by those students who are personally unsettled today.
Why should North Park care in this way? Perhaps because if Frank Steinhart were here he would be a champion of refugees, both documented and otherwise. Or perhaps because David Nyvall, the founding president of our school, deeply believed that at North Park “hospitality should be especially insisted upon.” Both are good reasons.
Yet there is a deeper reason for loving the stranger among us—the immigrant, displaced person, refugee, Dreamer, or person of a faith different from my own. Simply this: Jesus calls us to love God and love our neighbor.
Who is our neighbor? Our neighbor is the person in need within our reach. This commitment to the care for others is a common thread in Scripture.
- “The alien who resides with you in your land . . . shall be to you as the citizen among you.”
- “I was a stranger and you welcomed me.”
- “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.”
- “Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.”
This week, this semester—let’s love God and welcome our neighbors as Jesus taught us to do. May God’s light, enkindled through our lives, shine brightly along Foster Avenue.