North Park has served five generations of students and continues to grow in diversity, academic relevance, and Christian commitment. Our Chicago location is a great asset that reflects the School’s global reach and outlook.
After 125 years, we’ve learned how to streamline the process of helping qualified applicants seek admission to North Park and find affordable ways to attend. If you don’t see what you’re looking for on our website, please contact us directly!
North Park offers more than 40 graduate and undergraduate programs in liberal arts, sciences, and professional studies. Classes average 17 students. 84% of our faculty have terminal degrees. Academics here are rigorous and results-oriented.
North Park Theological Seminary prepares you to answer the call to service through theological study, spiritual development, and the formative experiences of living in a community with others on a similar life path.
The Office of Alumni Engagement fosters lifelong connections by engaging alumni with the university and one another in activities, programs, and services that support the university’s mission and alumni needs.
North Park University has been named a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) by the U.S. Department of Education, a designation that recognizes North Park’s commitment to equitable outcomes for Hispanic students.
North Park University has been named a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) by the U.S. Department of Education, a designation that recognizes North Park’s commitment to equitable outcomes for Hispanic students.
“The Hispanic-Serving Institution distinction is an enviable one, sought by many institutions, and we are proud of this designation,” said North Park President Mary K. Surridge. “Most important, though, is our striving for equitable outcomes as we live into our intercultural distinctive. And that is the effort these federal grant dollars will fund on this campus.”
With the designation, North Park is now eligible to apply to federal funding opportunities that are only available to Hispanic Serving Institutions, according to Renee Cox, North Park’s Government, Corporate, and Foundation Relations Manager. Over the next year, North Park hopes to explore funding opportunities that are now available at the U.S. Department of Education, National Science Foundation, and National Endowment for the Humanities.
Sharee L. Myricks, M.Ed, North Park University Director of Diversity and Intercultural Life, says the designation underscores North Park’s commitment to diversity.
“North Park University has a long history of supporting a diverse and intentionally intercultural student population. North Park’s recent designation as a Hispanic-Serving Institution enables us to expand future opportunities that supports student recruitment, retention, and completion further,” Myricks said.
To become a designated HSI, an institution’s undergraduate enrollment must be at least 25% Hispanic (defined as an individual of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central or South American or other Spanish culture or origin).
Hispanic Serving Institutions were created in 1995 to expand the educational opportunities of the country’s rapidly growing Hispanic population and to improve Hispanic students’ measures of academic attainment.
In the past two years, Dr. Purifoye has analyzed how public transportation creates transit boundaries that support the boundaries of racial segregation.
Professor Gwendolyn Purifoye
While working towards her PhD five years ago, Dr. Gwendolyn Purifoye, a sociology professor at North Park, completed a small project regarding public transportation, specifically how people behave badly in wide open public spaces. The research, which later became the basis of her dissertation, took a new turn because of her frequent use of public transportation.
Soon, her use of CTA trains and buses inspired her to study confined, mobile spaces, resulting in “Examining Racial Residential Segregation Through Public Transportation in Chicago.”
Dr. Purifoye completed field research by riding and studying six bus lines, two Metra lines, and two CTA lines for a few years.
“Doing that,” she says, “I paid attention to who was getting on, but also where the rides were going.” She also researched CTA and Metra archives, studying how they distribute their services and resources.
In the past two years, Dr. Purifoye has analyzed how public transportation creates transit boundaries that support the boundaries of racial segregation. Through her research, she noticed favoritism toward wealthier, predominantly white communities. For instance, the CTA services the suburbs better than they do the South Side of Chicago, and transit-dependent communities are provided with fewer resources and older buses. She notes how these transit inequalities are keeping low-income racial minorities unable to get the places they need to be.
Metra Ogilvie Station
“For Chicago to really move as a city and to grow as a city, transit equity needs to be a part of that conversation,” Dr. Purifoye says. In order to see change, she explains that the conversation needs to take place city-wide, not just at the community level.
Train station servicing south side and south suburbs
Dr. Purifoye presents her research in her urban sociology class to teach students about the intricate connections between transit, housing, education, and government, as well as their influences on cities. Engaging with North Park’s core values of being Christian, city-centered, and intercultural, she hopes to show that “justice is for everyone, and we all do better when we all do better.”
Dr. Purifoye recently presented “Examining Racial Residential Segregation Through Public Transportation in Chicago” at the American Association of Geographers Conference in Washington D.C. and plans to continue researching mobility and inequality.
In his book, Dr. Johnson intricately connects the suffering of the women in the Bible to the current #MeToo movement, but instead of telling a story of weakness, he tells a story of strength and resilience.
While growing up in the slums of New Delhi, India, North Park Professor Dr. Rajkumar Boaz Johnson witnessed a great deal of suffering. He recalls thinking, “I am going to get out of this slum, and when I grow up, I’m going to do something about it.” Dr. Johnson found strength and did just that, ultimately becoming a professor of Hebrew Bible and Theological Studies.
Professor Boaz Johnson
During a sabbatical, Dr. Johnson visited the Kakuma refugee camp of 800,000 refugees. There, he experienced narratives of suffering very similar to those of his childhood, sparking the idea for his book, The Marys of the Bible: The Original #MeToo Movement. “The word ‘Mary’ means suffering,” he explains, “one who endures bitterness.”
In his book, Dr. Johnson intricately connects the suffering of the women in the Bible to the current #MeToo movement, but instead of telling a story of weakness, he tells a story of strength and resilience.
After researching ancient religions—including Sumerian, Akkadian, Assyrian, and Roman—Dr. Johnson discovered that the issues the #MeToo movement raises are not new, they have been persisting for thousands of years. “In all of these religions and civilizations,” he says, “women have always been taken advantage of.”
He emphasizes, though, that women have persevered throughout history. He discusses how women of the Bible—such as Tamar, Esther, Ruth, and the Marys—do not let themselves succumb to victimization. “The overarching principle is that the Bible takes those aspects which society would regard as weaknesses and transforms them into paradigms of strength.”
Dedicating his book to Bindulata Barik, one of his PhD students in India, Dr. Johnson includes her writings of her #MeToo experiences as well as those of his colleagues, Ingrid Faro and Elizabeth Pierre, in the foreword. He aspires for his book to be a tool that both women and men use to engage in the issues that the Bible and the #MeToo movement share in common—both understanding the origins of suffering and re-emerging with strength.
Discussing his most important goal for The Marys of the Bible: The Original #MeToo Movement, Dr. Johnson said, “My hope is that groups of women will gather together and use this book as the basis of forming support groups in order to find healing.”
Dr. Johnson’s book is published in India and the U.S. He has recently done book signings at Chicago-area Barnes and Noble stores.
Author Ellen AlmerPosted on Categories Announcement, News, Stories
