PRESIDENT’S LETTERA QUARTERLY NEWSLETTER TO PRESIDENT’S CLUB AND HERITAGE CIRCLE DONORSSUMMER 2015 | VOLUME 26 | NUMBER 3

“We sometimes plant trees under whose

shade we may never get to sit.”

A Personal NoteA year ago, at our baccalaureate service in May 2014, I spoke about my mother and father, and specifically about their influence on me as a young boy living in the country of Guatemala. This was on my mind that evening in large measure because both my parents had died during that recent academic year. Here’s part of the story I told about my Dad:

“When I was 12 years old I returned home from spending 7th grade in boarding school. I looked forward to summer vacation and time with Mom and Dad. But immediately after dinner on the first night at home Dad “announced” he had a summer job for me, to start the next morning.

“During the years I was growing up Dad was an adventurous guy. He had a special gift—whenever he saw a need in someone’s life he set out to care for that need. And in our small village, there were plenty of needs.

“So, when Dad told me that first night of summer vacation that he had a job for me I wasn’t sure what to expect but I knew it would be an adventure.

“Though he had only finished high school, Dad recognized the value of education. And there was no school in our village so Dad was building one— an elementary school with six classrooms and a common gathering space.

“There was no electricity in our village so Dad designed each classroom with large windows for natural light. Dad had gotten hold of long spans of steel two inches wide, formed at a 90-degree angle. He also had confiscated an arc welder. I was to form a large 5-by-8 foot frame for each full window, and subdivide each frame into 12-inch square panels for smaller pieces of glass. Cut the steel to size, don the protective helmet and eye shield, clamp the electrode, and weld—this was my summer job in 7th grade.

“How did Dad and I do on this project? The building lasted until just a couple of years ago when it was torn down to be replaced by a larger, grander building. Colegio Utatlán, the school Dad started, will be 50 years old next year and with several campuses in other towns it now enrolls more than 5,000 boarding and commuting students, offering an exceptional education.”

When Colegio Utatlán celebrated its 50th anniversary this spring I was invited to speak at these festivities. I looked forward to visiting the school Dad started, knowing that it may well have been this experience early in my life that prompted me to become an educator. And so I traveled there a few weeks ago, during our spring break.

Karl’s book is also a collection of essays, each written by Karl himself. By “reimagining the seven virtues and seven vices” he answers the question, “What makes for a good life?” Karl writes about pride and wisdom, sloth and faith, greed and hope, lust, gluttony, and temperance, envy and courage, anger and justice. I’m intrigued by Karl’s perspective that “much of the time, we live between the boundaries of vice and virtue,” perhaps often with one foot in the world of vice and our other foot in the world of virtue.

Brad and Karl both recognize that the privilege of learning obliges us to serve others, often through direct application of what we are learning. Whatever we are privileged to learn is not meant to be hoarded, to be kept to ourselves in isolation from others. Whatever we learn must soon be shared, it must become a gift to others.

This gift to others takes many forms, but for Karl and Brad one important form is the gift of book-making.

Closing ReflectionI’m writing this letter on the afternoon of the second Sunday of Easter. During this season in the church year

we continue to reflect on and celebrate the “Paschal mystery”—that covenant of reconciliation established on our behalf through Christ’s death and resurrection. I’m taken, in new ways, with the responsibility this requires from each of us: that we show forth in our lives what we profess by our faith.

And this, exactly, is what motivates us at North Park. To “prepare students for lives of significance and service” is just this…to prepare students to show forth in their lives what they profess by their faith.

Thank you for joining us in this mission.

David L. Parkyn President

Colegio Utatlán is a great place today. It is everything my father imagined 50 years ago and much, much more. During my visit I had a wonderful time meeting people who had labored with my parents to start this school five decades ago, and I deeply enjoyed the many conversations with the young kids enrolled this year. Along the way I also remembered my parents, celebrated their life, and commemorated their death.

The visit taught me a lesson: We sometimes plant trees under whose shade we may never get to sit. Dad was at Colegio Utatlán for only four years; after that he watched the school from afar. He saw a need, had a dream, and built a school. But he never could have imagined how that school would develop over the decades that followed. He planted the tree, others came by to water and prune, to tend its fruit, and sit in its shade.

Senior Leadership AppointmentsI’m delighted to introduce you to two new members of the University’s senior leadership team.

Genaro A. Balcazar has joined us on May 1 as our new vice president for enrollment management and marketing. In this capacity he provides leadership for the areas of admissions and recruitment, marketing, student administrative services, and athletics.

Genaro comes to North Park from Chicago’s DePaul University where he served in numerous enrollment capacities since 1998, including most recently director of recruitment operations.

Additionally, on July 1, Michael O. Emerson will join us as the University’s new provost. As North Park’s chief academic officer the provost carries broad responsibility for leadership of the undergraduate and graduate academic program.

For the past 15 years Michael has been the Allyn R. & Gladys M. Cline Professor of Sociology and Academic Director of the Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Rice University in Houston.

As a recognized scholar in the sociology of religion, Michael has been the primary investigator for numerous funded research projects, including the “Portraits of American Life Study,” a multi-wave longitudinal study funded at nearly $4 million by the Lilly Endowment. He is author or co-author of numerous books, including Directed by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America and his most recent book, The (Un)Making of Race and Ethnicity, set to be published later this year.

I am delighted to have both Genaro and Michael serve on the University’s senior leadership team. They

Genaro A. Balcazar

join an already strong group, and together will add yet further strength and depth to the University’s vice presidential team.

News about NPRESSNearly 18 months ago a small group of faculty members—Jonathan Rienstra-Kiracofe, Rachel Schmale, Matt Schau, and Betsy Gray—developed a proposal for a summer research experience for select students, each working under the direct mentorship of a faculty member. The name suggested for this initiative was NPRESS (North Park Research Experience for Summer Students).

In order to implement this initiative we set out to interest prospective funders in the project. The initiative was presented as a two-year pilot, noting that funding for at least six students would be required to begin the program.

Our donors responded. A small group of people (all of them readers of this letter) has committed $150,000, providing support for 10 student researchers, each with a faculty mentor, for each of the next two summers.

NPRESS is on its way—this summer we will begin an undergraduate summer research experience at North Park. And I look forward to telling you, once summer is past, of some of these research projects, the depth of learning that occurs in this setting, and the value of mentoring as faculty members and their students work side-by-side.

The Gift of Book-MakingEarlier this winter, on a Friday afternoon as snow was falling and we were preparing to end the work week, two faculty members came to my office, at different times, each with a gift. Karl Clifton-Soderstrom and Brad Nassif each presented me with a signed copy of their recent book. Both of these volumes now sit on the bookshelves immediately behind my desk and alongside other recent books by North Park authors.

Brad’s book is a Festschrift. Not all of us know what this means, so Brad describes it as “a bouquet of essays in celebration of a distinguished scholar.” This is a great description for his book. The volume is a collection of essays in honor of Father Paul Nadim Tarazi. They first met some years ago when Brad was his student at St. Valdimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary in New York.

One of the things I admire about this collection of essays on the broad theme of New Testament studies is that the authors who contributed to this volume come from the around the world, including America, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe. Here we get a taste of the vision of heaven identified in Revelation 7:9: “. . . a great multitude . . . from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne.”

Dr. Michael O. EmersonDr. Michael O. Emerson