A Christian Comprehensive University
As a Christian school North Park University seeks to link the intellectual and spiritual development of its students. To support this educational experience, North Park recruits and fosters a highly competent full-time faculty of men and women who are committed Christians. We also seek to embrace the whole Christian church in its various expressions of belief and practice. Thereby, our faculty and staff together reflect the breadth and depth found in the worldwide Christian community and work to relate the enduring values and understandings of the Christian tradition to the academic fields they represent.
Our student body also reflects an array of religious tradition and spiritual commitment. The spirit of North Park’s community is one of acceptance; students are admitted without regard to their religious creed and given the freedom to inquire and develop within a community distinctively shaped and defined by the Christian tradition.
North Park also holds that an education should prepare students for significant, morally responsible lives and equip them with the intellectual and social skills necessary to succeed in any vocation or pursuit. To serve this end, the University’s undergraduate program is anchored in a general education curriculum that introduces students, usually in their first and second years, to the liberal arts disciplines. Within these areas of study students learn how to research, to reason, to evaluate and value, and to communicate—skills as important as the knowledge learned in these courses. Within this Core Curriculum, breadth of understanding and versatility of response are the underlying objectives; and when combined with advanced study in a major program, often including several courses with a professional or career focus, we believe a general education is an optimal foundation to prepare students for a continually changing society and the career opportunities it develops and offers.
Yet an education at North Park extends beyond the classroom. As students engage the campus community and the city of Chicago, they take part in opportunities to build community, serve, worship, and develop leadership skills. Under the planning and guidance of North Park’s Center for Student Engagement and other program centers, a variety of programs and activities are built on the premise that young adults are best served when given the opportunity to make constructive life choices and take advantage of resources offered to them.
Chicago plays a major role throughout a North Park education. Courses in every discipline are enriched by the University’s larger Chicago “classroom.” Each year hundreds of North Park students volunteer through University Ministries, including the Urban Outreach program. Our Global Partnerships program, as well as options for study abroad, offer students both short- and longer-term opportunities to travel, serve, and learn worldwide.