1 November 2019

To the North Park University Board of Trustees:

We write as concerned North Park faculty, staff, and students, who love this institution, its mission and what it has stood for over the years. We believe that the following matters are deserving of the Board’s urgent attention both as they pertain to reaccreditation and as they speak to North Park’s fundamental character and trajectory. We are concerned both that reaffirmation of accreditation may be at risk, and that North Park’s core values are in jeopardy.   

1. The university has failed to respond adequately to incidents of harassment, bullying, and abuse, creating a pervasive campus climate of fear, uncertainty, and distrust. A prominent example is the Chemistry Department, which has been subjected to a year’s long campaign of harassment by students. Although Chemistry Department faculty and staff have repeatedly reported that harassment to administrators and security personnel, the institutional response has been to blame rather than support the department members, and to attempt to cover up the situation, resulting in an unsafe workplace environment for the department’s faculty, staff, and student workers. Clearly these practices do not reflect the core values of North Park.  

We ask the President to acknowledge the institutional mishandling of the situation in the Chemistry Department, and to work with faculty and staff toward a respectful resolution.

2. Many valued leaders have left North Park, often without explanation, sometimes under duress. Because many of these departing leaders are people of color, the University’s commitment to diversity is undermined. These leaders include our current Provost, the Vice President of Advancement, Assistant Vice President of Student Engagement, Director of Career Development and Internships, Campus Pastor, Director of Marketing, Diversity Director, numerous professors, and many other staff and administrators.   

We recognize that this letter is an unusual format for addressing concerns at the University. We would prefer to communicate our concerns through the structures of shared governance. However, given the current state of uncertainty in the Provost’s Office and Office of Student Engagement, our opportunity for access to and collaboration with senior leadership has been unfortunately limited. Different campus constituencies attempting to meet with the President have been told that the President’s directives must come from the Board. We therefore take this unusual step in addressing the Board directly.  In doing so, we reaffirm our investment in the future of North Park University, and our sincere desire to share our institutional memory, creativity and energy as we work together, with Christian faith as our common ground, to bring North Park forward with our values and our accreditation intact.

85 Concerned North Parkers, 35 faculty, 16 staff, 22 students, 12 alumni

We respectfully request a public response to this letter by November 8. We ask that communication about next steps go through the faculty and student representatives to the Board.

Note: this letter was hand-delivered to the North Park Board of Trustees on November 1st. We are awaiting a response. If you are interested in these concerns or others, please post with #OurNPU (we will find you), follow us on Instagram @unitednorthpark, or email north.parker@concernednorthparkers.org.