Courses You’ve Been Waiting For
Author: Alex Macias
With nearly a foot of snow on the ground, it’s hard to think of the warmer months, but summer registration has officially opened! In addition, to several ministry courses, this is your chance to get in HSTY 5230 Christian History 3: North American Christianity, all you MDiv distance learners. This course is offered every other summer, so do take the opportunity to sign up if you plan to graduate within the next year. You can find the full list of courses on our student resources webpage.
We are excited to share another opportunity with you. This summer we will be partnering with Love Mercy Do Justice of the ECC to offer MNST 6401 Sankofa: Racial Righteousness and Reconciliation. In addition to online work, lecture, and discussion, students will travel for three days on a journey to the Southern United States (Birmingham, Alabama; Jackson, Mississippi; and Memphis, Tennessee) to sites of past and present racial injustice with thirty other Covenanters who feel called to the journey.
From the LMDJ website, “A Sankofa Journey increases one’s awareness, understanding, and sensitivity for past struggles, victories, and continuing racist oppression existing in our country. The journey explores how far we have come, and how far we have yet to go. Sankofa allows participants the opportunity to consider how together, we might better address racial righteousness in our church, our nation, and our world.”
Sankofa will be facilitated by Dominique DuBois Gilliard, the director of Racial Righteousness and Reconciliation for the Love Mercy Do Justice (LMDJ) initiative of the Evangelical Covenant Church (ECC) and author of Rethinking Incarceration: Advocating for Justice that Restores. Dominique serves on the board of directors for the Christian Community Development Association and Evangelicals for Justice. In 2015, he was selected as one of the ECC’s “40 Under 40” leaders to watch, and the Huffington Post named him one of the “Black Christian Leaders Changing the World.”
An ordained minister, he has served in pastoral ministry in Atlanta, Chicago, and Oakland. He has a bachelor’s degree in African American Studies, a master’s degree in history with an emphasis on race, gender, and class in the United States, and an MDiv from North Park Theological Seminary. For more information, see the Sankofa journey pages of the ECC website.
When NPTS revised the full curriculum in 2015, we committed ourselves more deeply to our goal of intercultural competence and spiritual growth. We wanted to see our students transformed through experiential learning that happens when you are out of your comfort zone and engaging with those different from you. In response, we developed a cultural diversity elective requirement for each degree program that incorporates that type of experiential learning. The Sankofa pilgrimage is an excellent example of what we hope for each of our students.
Details: This fulfills the Cultural Diversity Elective in any degree program. There are ten spots available to North Park seminary students. In addition to tuition, this course costs $450 which covers the travel costs of the journey and all meals (except for one lunch out).
To register, please email semacademicserv@northpark.edu expressing your interest. We will be keeping a list of those interested and giving priority to those most in need of a cultural diversity elective for their program and allowing for a diverse travel group as that is a goal for the Sankofa experience.