FIRST WORD
STANDING ON THESE FOUNDATIONAL PRINCIPLES
I am grateful to National Louis University for assisting me in my education. NLU provided for me a strong foundation from which to stand as a leader and educator. I first learned about NLU when my father was completing his M.S. in Management degree. Later, my sister attended NLU to complete her teaching degree. Choosing to be a high school teacher early in my career, I turned to NLU. The University not only helped to educate me in best practices for serving high school students, but the faculty helped me land my first teaching assignment with the Chicago Public Schools (CPS). When I learned of the many inequities that persisted in the lives of some of my CPS students, I decided to go back to NLU to finish my doctoral degree in educational psychology. The training, critical thinking and scholarly habit of mind I received from the faculty lives in me today. The skills I learned and passion I have for education stems from the expert training I received at NLU. Today as president of Harold Washington College, I am reminded that NLU not only helped me achieve my goals for serving our
communities through education in the city of Chicago, but the leadership training, mentoring and coaching I received while also employed at NLU allowed me to be ready to take on the challenges of being a college president. The challenges we all face in higher education are allied with similar challenges we see in the K-12 space. Social conditions often affect the realities of our students, and often those realities manifest themselves in our school spaces. When this happens, and when interventions are needed, we as educators and as leaders need to assist in the design of interventions that are culturally relevant and responsive. All students deserve an opportunity to be educated in schools and colleges where the teachers and professors care about them holistically — inclusive of their culture, religion and identity. We are experts in our content, but we need to continue to be experts in humanity and empathy. We should continue to hold ourselves accountable for enacting the values that we care so much about in education. These are the foundational principles that NLU has taught me and that I carry forward as college president of Harold Washington.
Ignacio Lopez, Ed.D. — Interim President, Harold Washington College 2004 M.A.T. in Secondary Education 2009 Ed.D. in Educational Psychology/Human Learning and Development 2012 MBA
5
National Louis University VIEW | Spring 2018
Powered by FlippingBook