Moved by the Same Spirit: Dominican’s New Chicago Campus Continues Founders’ Legacy of Expanding Access to Education
When Dominican University’s Chicago Campus opened this fall, the parallels to the past were fully in focus for many.
Growing enrollment and a desire to make education more accessible and more inclusive, particularly among the children of immigrants, took the Dominican Sisters of Sinsinawa, under the leadership of Mother Samuel Coughlin, from rural, remote Wisconsin to the transportation-friendly River Forest in 1922.
And under remarkably similar circumstances, as Dominican continues its efforts to break down barriers to education amid record-setting enrollment, the doors of the Chicago Campus opened wide in Pilsen this fall, adorned with signs in Dominican colors of blue and gold, welcoming students in both English and Spanish.
“The same spirit moved us to go to Chicago,” said Dr. Gema Ortega, executive director of academic affairs for the Chicago Campus, during a panel discussion of the new campus at Dominican’s Caritas Veritas Symposium on Sept. 17.
Fifty-four students make up the inaugural class, arriving for move-in day on Aug. 22. They’ve established a home away from home in La Casa, the six-story campus residence hall, which features apartment-style living (and, for those on higher floors, sweeping views of the city).
Next door, they attend classes in the Resource Center as they pursue a two-year associate’s degree focused on career development with their choice of a concentration in certified nurse assistant, cybersecurity, legal studies or translation/interpretation.
Just prior to the first day of classes on Aug. 26, students were invited to a colorful street mass and block party featuring Aztec dance just outside their door in the campus zocalo. The annual DU fest on the grounds of River Forest followed, with Chicago Campus students invited to take part.
This reminder of the connection between the two campuses, and of the Hispanic heritage prominent in Pilsen and within the Dominican University community, is emphasized in a classroom wall message at the Chicago Campus: “Two Campuses. Una Comunidad.”
“It’s been a good experience here,” said student Omar Rodriguez, who has chosen the cybersecurity concentration for his associate’s degree. “It’s in a neighborhood where there’s a really pronounced Hispanic culture, and I feel like that resonates with what Dominican University is.”
“We are excited and full of hope for our students,” Ortega said shortly after classes launched. “We are going to create community and learn together. We are going to grow personally and academically. We are going to appreciate the city of Chicago, its people and all it has to offer.”
During the Caritas Veritas Symposium panel, Sr. Peggy Ryan, OP, told a classroom audience that a “vision of inclusivity” on the part of Mother Samuel transformed St. Clara College into Rosary College a century ago.
“They wanted young women to have the same kind of education everyone else was having,” she noted.
This same vision among current leaders looking to expand educational access within traditionally under-served neighborhoods helped to establish the Chicago Campus as well.
It’s now the university’s role to understand these communities and walk with their members so this vision can take shape, said Dr. Barrington Price, Chicago Campus CEO.
“Our entry into Pilsen has been about learning, asking a lot of questions and seeing the good already happening in the community,” he noted. “We are privileged to come alongside many, many institutions and community-based organizations that have widely accepted us, that are incredibly excited we are present and that continue to educate us about how we can better serve the community. It’s with that spirit that we walk alongside our students and build relationships with key members of the community, not only in Pilsen, but in surrounding neighborhoods on the South and West Sides.”
A History in Pilsen and the West Side
Long before the vision of the Chicago Campus was formed, the Dominican Sisters of Sinsinawa were already establishing schools and educating students within the boundaries of Chicago—including Pilsen and surrounding communities on Chicago’s West Side.
Between the 1980s and 2000, Sisters taught in the classrooms of St. Pius V School, just down the street from the Chicago Campus.
Sr. Erica Jordan, OP, was the school’s principal from 1983 to 1996. It was her first time working in a Spanish-speaking, immigrant community, and she set about studying Spanish and working with the church’s pastor, Fr. Chuck Dahm, OP, to make curriculum changes that would help children learn about their own cultural identity. At the time, the neighborhood was home to Mexican immigrants and a growing number of immigrants fleeing war in El Salvador, Jordan said.
“The parents were so warm, so welcoming and so grateful for all we tried to do for their children,” she recalled.
Less than four miles away, on 25th Street in Little Village, the Sinsinawa Sisters established Epiphany School in 1910, serving the children of the community’s Eastern European immigrants. The Sisters served the school until 1996, said Sinsinawa archivist Cassandra Vazquez.
Even today, Epiphany praises the Sisters’ decades of service in the community, crediting them with “creating one of the finest educational facilities serving the lower west side of Chicago,” as the school’s website declares.
Elsewhere, Sisters ministered to West Side residents through the Westside Employment Education Center from 1991 to 2006. The center helped area adults become better qualified for jobs through educational programs.
Jordan praised Dominican’s return to Pilsen.
“The Chicago Campus is so in tune with the mission of the Sinsinawa Dominicans for education and for offering opportunities to underserved communities,” she said. “Dominican University continuing that mission is very meaningful to us and we’re very proud.”
Building Community in the Present
With classrooms of new students, there are also some familiar faces at the Chicago Campus.
For Berto Aguayo ’16, teaching a first-year seminar course as an adjunct professor is a full-circle moment as it brings him back to the same building where he trained residents in community organizing following his graduation from Dominican.
“For me, teaching here is a way to pay it forward and give back to an institution that did so much for me,” said Aguayo, who earned a law degree in May and is an associate at the firm of K&L Gates. “Dominican helped me hone in not just on who I am, but who I am in the context of my community and how I build community by building relationships. That’s what I’m trying to do through the first-year seminar.”
With a small class, instructors can better understand the needs of each of their students.
“I know all 54 students individually,” said Raquel Fullerton, a mathematics learning specialist who is helping the new students build up their math skills to take the placement exam for the university level courses they will need to complete for graduation.
Students are also forming new relationships as they experience dorm living for the first time.
“In just the short period of time I’ve been here, we’ve really built a community,” student Camila Moran said of her suite mates. “We all contribute to groceries. There is a meal plan, but sometimes we like to cook dinner for everybody and sit down together.”
Liza Perry said she chose the Chicago Campus associate’s degree program in part because she can begin preparing for her nursing degree there and because the campus is near her home. Her roommate is also a classmate from her high school.
“Not many people like to go to school far away from their community and from where their family is at,” she said. “It’s nice to get your education and achieve your goals close to home, where you are comfortable.
“I remember when I first heard about Dominican opening a campus in Pilsen, it sounded too good to be true—I’m not going to lie,” Perry added. “It’s nice and it’s a new feel. It’s good for the community.”