Lopez Fitzpatrick (CLA ’16) used the relationships she crafted at CLA to launch a program that will provide resources to undocumented students at Chicago City Colleges.
As the Associate Dean of Wilbur Wright College in Humboldt Park, Maureen Fitzpatrick oversees personnel and programs for all of the College’s courses at the Humboldt Park campus. With a prior background in community organizing, and in particular, immigration organizing, working at Wright College – an institution that serves first-generation low-income students and a very high immigrant population – resonated with her interest and experience. In her current role, Maureen now has the chance to support undocumented students through providing them new pathways to educational opportunities.
As part of her CLA capstone experience, Maureen honed in on improving undocumented students’ experiences in transferring from the City Colleges system to a four-year higher education institution.
She identified Northeastern Illinois University as a key partner: “There are a lot of parallels, we serve similar geographic areas, similar communities and families.” The capstone project compelled her to enter exploratory conversations with NEIU leaders to share existing initiatives and points of intersection between their institutions. Maureen envisioned a stronger pathway for undocumented students that would provide additional supports, advising, and mentoring. According to Maureen, “We've been trying to formalize a little bit more how that happens.”
At the same time, Maureen committed to making changes in her leadership skills that could support relationship building. Being a CLA fellow enabled her to consider her sphere of influence beyond the college and become more confident in pulling together colleagues within and outside Wright College for a common purpose. She asked herself: “How do I create a space so that there’s a clear vision or agenda item that we’re working on, but make sure that those that are there are really part of the space so that it’s an inner change?”
“I think so much work is about relationships. So that's something that will always stick with me long after CLA.”
Six months following CLA graduation, in July 2016, Wright College and NEIU, in collaboration with National Partnership for New Americans and National Immigrant Justice Center, worked together to design a 5-hour “Undocumented Student Navigator” training program to ensure that staff were sharing information with undocumented students about their rights and connecting these students with locally available legal services and resources. This training was launched at Wright and then expanded to the other six City Colleges. It was first piloted in the summer of 2016, and by spring of 2017, over 500 staff were trained. Collaboration with the City’s “Chicago is With You” task force in 2017 has strengthened the training partnerships at all seven City Colleges.
One year post-CLA, in 2017, Maureen led a Wright College-NEIU collaborative grant proposal to a Title V program funded by the U.S. Department of Education. The program is focused on developing Hispanic-serving institutions. If funded, the team will work together over five years with high school partners on the northwest side of Chicago to develop college and career pathways.
Maureen has continued to apply CLA lessons as she works to strengthen the partnership with NEIU and explore future points of synergy “…by creating intentional spaces…so they could sit around the table with the team that I have here as well and just share and listen.”