CHICAGO, IL (October 14, 2009) \u2013 While a graduate student in sociology at Northwestern University in the upscale suburb of Evanston, Covenanter Kathryn Edin also was teaching classes on the subject in the blighted North Lawndale neighborhood of Chicago.
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\nShe had been hired by North Park University to teach at one of its extension campuses that was strategically located to reach out to first-generation college students. Four of the people in the class were minority women on welfare.<\/p>\n
\u201cIronically the first course I was teaching that these four women were in was Minority Cultures, and I was the only non-minority person in the room,\u201d Edin says, smiling. \u201cI was teaching it out of the book – and they were living it.\u201d<\/p>\n
She also would receive an education from them. \u201cI was teaching this class on poverty, and then I would ask them how does it really work.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Edin\"](\"http:\/\/www.covchurch.org\/uploads\/gq\/LG\/gqLG-_rMZKDiH5TSD_WFEg\/NPU.jpg\")
Now a professor of sociology at Harvard University and an award-winning researcher, Edin also has become a leading voice on public policy related to urban poverty. That research has been based in part on living among the poor, including one of the nation\u2019s most violent cities, Camden, New Jersey.<\/p>\n
It is not a life anyone envisioned while she was growing up in what she affectionately refers to as the \u201cone stoplight\u201d town of rural Staples, Minnesota, where she attended Thomastown Covenant Church.<\/p>\n
Edin grew up comfortably in an area that also saw its share of rural poverty. There was virtually no racial diversity.<\/p>\n
Her family was committed to caring for the poor and hosted an exchange student from Africa who lived with them at various times over 12 years. \u201cHe was one of the only blacks in a few hundred miles, so I remember being fascinated with Africa,\u201d she told North Park\u2019s alumni magazine several years ago. \u201cHe piqued my interest in African Americans and race relations in the U.S.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, she did not foresee how that interest would become her life\u2019s work. Earlier this month, North Park presented her with its 2009 Distinguished Alumna Award (accompanying photo), and Edin told the gathering at the Homecoming Banquet,\u00a0 \u201cI didn\u2019t even know what sociology was before I came here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Edin credited two professors as having a profound influence on her. Calvin (Cal) Katter Jr., professor of biblical and theological studies, encouraged her to think critically and passionately. Professor of sociology Dr. Frank Steinhart introduced the student to her future vocation.<\/p>\n
Steinhart was the professor who wrote in the margins of her honors thesis that she should attend graduate school. He also led her on \u201ceducational forays\u201d to places such as Graceland Cemetery, where students learned that social stratification was evident even in people\u2019s final resting places. \u201c(Chicago hotelier) Potter Palmer at the top of the hill – his servant at the bottom,\u201d Edin recalls.<\/p>\n
While at North Park, she completed an internship at LaSalle Street Church, which was her first point of contact with the poor families that became the subjects of her life’s work. Although she initially balked at the idea of attending graduate school, Edin pursued a master\u2019s degree and Ph.D. at Northwestern University.<\/p>\n
Edin\u2019s advisor at Northwestern inquired as to what she was learning while teaching at North Lawndale. She replied, \u201cNot much, except that no one can live on welfare.\u201d He challenged her to prove it.<\/p>\n
The women in her class introduced her to others in similar positions, and their lives became the foundation for Edin\u2019s thesis and ultimately her first book, There is a Lot of Month Left at the End of the Money<\/em>.<\/p>\n Edin has become an important contemporary voice because of her old-school approach to research. While teaching at Rutgers University, Edin collaborated with Urban Promise, an organization started by Tony Campolo, and lived for two and a half years in Camden.<\/p>\n Living in the area was necessary for her to do quality research, Edin explained. \u201cThe old-time poverty researchers used to live in the communities they studied and I wanted to do that,\u201d says Edin, who moved to the city with her husband, Tim, and adopted daughter, Kaitlin. (They adopted their second daughter, Marisa, after moving to Camden.)<\/p>\n \u201cMy husband also is a sociologist and thought this would be a good thing to do from a research point of view, but we also thought it would be fascinating,\u201d Edin added.<\/p>\n That would be one word for it.<\/p>\n The family rented a studio apartment on the first floor of a building when they moved to Camden. Edin recalls one of the first days, when she was sitting in the apartment.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had just moved in there,\u201d she says. \u201cThere was no air conditioning and I had the windows up for ventilation. Suddenly a teenager jumped through one window, ran through the room and then jumped through the other window.<\/p>\n \u201cSoon he is pursued by three other really dangerous looking teens (she\u2019s laughing as she tells the story). Of course these are the local drug dealers who are running right in front of me. We quickly learned it wasn\u2019t a good policy to keep both windows open.\u201d<\/p>\n“Part of what I hope to do is bring a measure of dignity to the people I\u2019m serving.”<\/h5>\n