Nation's Biggest -- Our Best

I took a trip today into Chicago and discovered something unexpected.

Riding shotgun in my PT Cruiser was Dr. Bill Dean, the head of our Department of History and Political Science. I asked him along because a contact I made two months ago runs an organization he might be interested in. Within 30 minutes, we learned this simple outfit off Division and Wells ranks No. 1 in the nation at what they do.

We met with Rob Acton, executive director of the Cabrini Green Legal Aid society. This is the largest Christian legal society in America, serving 5,000 clients per year with 15 staff, half of which are lawyers with various specialties in poverty law. Their clients pay no fees, and the CGLA's $1.3 million annual budget is funded by donors. They expunge arrest records, where no convictions are achieved, so the impoverished can get jobs. They defend the evicted so they can remain in public housing, off the streets. And they do it because of a love for God and His commission to love justice, and to love people.

Bill and I checked it out because we'd like to find ways of connecting our undergraduate students interested in law school with a top notch service organization, a place where they not only become acquinted with the legal system, but work with top flight people on worthy causes that reflect our own mission.

Maybe there's something in this for us, a CGLA-ONU partnership. We would send the nation's biggest, our best.