New Lecture Series at Gonzaga Builds Bridges « Back to Front Page By BRIAN BOWEN, Gonzaga In our inaugural year as a member Student Chapter of the J. Reuben Clark Law Society we did not really know what events to plan. As we examined the mission of the JRCLS, we really focused on the part of the mission that said, “[w]e affirm the strength brought to the law by a lawyer’s personal religious conviction.” Since Gonzaga is a Jesuit university, we knew that this mission was applicable to all law students who believed in God. So we formed a committee made up of students in the Gonzaga chapter and asked them how we could incorporate the JRCLS’s mission into our law school experience. This committee decided to start a lecture series entitled “Religion and the Law.” To make this event meaningful, the committee decided to ask professors to speak. The professors were given the topic of how their religion has influenced their personal, family, and professional lives. The series included professors speaking about their faiths of Judaism, Catholicism, and Islam. Because Gonzaga does not have any LDS professors, our committee asked the Mission President of the Spokane Mission, who is an attorney, to speak. The response to this lecture series was overwhelmingly positive throughout the law school. Each professor asked to speak was thrilled with the opportunity. Throughout the lectures, there arose an overarching theme. Each presenter mentioned how they have been blessed in their lives for not compromising their religious beliefs. Nearly all of the presenters shared experiences of leaving a job or a situation that they felt did not fit with their beliefs and moral compasses. One of the professors expressed that this was the first time she felt she could openly discuss her religious beliefs at school and not be ridiculed. Throughout the presentations, it was easy to see how the law was strengthened by each “lawyer’s personal religious conviction.” Not only did the lecture series help to affirm the mission of the JRCLS, it also helped in building bridges of trust between many of the LDS students and the Gonzaga law school community as a whole.