CLM Celebrates 25 Years of ''Reaching Professors Who Change the World''.

DALLAS -- Three out of four college students say they are "searching for meaning and purpose in life" according to a study released this month by UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute. Yet more than half of these students report that their professors never promote discussion of these spiritual matters.

According to co-Principal Investigator Dr. Alexander Astin, college students "are clearly very interested in (the) larger questions in life, and many of them hope that the college experience will support them in their spiritual quest. The challenge for higher education is to understand the priority young people place on these issues and explore how well they are supporting their students' quest."

For 25 years, Christian Leadership Ministries, the faculty ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ International, has been equipping Christian professors across the U.S. and around the world to provide the spiritual guidance their students expect. Since its launch in 1980, CLM has grown to encompass a network of 8,000 professors at over 1,100 universities world-wide who seek to integrate their faith into their teaching, research and service as a model to colleagues and students.

At a May 5th Dallas-area banquet CLM will celebrate its first quarter century with new Campus Crusade president Steve Douglass as the featured speaker. The banquet invitation committee includes oilman Bunker Hunt, Dallas Mavericks founder and former GM Norm Sonju, auto dealer Ray Huffines and former Dallas City Councilman Dr. Charles Tandy. See: www.leaderu.com (bottom right).

CLM helped pioneer free online publishing at the advent of the World Wide Web, now running 13 Web sites. These include flagship site LeaderU.com, which recently featured the topic of Academic Freedom.

More and more cases of viewpoint discrimination and religious and political bias at American universities further an environment that many scholars and students feel discourages their faith and its expression. Dr. Ed Harris states that the CLM-sponsored faculty fellowship at Oklahoma State U. helps maintain "a mindset that Christianity is one of the various options in the marketplace of ideas... I can see that there is pressure to remove that from many campuses."

CLM's 85 U.S. field staff members work with Christian professors at secular universities, aiding them in gaining tenure and equipping them to appropriately reach out to spiritually-seeking students and colleagues. Dr. Russell Carlson, Professor of Biochemistry at U. of Georgia says, "The whole idea of CLM, which is to make professors better disciples of Jesus Christ in their universities, in their professions and in their research, is extremely important and essential."

"If I could start Campus Crusade for Christ over again," Campus Crusade co-founder Bill Bright often said, "I would begin with reaching professors."

CLM will also highlight its future plans at the banquet, including its goal of establishing active groups of Christian professors at the 151 top research universities in the U.S. in the next five years. Says CLM National Field Director David Wiley, "Having been a part of CLM virtually from the beginning, I can say that we are in a position of multiplied impact as a result of the foundation laid since our creation 25 years ago."

The May 5th banquet begins at 6:45 p.m. at the Marriott Quorum Hotel in Addison.