Beth Cruz
Beth Cruz developed an interest in law while serving as a campus minister at Rochester Institute of Technology. "I was very interested in issues of social justice, and I led a group of students on several mission trips," she said. During a 2004 trip to South Africa to work at an orphanage housing children infected with HIV and AIDS, Cruz attended a conference. "I was captured by the ways in which lawyers were responsible for positive transformation in South Africa," she said. "That idea really grabbed me." When Beth moved with her husband and daughter to Nashville to start law school at Vanderbilt, her goal was a career in public interest law. "One factor that helped me decide which law schools to apply to was which schools had Loan Repayment Assistance Programs," she said. "I chose Vanderbilt for many reasons— its reputation, congenial atmosphere and the International Legal Studies Program—but the LRAP was very important to me."
Beth accepted a grant-funded position with the Public Defender's Office in Nashville soon after graduating in 2010. She advocates for juveniles whose troubles with the law result from mental health issues or other disabilities. "The idea is to intercept students earlier and make sure they get the educational and counseling services they need to stay in school," she said. "At least half of the students with delinquencies have some sort of mental health diagnosis or a disability; you'll find signs of that disability early on in their school records. By the time these students reached middle school, they start ending up in juvenile court."
Beth is paired with a part-time social worker who is a graduate student at Vanderbilt's Peabody College, and their joint goal is to keep children whose problems are fixable in school and out of the juvenile justice system. "I can keep a child in school by helping them appeal an expulsion, but that's not going to help if we don't solve the root problem, which might be that the child doesn't have school uniforms, doesn't have transportation or has significant mental health issues," Beth said.
Beth scored a recent victory when Nashville Mayor Karl Dean '81 added her new program to his proposed Metro budget. "We've had good success," Cruz said. "We're keeping students who are at risk of expulsion in school and helping them get the services they need to keep learning and stay out of trouble. But this is a tough economic climate. It meant a lot that Mayor Dean recognized the value of this program."
Beth is also grateful for the Loan Repayment Assistance she receives. "I'm extremely passionate about social justice and I wanted to be directly involved on the ground," she said. "The LRAP makes that possible for me."
Beth Cruz, Class of 2010
Education Attorney, Public Defender's Office, Nashville, Tennessee
Participant in Vanderbilt Law School's Loan Repayment Assistance Program