Wednes­day, Feb­ru­ary 1st, 2012

Wednes­day morn­ing, I caught a bus into down­town Chicago and found my way to the office of the Civic Con­sult­ing Alliance (CCA). Once I arrived to the Chase Tower, where CCA is located, I was greeted by Prince­ton alum­nus Alexan­der Gail Sher­man ’97, a Prin­ci­pal at the Civic Con­sult­ing Alliance. The Civic Con­sult­ing Alliance is a non­profit orga­ni­za­tion that brings together teams of busi­ness experts, gov­ern­ment lead­ers, and CCA staff mem­bers, to help improve the city of Chicago. CCA works on every­thing from eco­nomic devel­op­ment to edu­ca­tion to pub­lic safety. The staff mem­bers at the Civic Con­sult­ing Alliance rep­re­sent a large vari­ety of aca­d­e­mic and pro­fes­sional backgrounds.

After tak­ing a few min­utes to meet every­one in the office, I accom­pa­nied Alexan­der to a meet­ing at the Office of the Pres­i­dent of the Cook County Board of Com­mis­sion­ers. The meet­ing, with the Direc­tor of Pol­icy for the County Board, was focused on ways the County could col­lab­o­rate with the Civic Con­sult­ing Alliance over ongo­ing pub­lic safety and vio­lence reduc­tion efforts in Chicago. On the way back from the meet­ing, I dis­cussed this a bit fur­ther with Alexan­der and had the oppor­tu­nity to ask him a few ques­tions about his work at CCA more gen­er­ally. It was also won­der­ful to get his advice on var­i­ous career options that I have been con­sid­er­ing. Because his work brings him into con­tact with so many dif­fer­ent peo­ple and orga­ni­za­tions, Alexan­der seems almost infi­nitely knowl­edge­able about every­thing I was curi­ous about.

I stepped out for lunch with Julius Dimas ’10, an Asso­ciate Civic Fel­low at CCA (and another fel­low Prince­ton­ian!). It was inter­est­ing to hear the per­spec­tive of a recent col­lege grad­u­ate work­ing at the Civic Con­sult­ing Alliance, and it was also great to dis­cuss some of our com­mon Prince­ton mem­o­ries. We fin­ished off day one with a few meet­ings; first, we walked over to City Hall for a monthly col­lab­o­ra­tion meet­ing, which included heads of var­i­ous agen­cies (like Chicago Pub­lic Schools and the Chicago Police Depart­ment), rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the City gov­ern­ment, and CCA staff. Finally, I sat in on another meet­ing in City Hall to dis­cuss anti-violence and com­mu­nity sta­bi­liza­tion efforts, espe­cially sum­mer pro­grams to help high-risk youth in Chicago. Day one gave me a taste of the won­der­ful range of activ­i­ties that com­prise Alexander’s work at the Civic Con­sult­ing Alliance.

Thurs­day, Feb­ru­ary 2nd, 2012

Alex Sher­man and Danielle

On day two, I met Alexan­der in a cof­fee shop for a meet­ing to dis­cuss data­bases hold­ing infor­ma­tion on social ser­vices in Chicago. After that, we made the quick walk back to the CCA office and Alexan­der fin­ished off some prepa­ra­tion for a meet­ing with the Pres­i­dent of the Cook County Board of Com­mis­sion­ers later in the day. Dur­ing this time I  had the oppor­tu­nity to sit down with Kelsey Burr, an Asso­ciate Prin­ci­pal with the Civic Con­sult­ing Alliance. This was a par­tic­u­larly fas­ci­nat­ing con­ver­sa­tion; Kelsey has had expe­ri­ence in a diverse range of pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tor orga­ni­za­tions, hav­ing worked at places like the New York Fed­eral Reserve and Boston Con­sult­ing Group. I was intrigued to hear about his expe­ri­ences in these dif­fer­ent orga­ni­za­tions. His advice was some of the most insight­ful and help­ful I have received.

The next meet­ing was with Toni Preck­win­kle, Pres­i­dent of Cook County Board. This was espe­cially excit­ing for me because Pres­i­dent Preck­win­kle rep­re­sented the 4th Ward of Chicago (where my child­hood home is located) for 19 years, before being elected as Cook County Board Pres­i­dent in 2010. In this meet­ing, Alexan­der and his col­leagues from CCA pre­sented their plans for an inno­v­a­tive sum­mer pro­gram to help high-risk youth in Chicago. We fin­ished off the day with a meet­ing on anti-violence and com­mu­nity sta­bi­liza­tion efforts, with mem­bers of the City and County gov­ern­ment staffs.

Fri­day, Feb­ru­ary 3rd, 2012

Day three started off quite inter­est­ingly, with a train ride to the offices of UCAN, a social ser­vice agency that serves more than 12,000 chil­dren and youth who have suf­fered trauma. CCA staff shared their plans for the sum­mer pro­gram to help high-risk youth, and all those present at the meet­ing brain­stormed how UCAN could part­ner with CCA to be part of the effort. UCAN staff also shared some of their most excit­ing cur­rent activ­i­ties and efforts. Before head­ing back to CCA offices in down­town, I sat in on a con­fer­ence call between CCA staff and a few employ­ees of Ernst and Young, to dis­cuss col­lab­o­ra­tion on some upcom­ing vio­lence reduc­tion efforts for the city of Chicago.

Once we returned to the Civic Con­sult­ing Alliance office, we moved into the con­fer­ence room for a meet­ing with about 15 Chicago lead­ers to solid­ify the final plans for the sum­mer pro­gram to help high-risk youth. Alexan­der and I stepped out a few min­utes early to head to the offices of Accen­ture, a global con­sult­ing firm. The beau­ti­ful space and even more gor­geous views from the 33rd floor office was breath­tak­ing, but the Accen­ture and Civic Con­sult­ing Alliance exec­u­tives got right down to busi­ness. Through­out the almost two-hour meet­ing, I was end­lessly fas­ci­nated by the con­ver­sa­tion on work­force devel­op­ment in Chicago and the poten­tial for repro­duc­ing the Civic Con­sult­ing model in other cities.

My time at the Civic Con­sult­ing Alliance was fas­ci­nat­ing, infor­ma­tive, and enjoy­able. I really appre­ci­ated the oppor­tu­nity to sit down and talk with so many inspir­ing peo­ple, and it was won­der­ful to be exposed to a vari­ety of orga­ni­za­tions, from non-profits to gov­ern­ment agen­cies to larger con­sult­ing firms. This expe­ri­ence has def­i­nitely given me a lot to think about with regards to my career plans.

Thank you for the won­der­ful opportunity!