Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Eckstein. JSOnline reports that the couple, both Marquette grads, have offered up a $51 million gift to the new law school, the largest donation in Marquette history and one of the largest ever to a law school in the U.S.
Apparently, it also trumps the largest gift ever made to UW-Madison by $19 million.
Our law school needs and deserves this boost. Briefly dropping out of the top tier was a wake-up call, and graduates have a vested interest in making donations to keep their degrees valuable. Without making any judgment here, I will say it’s entertaining to watch some people increase their donations to the school as others identify reasons to withhold them.
But the best point of all is buried in the article:
The new building is likely to become Marquette’s most visible face for the public at large. At N. 11th and W. Clybourn streets, it will sit on open land at the northwest corner of the freeway interchange, which is one of Wisconsin’s most heavily traveled pieces of roadway.
Amen! This is HUGELY critical for Marquette to keep in mind, and is perhaps one of the most overlooked aspects of the Marquette Interchange Project. I’ve heard a lot of complaints about the noise, the inconvenience, and the irritation caused by the construction. What is rarely mentioned is what a great asset the interchange has been for Marquette, and what an even greater asset the improvements are making it become.
After all, what other university in the country has its name attached to an interchange? (If there is one, I’d seriously like to know.) How many times each day do news reports reference traffic going through “the Marquette?” (Bummer for me that the quote above is one of the few exceptions.) What could an institution do to get better exposure besides actually buying naming rights?
Truly overlooked, though, as it may at first seem inconsequential, is what the new interchange is doing for the view of Marquette. Drive over the new ramp from I-43 North to I-94 West–it’s almost shocking how great our campus looks from up there.
Marquette, then, has the responsibility to take advantage. When driving through the Marquette Interchange, people are going to be looking at what gave it that name. We ought to give them something good to look at. The giant “We Are Marquette” banner that used to hang on the side of the Helfaer Theater is a nice example. So is the Marquette sign on top of Straz residence hall.
The new law school is being built in the “armpit” of the very I-43/94 ramp, and has awesome potential to scream “Marquette University” the way that Straz Tower already does. Some will argue that it’s taking up valuable “green space” on the campus, but I couldn’t think of a better replacement for frisbee games than a great looking, classy law school. Marquette should go all out on this project, make a shiny, beautiful new law school, and thank the Ecksteins profoundly.
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Take it easy on us ultimate frisbeers. Heaven forbid that students have space for recreation on campus. But that being said the new law school should be pretty rad.
So I heard a rumor (I forgot where, but it seemed pretty legit at the time) that after the new law school is built, they’re putting a new elevator in Johnston Hall… not where the current one is, but as an attachment to the outside of the existing structure… anyone want to hazard a guess as to how that’s going to work?
Probably the same way the elevator in Marquette Hall works; built onto the back of the building.
If you go to the backside of Marquette Hall (north side entrance to David Straz Hall), they built on an extra stairwell and elevator several years ago to the backside. You can tell that this is not part of the orginal structure sicne the brick colors are slightly off.
Oh yeah…forgot to mention that I had a conversation with a friend who is a former MU administrator this weekend. Per his information prior to his departure, the next major building project will a massive administration building with underground parking at 12th and Wisconsin, encompassing the current Parents Park, the 1212 Building, and a portion of the current parking lot across from the McGuire Center.
Hopefully this will free up the university offices currently in the Campus Town retail space up for future retail development. An on-campus Sobelman’s anyone?