Oct

October 9th Father Wild Forum

So I just got back from the first of many Father Wild forums that ‘ll be attending. I must say that this was an MUSG mandatory event, and I probably wouldn’t have gone had that not been enforced but I am very glad I did go. The forum was question and answer session with Father Wild, Provost Dr. Madeline Wake and Senior VP Greg Kliebhan. None of the panel really went into anything prior to the first question so I’ll just be giving a run down of the type of (notable) questions asked and the responses. (And perhaps my response if so deemed).

The first notable question posed was about Tuition Raises versus Financial Aid. Tuition this year has gone up about 6.5%, and it was stated that the pool of financial aid also grows in conjunction. I’m pretty sure that’s not exactly the same thing but it was played off this way. Father Wild said that there is $65 million (up from $62m) available for aid and 85% receive some amount of money. Father Wild also added that they are making progress to institute a new form of the Raynor Scholarship for uber gifted and active students (Nothing for the White Male B/C students sadly).

Questions on communication between departments and community service: Apparently the student that posed the question had done the (underappreciated) Beijing program and the departments (other than the one said student was in) were not adequately helping him get the message out about the program he thoroughly enjoyed. The answer was basically, though that shouldn’t be happening and more should be done to get the word out, it’s the nature of the beast considering departments care about their own funding first.

The next question involved Greek Life “discrimination”. The question was well posed considering since Greek Life does more community service work and out performs the general population in terms of GPA. The student felt it was discriminatory that a student organization such as a fraternity has caps in recruiting and deferred recruiting amongst freshmen until second semester. Father Wild’s answer was that though Greek students out perform the general populous, that has not always been so. He also said that students need to get acclimated and experience all college has to offer before they commit a lot of time to an organization that can narrow their social circle (The recruiting caps does sound bad though).

The next notable jumble of questions surrounded the purchase of buildings around campus. MU has bought the buildings that house Sweeney’s and other businesses. The concern is that Sweeney’s will be booted from their current location. Father Wild and Co. said that the leases of those businesses will be honored and that’s all he could comment on because those official buildings haven’t been bought by Marquette. It was also add that MUSG is pursuing a book exchange program that is a rider to the pick-a-prof to help defer the cost of books. TRANSLATION: The day the lease is up Sweeney’s will be trounced out of the building and since MUSG started a book exchange, that will serve as competition to BookMarq, and MUSG will be blamed for the elimination of competition (Boo!)

Father Wild went on to field questions future academic buildings and the change on campus. In the near future there will be a new engineering building on 16th street (the West side so it will be relocated) and the unofficial plan is that the Bio-Sciences will move into the old Engineering Facility. He also added that both the new Engineering Facility and the new law facility will be green buildings/environmentally friendly. He went on to say that Marquette has spent about $5 million to update facilities to make them more environmentally friendly and that saves the university about $300k a year in energy costs. The old law school (Sensenbrenner Hall) sounds like it will be changed and a new faculty will be able to move into that facility. He also said Tory Hill will be used for a building in the near future and the 1212 building has outlived its use. Father Wild outright said that it would be irresponsible of him to not look towards the future in concerns with buying and rebuilding various parts of campus.

The next major portion of questions fielded concerned race and minorities in various forms on campus, a great way for those answering the questions to just look as PC as possible. I would say that there were 10+ questions asked (sans follow ups) and 3-5 of them were about racial diversity in some form. One of the areas involved was having a diverse faculty. The answer to this question was basically that MU is doing it’s best to make a conscious effort to recruit minority candidates and that over the past years the pool of candidates has gotten bigger. One of the things that was brushed over is the fact that MINORITIES HAVE TO BE QUALIFIED IN THEIR FIELD AND APPLY FOR A POSITION IN ORDERED TO BE HIRED. Another question asked was about the diverse cultures courses. Apperantly the student that asked said question has come to believe that there are no such courses offered (Whereas I did not take Anthro/ History of [X] culture for fun). He immediately contradicted himself by claiming fitting 10,000 years of African history into one semester sucks because we do two semesters for Western Civ. and white culture.

A question was asked about the amount of piano practice space found throughout campus (yawn) but it did lead me to remember an issue that came up during the 05-06 MUSG presidential debate: MU has finally allowed the creation of a music minor. (Which in all hopes will lead to a Music Major and College of Music, an idea I support because I had 6+ friends say they would have gone to MU had it had a Music Program). But all that aside I remember that as a band student, the idea of a music major would hurt the current institution, which involves a small amount of pay for students based off attendance to practice, concerts and Pep Band events. I really hope the MU Band doesn’t lose it’s current system of pay even though they will get credit for the class.

Finally I got to ask my question about Sex offenders within the LIMO boundaries. Father Wild said the best thing to do was to go online and research the information which can be found here and here. The DPS Chief was also able to contribute to the question saying there is legislation being done at the state level and that he had testified on behalf of universities dealing with the issue. However Gov. Doyle has already vetoed a bill advocating GPS tracking for violent sex offenders. [Note] Colleen Gallagher of Warrior Fame wrote a story on Sex Offenders on Campus and about this time last year Brian started his Sex Offender of the Day blog reports.

With all this being said, I think that Father Wild has really put Marquette on a great track for the future and he’s going to leave a great legacy here. The only thing that can take away from that is if they get overzealous in terms of acquiring property and changing up the look of the campus. I am all for increasing enrollment up to a certain point. I just don’t want to see this campus get too big. I hope administrators remember that we aren’t Madison, Notre Dame or BC and we shouldn’t strive to be like those other schools in every aspect. I think it’s great that Marquette is refurbishing buildings and buying new property, I just don’t want to see this campus too big. I enjoy recognizing half a dozen people every passing period, I like the smaller class size and I like knowing that professors know me by name and not by student ID and that showing up to class matters.

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