AT HARVARD MY STUDIES COVERED EVERYTHING that religiously moved and breathed in the Mediterranean basin, from the time of Alexander the Great to about 300 A.D. It was fascinating. So, finishing up there, I was looking to join an exemplary program. From the beginning at Marquette, I could see that I was going to work with professionals who were engaged in their discipline, who would challenge me as a young scholar, and who would push me to write and to publish. I was offered employment by several Jesuit places, but after visiting I said to myself, Marquette is the one.

Later, the Jesuits in Chicago asked me to be the religious superior of the young Jesuits studying at Loyola and the director of their program. So I left Marquette at that point, even though I was very happy with my whole experience here.

When I became provincial superior in the Chicago region, I traveled a good deal, getting to know our men in places as varied as Tanzania and Peru. Those were six marvelous years. During that time, I remember my assistant saying to me, “You’re going to be president of a major Jesuit university one day,” and I replied, “You just don’t know how wrong you are. That is not going to happen. I can tell you that as a fact.” So much for my prophetic talents.

During the early 1990s, I served as president of Weston, our Jesuit theology school in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and in 1995 Father DiUlio decided to step down as president here. I got a call from Board Chair Ed Brennan, who was CEO at Sears and one of our alumni, and he said, “We need to talk.” Talk we did, and as we did so Ed convinced me that I could indeed do this job, and I became excited by the prospect. What attracted me to Marquette was that I knew the institution, the Board members, and many of the faculty. I had a feel for the culture, and I genuinely loved this university.

On the day I was elected president, we were down at what is now the U.S. Bank building in Milwaukee for the Board meeting. The Board kicked me out of the room, took a vote, called me back in and said, “You’re it.”

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