From President Robert Wild, S.J.

In 1848 Milwaukee’s first bishop, John Martin Henni, had a truly revolutionary idea: Higher education should be accessible to everyone, not just a matter of birthright for the upper echelons of society.

The centerpiece of his vision was to build a Catholic, Jesuit college named after the great Jesuit missionary and explorer, Father Jacques Marquette, in order to educate the children of the immigrant families from Europe, most of them of very limited means, who were beginning to pour into the small community of Milwaukee.

This college almost came to be in 1850, but when the Swiss and German Jesuit exiles who had been counted on to be the faculty were recalled to Europe by their superior, this plan had to be scrapped. Undaunted, Bishop Henni remained doggedly passionate about his dream for a college. He knew that if the new arrivals from Europe were given a chance to study and learn, they would prosper and Milwaukee would prosper. Thanks to him, Marquette College finally opened its doors in 1881 at the corner of 10th and State. Marquette’s leadership reaffirmed the bishop’s promise in 1909 when Marquette, now a full-fledged university, became the first Jesuit institution of higher learning in the United States to admit women. And in 1969 Marquette further implemented the vision of its founder by empowering Dr. Arnold Mitchem, then a faculty member, to establish the first Educational Opportunity Program in this country — a pilot program that is now a national model for assisting first-generation college students.

As Marquette celebrates its 125th anniversary, I’m proud to serve as the president of a university that was founded on so fundamental a promise. Our commitment to giving access to the diversity of people who make up America was a cornerstone of Marquette’s educational philosophy at its very foundation. A century and a quarter later this is still true. We are still focused on broadening the reach of a Marquette education so that it magnifies exponentially in the world.

As a university, furthermore, Marquette aspires to be a true marketplace of ideas. It is therefore critical that our classrooms benefit from the quality of discussion and debate that tends to ensue when people from different backgrounds share ideas. In 2004 only 13 percent of our undergraduate students were students of color, but this year that figure for our freshmen rose to nearly 18 percent. All of them, I might add, are talented young men and women whom we are convinced have the ability to succeed well here at Marquette. That said, can we improve that percentage further? I am convinced we can and believe we should. More importantly, our Board of Trustees does as well.

Last year in order to energize further this whole effort, we welcomed Dr. Keenan Grenell to campus as our first associate provost for diversity. In his quite successful efforts to attract more minority faculty and students to Marquette, he has revealed a passion that Bishop Henni would admire — and won the praise of our academic deans in the process.

A couple of years ago we established our Mitchem Scholars Program, which brings two top-flight minority doctoral candidates to campus to complete their dissertations, teach and be mentored by senior faculty. For us a selfish motive is partly at work: We hope to recruit some of these gifted men and women for our faculty, and this year for the first time we were successful.

Our recently established Urban Scholars program will award 10 full-tuition scholarships annually to
economically disadvantaged students.

Through our Urban Journalism and Communication Workshops, Upward Bound, National Youth Sports Program and other equally important initiatives, talented young people come to our campus and experience what Marquette has to offer. It is our hope that they will develop a taste for the opportunities that a major university avails and set their sights on a college education, whether that be here at Marquette or elsewhere.

These examples differ widely — from fellowships for professors-to-be to programs that spark academic interest in high school students — but the spirit of each initiative stems from the fundamental vision Bishop Henni had back in 1848 and from the special care for the poor and the marginalized that, following the teachings of Jesus, the Catholic Church has always insisted upon.