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Birthday party with Joe Zilber
On his 90th, Milwaukee philanthropist and Marquette alumnus chooses to make an enormous gift to his alma mater to “educate and encourage the growth of the leaders of tomorrow.”
By Joni Moths mueller
 Tory Hill looked a bit like somebody was celebrating something huge. And he was. A local guy, who grew up here, raised a family here, built an incredible business here and loves it here, wanted to celebrate his ninth decade in a big, big way. So with 180 first-year law students gathered beneath a tent at the summit of Tory Hill, with President Robert Wild, S.J., to one side and Law Dean Joseph Kearney to the other, Joseph Zilber, Bus Ad ’39 and Law ’41, prepared to make an announcement — and the crowd hushed.
We are not the city we were. We need to concentrate our energy and resources on the city we can be,” Zilber began and announced that he was investing in Milwaukee’s potential by committing $50 million to local charities, organizations and institutions, including $30 million to Marquette Law School. His gift to the Law School is divided with $25 million supporting scholarships for law students and $5 million directed toward construction of a new Law School building.
| "Marquette is Milwaukee's Law School and my alma mater. My hope is that others will have the opportunity to take advantage of Marquette's rigorous legal education, which is steeped in the tradition of the values of excellence, faith, leadership and service." |
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“Marquette is Milwaukee’s Law School and my alma mater,” Zilber said. “My hope is that others will have the opportunity to take advantage of Marquette’s rigorous legal education, which is steeped in the tradition of the values of excellence, faith, leadership and service. … I want today’s law students who have financial need to enjoy the same opportunity I had.”
Father Wild called the gift an extraordinary example of Zilber’s generosity and belief in the potential of Milwaukee and Marquette, and a commitment to the education of new generations of lawyers. “Joe is a passionate advocate for this community. His developments fuel economic growth, and his philanthropy has supported educational, religious and health care advances. He is a wonderful example of what we strive to instill in Marquette graduates: leadership through service to others.”
Kearney said Zilber has advanced the Law School’s goal to become an intellectual commons for the study and debate of public policy. “We seek for Marquette Law School to be the place where students, lawyers, business leaders, judges, academics, policy makers — all engaged citizens — come to explore and discuss public policy problems and find, perhaps, some common ground and even some solutions.” Kearney said. “We want people to say about the Law School, ‘That’s where we take the hard problems, the ones that affect us all.’”
The four-story atrium at the heart of the new law school building will be named for Zilber. “All aspects of Law School programming will revolve around the Zilber Forum — research, teaching, dining, conferencing — all the vibrant life that defines a great law school,” Kearney said.
With this gift, the Law School has raised more than $80 million toward the dean’s vision of establishing Marquette as the incubator for legal education and public policy discourse in the city of Milwaukee. Earlier this year alumnus Ray Eckstein, Law ’49, and his wife, Katherine, Sp ’49, gave $50 million toward the project and $1 million to the law library.
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