Marquette moment
Mission Week’s challenge
This year’s Mission Week theme was Challenged to Choose: The Courage to Act.
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| Lynn Brewer’s book Confession’s of an Enron Executive: A Whistleblower’s Story is based on her experiences at the company. |
They carved coveted minutes out of their lunch period or class break or office hours to hear a faculty member’s very private rumination on the hardest choice he or she ever had to make. What would it be? Curiosity turned to compassion and then to a communion of sorts as those gathered understood the gift being given in the sharing of three stories: finding a way to let go of anger after a child’s death; choosing personal health over an important professional commitment; defining and following a path that others found questionable.
The conversations were part of Mission Week, the time during the
academic year when faculty, students and staff layer onto their studies and responsibilities a few days for digging into why they choose to be at a Jesuit institution, and what significance it holds for each. This year’s theme, Challenged to Choose: The Courage to Act, focused on the ethical dimensions of decisions and their consequences on our personal and professional lives.
As an example of an ethical dilemma employees have experienced in the workplace, Mission Week invited several guest speakers who were involved in exposing Enron for unethical business practices. They included Lynn Brewer, the former Enron executive who is credited with blowing the whistle on illegal and corrupt dealings at the company; Bethany McLean, senior writer at Fortune magazine, who broke the story of the Enron scandal and co-authored Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room; and Alex Gibney, who wrote, produced and directed the film inspired by McLean’s work.
Another guest speaker, Dr. Karen Ristau, president of the National Catholic Education Association, presented “The Grace of Great Things: The Case for Catholic Education, K-16.” Her talk examined how Catholic education forms the whole person.
Conversations and daily reflections aided employees and students in contemplating the choices they make every day. Additionally Mission Week sponsored service events and forums, where faculty shared how their teaching and research and scholarship activities relate to Marquette’s educational mission and the Mission Week theme.
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