Marquette in the News

Marquette honors Little Rock 9

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 09:44:49 -0600

Award cites group for desegregating Arkansas high school

Jefferson Thomas' memories of the segregated schools of Little Rock, Ark., in the years before he helped integrate Central High School with an escort from the 101st Airborne Division, are not entirely negative.

Thomas was the youngest of eight children, and when he was little, his older sisters would read to him from their schoolbooks, teaching him to read and write.

"When I got into the first grade, they thought I was a genius," says Thomas, a member of the famed Little Rock Nine, who will receive Marquette University's fifth Pere Marquette Discovery Award on Tuesday.

They're just the fifth group or individual to receive Marquette's highest honor. The two most recent honorees were Mother Teresa in 1981 and Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa in 2003.

Read more about the conferral of the Pere Marquette Discovery Award on the Little Rock Nine in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Feb. 7, 2010.

Lab learns to predict gas demand

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 16:58:46 -0600

Marquette training venture saves utilities millions

Wisconsin residents have something to brag about during our long, hard winters.

We can take the bitter cold better - and we don't jump to crank up the thermostat as fast as folks who live farther south.

That's the assessment of Marquette University researcher Ron Brown, who runs a business and educational venture, GasDay, serving one-fifth of the homes in the nation that heat with natural gas.

The project started more than 15 years ago when utility officials expressed frustration to Brown that they didn't have a good handle on how much natural gas customers were going to use on a given day.

GasDay now has 22 customers in 21 states and is running demonstrations for four potential new customers.

Read more on Marquette University's GasDay lab in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Jan. 10, 2010.

Marquette lands $5 million for engineering facility

Wed, 30 Dec 2009 09:01:38 -0600

Marquette University's new engineering facility got another big boost on Tuesday, with Gov. Jim Doyle announcing that the school will receive a $5 million grant from the Wisconsin Energy Foundation thanks to funding by the state.

"We know this is what we need," Doyle said during a morning announcement held in Marquette's current engineering building, across from its new home at N. 16th St. and W. Wisconsin Ave. "For us to compete, we need more engineers."

Marquette's new engineering facility, which will be called the Discovery Learning Complex, is expected to cost a total of $100 million. The university has enough cash on hand to complete the first $35-million phase of the project, with ground breaking scheduled for March.

Read more on the $5 million grant for Marquette's new engineering facility in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Dec. 30, 2009.

Bullying extending way beyond school walls, panelists say

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 10:53:44 -0600

Traditional playground bullying has moved online and onto cell phones, where teenagers gang up to taunt others and exchange personal material, and school officials say they are struggling to keep up.

"There's so much covert bullying that happens these days," Waukesha West High School Principal Melissa Thompson said as part of a panel presentation at a daylong conference on bullying Tuesday. "It changed so fast with the technology proliferation."

Tales from the bullies, the bullied, and the law-enforcement and school officials who deal with the repercussions were shared at Marquette University's sixth annual restorative justice conference.

Dealing with school bullying now can help resolve students' issues before the students become suicidal or homicidal, said Janine Geske, former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice and director of the Restorative Justice Initiative at Marquette's law school. "I think schools can do a lot," she said. "For some kids, it's the only safe place they go during the day."

Full story appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Nov. 11, 2009

Marquette professors discuss speculation over Milwaukee’s next archbishop

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:16:42 -0500

Speculation over Milwaukee’s next archbishop increased with the Vatican announcing a series of appointments in other dioceses and after the blog Whispers in the Loggia suggested four possible candidates: Bishops Gerald Kicanas of Tucson, Blase Cupich of Rapid City, Jerome Listecki of LaCrosse, and Milwaukee's administrator, Auxiliary Bishop William Callahan, OFM Conv.

Local media turned to two Marquette professors, Dr. Bill Thorn and Father Steven Avella, to learn about the candidates and the Vatican’s selection process.

Full story appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel October 26, 2009.
Interview with Dr. Thorn appeared on WISN-TV October 25, 2009.
Interview with Fr. Avella appeared on WISN-TV October 26, 2009.

Listen to Dr. Thorn discuss the Web as a source of religious information.

Fulbright scholar headed to El Salvador

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:11:01 -0500

Marquette graduate Chris Hallberg, Arts '09, will spend ten months in El Salvador conducting research supported by a Fulbright grant from the U.S. Department of State.

Hallberg plans on identifyng a dozen young people in their teens to early 20s in the town of Torola and give them cameras so they can document their environment. Combined with interviews, he hopes to develop a complex picture of the youths from the town. He wants to use the information to create recommendations for development organizations working in the region as well as preserve the photographs and videotape recordings as a snapshot of the country's youth.

Article appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Sept. 27, 2009.

Interview aired on WUWM 89.7 FM, Oct. 6, 2009.

Interview aired on WISN-12, Oct. 18, 2009.

Article appeared in the Milwaukee Catholic Herald, Nov. 12, 2009.

Business: Big Major on Campus

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 09:22:34 -0500

Every fall, Linda Salchenberger, dean of Marquette University's College of Business Administration (Marquette Undergraduate Business Profile), meets with parents of freshman students to welcome them to the school and gauge their expectations for the years ahead. This year, she stood in front of a group of 400 of them and posed a question she thought would receive a lukewarm response in today's challenging economic climate.

"I asked, 'How many of you are optimistic about the job prospects for your students four years from now,' and I'd say easily three-quarters of them raised their hand," she says.

That was just the first bit of good news Salchenberger received. Enrollment in the freshman class is up 7% over last year and the school just welcomed its largest ever freshman, sophomore, and junior classes to campus, she says.

Full story appeared in BusinessWeek, Sept. 25, 2009.

Marquette moving ahead on new College of Engineering facility

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 09:18:29 -0500

Marquette University's board of trustees on Thursday approved moving ahead on the first phase of a $100 million College of Engineering facility.

The school plans to break ground on a five-story, 100,000-square-foot building - the first of two buildings - in spring and begin occupying it in August 2011. The building will be on the campus at the southwest corner of W. Wisconsin Ave. and N. 16th St.

"This new facility is being explicitly designed for collaboration at multiple levels," Stan Jaskolski, Opus Dean of Engineering, said. "It is truly a gift to the Milwaukee region, taking advantage of our urban location and providing space for innovation and idea sharing."

Full story appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Sept. 25, 2009.

The Arab & Muslim American Experience After 9/11

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 16:42:52 -0500

Louise Cainkar, assistant professor of sociology and social justice at Marquette University, discusses her new book, Homeland Insecurity: The Arab American and Muslim American Experience After 9/11. Cainkar explains she came came up with the title after most of the people she interviewed for her book expressed feeling unsafe living in the United States after 9/11 - and not because of a threat of terrorism.

Interview aired on WUWM-FM (89.7), “Lake Effect,” Sept. 11, 2009.

Marquette’s senior physician discusses the importance of vaccinations

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 17:05:32 -0500

Dr. Carolyn Smith, senior physician for Student Health Service, shared what Marquette and other colleges are doing to prepare for the flu season and what students and individuals can do to protect themselves from getting sick.

Dr. Smith appeared on the Morning Blend, September 1.