A comment made by University President the Rev. Robert A. Wild at his forum led to some controversy.

More than 70 students, faculty and staff attended the forum Tuesday night, sponsored by Marquette Student Government. Many of the questions raised were derived from summer events.

Wild discussed the changes made by the administration over the summer by saying sometimes decisions made by the administration, such as the nickname change in 2005 or the suspension of the South Africa Service Learning Program, were "dumb."

But Wild suggested it would have been easier to solicit student opinion during the summer had there been MUSG leadership on campus.

"It helps if there is high-end student government presence on campus during the summer too, and I think there was a bit of a problem because I'm not sure we had that senior leadership presence," Wild said.

MUSG President and College of Business Administration senior Dan Calandriello said he was "disappointed" in Wild's suggestion, saying Wild's statement regarding MUSG leadership is "not accurate" and that "MUSG works for the students 12 months out of the year." He said three of the six MUSG executive board members were in Milwaukee during the summer and he came up every other weekend.

"Father Wild's statement is not accurate and does not reflect the fact that executive board members held multiple meetings with the administration in the summer, particularly when we were notified about decisions after they had already been made without student input," Calandriello said.

Steve Ryan, the MUSG Program Vice President, College of Arts & Sciences junior and one of the MUSG executive board members who spent the summer in Milwaukee, said he wanted to remind the administration that "even if Dan or Kristen aren't here 24 hours a day there is usually a vice president in the office."

MUSG Executive Vice President and College of Health Sciences senior Kristen Kamm agreed with Calandriello and Ryan, saying, "MUSG was here all summer but, unfortunately, was never called on."

MUSG is now setting up an official summer executive council so there will be "no excuse for the administration should this happen again … and what happened this summer will not happen again," Calandriello said.

Provost Madeline Wake and Senior Vice President Greg Kliebhan accompanied Wild in the forum and the three answered student questions ranging from concerns for Darfur to funding of scholarships and programs for the entire hour and a half.

One focus of the forum was Marquette's budget with emphasis on scholarships and programs.

One student raised the Raynor Scholarships, full-tuition scholarships for academic merit that the university recently announced it would be unable to fund in the future.

Second-year Marquette Law student Daniel Suhr asked why the Raynor Scholarships were cut from the budget while the university is establishing 10 Urban Scholarships.

Wild said the university is better served helping those with financial need.

"The biggest need by far is the average student," he said.

According to Wild, nearly 500 students in this year's freshman class are the first from their families to go to college and most of those students need a greater level of funding.

"This school was founded to reach out to those with special needs … and the need for high-end scholarships is a special need," but "the need of families has to be met as best as we can. There is widespread belief that we need to increase diversity here at Marquette," Wild said.

Kliebhan also voiced his support for the funding of Urban Scholars, saying, "If I had to choose between supporting the Raynor Scholarships or the Urban Scholars, I would choose the Urban Scholars."

The funding of the South Africa Service Learning Program was also addressed during the forum. According to Wild, there is not yet any plan to cut other programs to make room for the South Africa program.

"The university is not about to go broke" as a result of reinstating the South Africa program, Wild said. "The challenge of a budget is not to balance the budget but to decide what exactly we can fund."

At the night's end, Wild said he was "happy with the forums."

"People feel free to tell the truth about things and the administration learns from these sessions," Wild said.