Anyone wondering about the future of Marquette should look at Boston College. At least, that's what University President the Rev. Robert A. Wild is doing.
Wild discussed the current state and future of Marquette to an audience of about 50 people Thursday at Sensenbrenner Hall as part of the "On the Issues with Mike Gousha" series.
Wild said Marquette is "right up there" in terms of the top Catholic universities—arguably the fourth, fifth or sixth best in the nation—and then volunteered his institutional role model, Boston College, on which he said he keeps a constant eye.
"(Boston College) seems the institution most like us and if you ask me where we should be going, I think that's somewhere in that same vicinity is where we should be aiming," he said. "I feel pretty strongly about that."
Wild called BC's Jesuit identity, academic quality and financial wherewithal a "great success story" as it evolved to a national institution from its mostly local base in the 1970s.
U.S. News & World Report ranks BC 35th to Marquette's 82nd two-way tie rank with St. Louis University. BC's the Rev. Joseph O'Keefe began his three-year term on Marquette's board of trustees Sept. 20. O'Keefe serves as dean of the Lynch School of Education for BC.
BC's Web site boasts an approximately $1.4 billion endowment, nearly three times the size of Marquette's endowment, which Wild said is closing in on $400 million (Wild reported $360 million in the endowment as of June 30 to the Tribune in August). He re-emphasized his goal of reaching the billion-dollar mark, which he explained last January in his presidential address would increase annual available funds $35 million to $50 million per year. As for the upcoming campaign, Wild said he hopes to raise at least $250 million.
While BC wasn't the main focus of the discussion, its example underscored Wild's three aspirations for Marquette's future: actualizing the Catholic, Jesuit mission, raising academic quality and strengthening Marquette's financial footing.
He called those three "pretty obvious" and continued to expound them through discussions of balancing research and teaching functions of faculty, ensuring affordability, strengthening academic quality through ethnically and economically diverse enrollment and expanding into masters and professional programs.
Safety at Marquette was also discussed after Mike Gousha, distinguished fellow in law and public policy, raised a question about it.
"All of us remember days not too long ago where (campus safety) was an image issue for Marquette," Gousha said.
He then asked Wild about parents' perspective on Marquette as a safe place.
Wild conceded that Marquette's image used to be a struggle in terms of admissions, but credited former University President the Rev. Albert DiUlio's Campus Circle Project with cleaning up the "disastrous" crime and safety issues early-90s.
First-year law student Vintee Sawhney said that while she came mostly to hear Wild's comments on the Law School, she was surprised to hear him talk about safety because it was a concern of hers coming to Marquette. She said she does feel that Marquette is doing all it can in that regard.
"It's still a concern because Milwaukee is an urban city, but what (Marquette's) doing is—it's not a step in the right direction, because they're already there," Sawhney said.