Campus has been rejuvenated from its summer slumber, and although there is a lingering shadow of humiliation resulting from the conflict-ridden decision to rescind the College of Arts & Science deanship to Jodi O’Brien, Marquette has a fresh start.

With the college’s next dean search likely to commence in Fall 2011, we have a year to take advantage of this fresh start and make productive steps in four university-targeted areas: the LGBTQ community’s needs, academic freedom, shared governance and Marquette’s Catholic, Jesuit identity.

University President the Rev. Robert A. Wild has said the four areas will be a focus during his last year as president, and Provost John Pauly echoed those goals in a May letter to faculty.

There is an amplified need to take advantage of this fresh start and follow through with plans and the “self-examination, repair and healing,” Pauly mentioned in his letter.

Marquette has a tarnished reputation to restore and a negatively portrayed image to repair.

Pauly said in an e-mail to the Tribune, “All summer I have been working with a number of faculty, students, and administrators to create initiatives that will address the concerns expressed last spring.”

More detailed plans are expected to be revealed in the next couple weeks.

By implementing these planned initiatives, we can clear a shroud from the deanship’s appearance to potential candidates, some of which have likely dropped off the bandwagon following the poor handling of last spring’s dean search. Pauly admitted in an e-mail to the Tribune that the university needs to “find a way to make the dean’s position attractive to more candidates.” It’s imperative Marquette make the dean of its largest college a desirable position again.

If the administration stays true to its word and makes meaningful progress in those four areas, the university can show it has learned from the mistakes it made with O’Brien.

We urge Marquette to remain proactive, holding forums and productive dialogue as soon as possible this semester. And it must ensure that momentum lasts throughout the academic year.

In an e-mail to the Tribune, Pauly said, “the next several months will be a time of community discernment, in which we have honest and robust dialogues that address the concerns expressed by faculty and students last spring.”

Marquette can be commended for its direct acknowledgement of the core issues involved in O’Brien incident, and while the dialogues and forums are good first steps to showing a commitment to healing, Marquette must walk the talk.

By doing this the university can show not only to interested candidates, but to its students and faculty, that this isolated incident isn’t characteristic of Marquette’s true identity.

“I want every student, every employee to be able to proudly declare that this is their Marquette,” Father Wild has said.

Many have been hesitant to call it their Marquette, but with thorough discussion and corresponding action, we can begin to reconnect with our university.

And although May marked a tumultuous close to the 2009-’10 school year, a clean slate and reestablished goals will give Marquette the chance to prove its critics wrong this school year.