It has been almost a year since Marquette offered Jodi O’Brien the dean position for the College of Arts & Sciences only to withdraw the proposal later because of her research on gay sexuality.

The aftermath has left the Marquette community still struggling to repair the damage done by the incident. While the O’Brien debacle has prompted discussion among students, faculty, administration and staff on how to move forward from the situation, much progress still has to be made in order to prove Marquette is making a substantial effort to fix the problems brought to light last spring.

First off, we want to see more transparency when it comes to Marquette’s efforts to improve after last spring and to create a more welcoming and open environment for those who identify as LGBT.

Ronni Sanlo, a former professor at UCLA and LGBT activist who made a visit to Marquette last October, is an example of the university’s subpar efforts to keep members of the community informed on these issues. Little mention was made about Sanlo’s visit last year.

Sanlo held discussions with students, faculty, staff and administrators in order to assemble a report presenting concerns and recommendations for addressing sexual orientation and gender identity issues on campus.

Sanlo’s report is something that many at Marquette would have great interest in, but the report wasn’t announced on University News Briefs until final exams week last semester, which is often the busiest time of year for many people on campus. During the hustle and bustle of that week, the mention of Sanlo’s completed report could be easily overlooked while reading the news briefs.

And beyond that instance, there seemed to be a concerning lack of campus-wide publicity of the report by the university.

Even worse, access to the report has been very limited. Certainly, it’s good that the document is available to students, but the university has only made it available in the Office of the Provost or the Office of Student Affairs. Everyone deserves to have easy access to the full 31-page report because it is a critical part of the dialogue and healing process.

Marquette could easily put a dowloadable PDF of the report on the university’s website. We ask them to do so immediately.

That way anyone, even those who aren’t on campus or directly connected to Marquette can view the report. It would be a simple step toward improving transparency. It would also show more acknowledgment by the university of its weaknesses in these areas. By allowing anyone to access the full report online, the Marquette community can better evaluate the university’s progress.

There is a variety of specific programs and projects the university enacted this year, with more to be introduced next year. LGBT awareness week, LGBT Respect Life month, an LGBT Orientation Welcome Reception, The Ally Program and observance of the Day of Silence are all solid initiatives from the university, but these events need to be better publicized so more people are aware of them.

Judy Shepard’s appearance and the performances of “The Laramie Project” earlier this month were two events tied to LGBT issues that received a lot of advertising and promotion around campus and, as a result, ended up with large turnouts. Shepard’s event was so popular that many were turned away because the Weasler Auditorium reached capacity moments after opening.

Clearly, students have an interest in attending LGBT programming on campus and are receptive to these events when they are publicized effectively. Marquette needs to continue to promote these initiatives and keep members of the community updated about its progress.

No matter how many LGBT events the university has, transparency and getting the word out are essential to the programming’s success and Marquette’s overall progress in moving forward.