From the moment students sit in the Al McGuire Center for New Student Convocation at the beginning of their Marquette careers, the Jesuit values that uphold the university are outlined before them.
This semester marks a more visible presence of Marquette’s Catholic, Jesuit mission. As announced by University President Michael Lovell in his Jan. 29 State of the University address, guiding values posters are being hung across campus in an effort to remind the university community of the values Marquette was founded upon.
The six guiding values are closely related to the four pillars of Marquette’s mission: excellence, faith, leadership and service. More specifically, they serve as a guide for the actions of students, faculty and administration. They were drafted after months of deliberation and discussion.
“Marquette University’s guiding values were first introduced when university leadership met on campus during an August retreat,” university spokesman Brian Dorrington said in an email. “They have had numerous revisions and were shaped from feedback across the campus. In addition to university leadership, this extensive feedback came from students, staff, the Board of Trustees and faculty as they were formally approved by the University Academic Senate in December.”
Lovell explained in his address that the guiding values will play an important role in shaping the decisions the Marquette community makes as it moves forward in its strategic plan to address academic and community needs. The strategic plan’s six overarching themes are pursuit of academic excellence for human well-being; research in action; social responsibility and community engagement; formation of the mind and the heart; enhancement of organizational effectiveness; and sustainability of valuable resources.
“We define our values as who we are, who we want to be and how we expect to interact with each other,” Lovell said in his address. “We will use these values to hold each other accountable and to ensure we are all acting in ways that are consistent with our values.”
The goal of the posters is to remind community members how they’re expected to behave, but many students are unaware of them. Some students who have noticed are questioning the need for them.
“I thought it was already kind of a given,” said Lauren Marek, a junior in the College of Arts & Sciences. “I think it’s cool that (our values) are verbalized, it might not have that big of an impact … that we go to somewhere as established as Marquette, I’m a little surprised we don’t already have (our values) laid out.”
Marek went on to say she thinks it’s nice to have a clear idea of what is expected from Marquette students in their interactions with others. For other students, having a draft of the university’s values is an effective effort to display the standards to live by.
“I think they’re definitely values that we strive to live within,” said Mallory McPhee, a senior in the College of Health Sciences. “I don’t know that we always reach our goals. I definitely don’t think putting up posters with our values on them will hurt.”
