Marquette University was recently given the nomination of being a military-friendly school on Military Friendly’s 2021-2022 list of military-friendly schools. The designation, according to Military Friendly, is a measurement of “an organization’s commitment, effort and success in creating sustainable and meaningful benefit for the military community.”
Marquette was one of 748 schools given this designation out of over 1,200 schools that applied.
Major Dan Bartlett, assistant professor of military science at Marquette, said he attributes the designation to the school’s high quality and the treatment of the overall community, veterans included.
Bartlett also said that the designation, focusing on veterans currently at Marquette, shows how supportive Marquette is of them. “When they’re going here … they have such a high graduation rate … They support veterans very well, I know I see that with us.”
From outside the military perspective, Morgan Brown, a first-year in the College of Arts & Sciences, said she sees where the designation comes from because of Marquette’s kind community.
“The Marquette community is very welcoming and friendly to everyone. I can definitely see Marquette living up to this nomination,” said Brown.
Colin Parker, a senior in the College of Arts & Sciences and an ROTC Cadet, said the nomination is “well deserved.”
“Knowing that I go to a school that is supporting what I’m going to do for the next four years is super cool,” Parker said.
Bartlett said that “(the military and veterans) have a great relationship with the school” and that relationship is about trust.
Although the military-friendly nomination centers around veterans and their experience at Marquette, the positive relationship is also reflected in Marquette’s ROTC program. “They trust us to do what we do and then (they) help us out considerably on whatever we ask. They support ROTC in a great manner,” Bartlett said.
The Golden Eagle Battalion, Marquette’s ROTC program, hosts Marquette students along with students from the University of Wisconsin Parkside, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, Concordia University and the Milwaukee School of Engineering. Students spend time in the classroom, leadership labs and physical training throughout the course of the week, in addition to field training.
“This is probably one of the best trained battalions, I think, for ROTC, I’ve seen … We ask a lot of them and they actually come forward with a great attitude every day,” Bartlett said.
Parker contributes their success to the cadre, whom he feels has prepared them well to go on after school. In fact, Parker says this year “over 70% of us got our first branch of choice.”
The ROTC program is spoken of very highly by both the students and professors because of their accomplishments, Bartlett said. “We produced very good lieutenants. Every year they immediately go out into the army and become lieutenants and immediately leading troops.”
“Coming out of Marquette being one of the top RC programs and a school that’s really supporting the military is just an awesome experience.” Parker said.
This story was written by Karsyn Hartsfield. She can be reached at [email protected]
