The Marquette Wire launched a new position this year called the Editor of Diversity and Inclusion to lead our organization in making intentional efforts to connect with students on campus through our reporting and ensure that we are being inclusive within our own organization.
Every summer before the beginning of the fall semester, we also have a week’s worth of training to equip staff members with the necessary information to begin the school year. This year, staff members attended two sessions led by our Editor of Diversity and Inclusion, Alex Rivera Grant: a conversation focusing on diversity and inclusion, as well as a session titled “The Importance of Diversity and Inclusion in the Newsroom.” There, staff members discussed implicit biases and ways that we can be intentional about our reporting on campus, making sure that we are striving for inclusivity and not tokenism when deciding to interview students for stories.
Additionally, staff members can reach out to her to check in about their stories, such as making sure we use people-first language and inclusive languages like womxn and mxn. She also attends all MUTV shows and gives critiques, as well as gives weekly feedback from the week’s published content at our all-staff meetings to the four branches of the Wire: Tribune, Journal, MUTV and MU Radio. Additionally, she leads community outreach and is planning a panel with leaders of multicultural organizations.
We are committed to diversity and inclusion as an organization, which means holding ourselves accountable and receiving feedback from the Marquette community when people believe we’ve made a mistake.
Recently, we published a story that focused on how the campus is celebrating Hispanic and Latinx Heritage Month this year, which is from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15. While the story included staff members at Marquette who focus on cultural engagement and diversity initiatives, we failed to include voices from Latinx or Hispanic students on campus.
We didn’t find this error internally after the story was published. It was brought to our attention by a student from the Latinx community, which we are thankful for.
We made a mistake by failing to include student voices in our stories that could shed light on how the campus is celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month.
According to data from the Office of Institutional Research and Analysis, as of fall 2021, 1,170 out of 7,660 undergraduate students and 327 out of 3,660 graduate students on campus who are identified as Hispanic.
We should have made a larger effort to connect with students on campus for this story.
Moving forward, we will continue working to avoid another error like this one.
For Marquette community members interested in getting more involved with Hispanic and Latinx Heritage Month, Marquette has a web page of events. A couple of these events include a showing of “In the Heights” at the Varsity Theatre at 8 p.m. Oct. 8 and at 1 p.m. Oct. 9 hosted by Marquette University Student Government and Cafe con Leche discussion Oct. 12 at 11 a.m. in Room 111 of the Alumni Memorial Union hosted by the Center for Engagement and Inclusion to support Spanish-speaking communities.
During the past few weeks, Sigma Lambda Beta International Fraternity and Late Night Marquette have also hosted Fiesta de Noche, and the Latin American Student Organization and Center for Engagement and Inclusion hosted a Loteria Night, which is similar to BINGO.
Other Hispanic and Latinx-focused student organizations include the Sigma Lambda Gamma National Sorority, Paso a Paso, Hispanic Professionals of Greater Milwaukee and Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers.
There have been intentional efforts to become a more inclusive environment for Hispanic and Latinx students across campus.
In 2016, Marquette launched the Hispanic Service Institution Initiative, which would require the full-time undergraduate student body to be 25% Hispanic.
At the beginning of the fall 2018 semester, 13% of the undergraduate student population was Hispanic, which has steadily increased to 15.3% as of the fall 2021 semester, according to the Office of Institutional Research and Analysis.
Striving for Marquette to become an HSI would improve diversity of thought and understanding, as well as support Hispanic and Latinx students at a predominantly white institution.
As an organization, the Marquette Wire will also continuously work to improve and strive for more inclusivity with the Hispanic and Latinx communities, as well as other communities on campus. This means recognizing, appreciating and uplifting Hispanic and Latinx voices year-round, not just during Hispanic and Latinx Heritage Month or in regards to Marquette’s HSI initiatives.
We welcome thoughts from the Marquette community. If students, faculty or staff members believe that the Marquette Wire has made an error in our reporting that has excluded or misrepresented someone or a group on campus and would like to bring it to our attention, please reach out to the Executive Editor of Diversity and Inclusion Alex Rivera Grant at [email protected] and the Executive Director of the Marquette Wire Aimee Galaszewski at [email protected].
Editorial topics by the Marquette Wire are decided at weekly meetings between members of the executive board. The editorial is crafted with leadership by the executive opinions editor. The executive board consists of the executive director of the Wire, managing editor of the Marquette Tribune, managing editor of the Marquette Journal, general manager of MUTV, general manager of MUR, and ten additional top editors across the organization.
