This entire week, in recognition of Earth Day, Marquette dining halls will forgo the use of trays in an effort to conserve water and energy. I am sure that certain groups on campus will hail this as a great leap forward in the campus’s efforts to save the environment. In reality, it will be much more of an inconvenience to students as they try to balance multiple plates, utensils and glasses with only two hands and less of a viable means of conserving water and energy.

It is gestures like this that are indicative of most conservatory measures taken to save the environment: time, money and effort are often spent only to yield absurdly minimal results at a cost of maximum inconvenience. Even with the amounts of water that will be saved by not using such wasteful things like trays, it will still pale in comparison to the amount of water used by the campus everyday as students shower, cook, clean and drink. In fact, I’m even willing to bet that almost as much energy was wasted in printing out all the posters and billboards that will be advertising efforts to save the earth this week. There are areas of both the country and the world running out of clean water, but Marquette is in no danger of running out of water as a mile down the road lies one of the world’s most abundant supplies of fresh water.

If we at Marquette really want to do something that will produce actual results, we need to be willing to make changes to our lifestyles, not just inconvenience ourselves to save a few measly gallons here and there.

Here are some suggestions to actually affect the environment in a positive way: (1) stop watering and cutting all of the grass on campus – this will save much more water and cut emissions from gas-guzzling lawn mowers; (2) stop caking sidewalks with copious amounts of salt during the winter - as a chemistry major I can assure you that salt corrodes almost anything it touches and wreaks havoc on vegetation, not to mention I hear it’s a pain to clean off of Ugg boots; (3) Issue students LED headlamps for walking at night and turn off all street lights. This will drastically cut electricity use as well as light pollution; and finally (4), stop cooking grade F foods at campus dining halls so students will be less inclined to throw it away. The measures that I have laid out are extreme by most standards, and I’m sure come off as being quite crazy. I would be extremely surprised if anyone implemented any of these suggestions. I merely aim to illustrate the point that inane efforts such as putting aside trays for a week, replacing inefficient light-bulbs or installing solar panels won’t ever amount to a significant reduction of energy consumption and carbon emissions. If Marquette, and the rest of the country for that matter, is actually concerned about the environment, we need to be willing to drastically change our way of life and standard of living.

Popularity: 10% [?]

Despite how Asher Roth characterizes college in his hit single, the college experience of most Marquette students is far more dynamic and substantive. Our university is full of real people with real hopes and dreams, real ambitions and aspirations and real challenges and struggles. Sure, weekends are often host to a menagerie of beer pong games and keg stands, but overall students at Marquette care, and would like to believe that Marquette cares about them. Yet, many students continue to struggle financially and spiritually. Some would even say that they feel like Marquette does not care about them. These, the least among us, are those whose advice we should listen to above all.

Firstly, it would be hard to deny that the vast majority of students have encountered at least some financial obstacles since enrolling at Marquette, challenges which should be expected when attending private school. While I would never advocate for any private school to simply dispense funds, it would be nice to see more scholarships offered, not only of an academic type, but other types as well. I have a friend who recently confessed to me that he was considering leaving Marquette because he could no longer afford it. He had gone to talk to representatives from the Office of Student Financial Aid, but let’s be serious, the red-tape within the University’s departments is outrageous. More dismaying to my friend than possibly having to leave Marquette was his experience with the University’s various offices that seem to care more about making money than about serving students. Many schools will give scholarship aid to people who have done large verifiable amounts of community service, have served in the armed forces or have engaged in many other categories of laudable activities. Marquette often talks about increasing student financial aid; merit based awards for service and achievement might be a good place to start.

Secondly, addressing spirituality, Marquette is a Catholic university, a fact that is reflected in some places better than others. I’ve lived in residence halls for three years, one as a resident and two as a Resident Assistant, and in that time I have encountered some useless hall ministers. In fact, in those three years I am very confident I have done more ministering than most of the hall ministers I’ve known. Now, it’s a tough job – especially when the minister is older; students cannot always relate to a prim and proper graduate student in theology, nor can they always relate to a Jesuit priest. Because of this void that occurs early on in a student’s collegiate journey, many students never connect their daily lives to a spiritual reality. Hall ministers need to do a better job of reaching out, they need to be more visible and make themselves more available. Father Majka in Schroeder does a good job of this when he prowls the dining hall and engages random students. Many students come to Marquette wrestling with questions about their identity and spirituality, and if given the opportunity almost every student will talk about their views on faith, morals and God. As a Catholic institution, Marquette needs to do a better job of answering their questions. The University offers plenty of resources, but since most students are not proactive enough to seek out those resources, Marquette needs to do a better job of seeking out students.

Finally, there are many things the University can do to enhance the experience of students, and make their collegiate journey less financially terrifying and more spiritually rewarding. While I am sure every student could talk at length about how to improve the University, I know that the suggestions I have offered here are practical ones that the University administration will value and appreciate. I hope that readers have time to reflect on how Marquette can improve, and how each one of us can help make those improvements.

Popularity: 10% [?]

Marquette University actively strives towards becoming a top national university, and as such I applaud the work that Marquette has done over the past few years with regards to buildings and physical improvements on campus (see the Wells Street median just beginning to undergo construction). The new law school, Zilber Hall, McCabe Hall and the other improvements on campus are necessary and gorgeous improvements to an already aesthetically pleasing campus.

However, the most glaring need for improvement at Marquette is in raising capital for scholarships and financial aid. Although this sort of fundraising has not necessarily been the major focus of campaigns in the past, it is an essential component to securing the future of Marquette University. In these rough financial times, short of investing in canned goods, there is nothing more vital to the success of Marquette University than canceling future building projects and transferring these dollars into the general scholarship fund.

Though some might protest and say that the new College of Engineering building would be a great addition to campus, or that a new soccer stadium would do wonders for athletics, there will be no students to fill it in a few years without raising the general scholarship fund. I understand that others have suggested tearing down Coughlin and Lalumiere, saying that these changes need to be made in order to better our campus. Don’t do it Marquette. Save the money, give out scholarships, bring great students to campus. There cannot be any more pressing issue facing our university than this one, and the solution is simple. Stop building, start saving.

Popularity: 10% [?]

Marquette University has a very respectable curriculum which is nationally recognized. Its students go on to succeed in respectable Master’s and Doctorate programs and our departing seniors tend to have relatively good job placement. But there is one part of our curriculum which needs to be addressed. That area would be our introductory English programs, Rhetoric and Composition 1 and 2. These programs cover basic writing skills. They help you write essays, business letters, etc…

I do not think there is anything wrong with this. In fact, I think students should not be exempted from these types of classes for good scores on AP and IB exams. However, these courses are in desperate need of improvement.

Rather than reading the mindless drivel that professors regularly assign in these classes,  students should be required to study the greatest writers of all time. By learning from the masters of rhetoric and composition, like Cicero, Chesterton or even Ronald Reagan, it is possible to imitate their style and to write in the ways they did.

If one can write logically, then one can also think logically. That is why men like Kant, Aquinas and Descartes could think so critically. Regardless of whether or not they come to the correct conclusions, they were able to think and write in a logical, coherent fashion. When students pick up the writings of one of these philosophers, they should be able to understand them by merely reading or studying them on their own.

Unfortunately many Marquette students are unable to understand many of these great thinkers; this is a serious problem – particularly at a Jesuit institution. A university education cannot be purely based on our skills in business or engineering. Rather, it should be founded on things like the ability to read and write.

I acknowledge our professors try extremely hard to help students acquire basic writing skills. But the university needs to take a serious look at its English department so as to make sure students come out of Marquette as intelligent, well-educated people. Writing is an art. And it’s in danger of being a lost one. When students in courses like Rhetoric and Composition 1 or 2 are comparing and contrasting advertisements or writing business letters rather than learning actual writing skills it shows that Marquette needs to take a serious look at revising its curriculum.

Popularity: 10% [?]

For the past few weeks I have been very excited about writing this column, partly because I don’t have to scour my brain for a topic I haven’t already written about but mostly because I have been looking forward to using this opportunity to thank my friends, family and faculty at Marquette University for the help and support they have given me over the past four years.

I have greatly enjoyed my time here in Milwaukee. Even when temperatures remained below freezing for months on end I have never regretted coming to school here. I have made many memories that I will be able to take with me for the rest of my life, from waking up in McCormick Hall as a freshman to a hallway covered with torn down posters and apple pies to our trip to New York City over spring break and the many basketball games attended in between. I honestly could not have asked for a better four years.

Many opportunities have been given to me over the past few years and it is only right that I thank first and foremost the professors at this school who took time out of their day to provide me with their insight and guidance. In particular, I would like to mention Dr. Christopher Wolfe who retired from the political science department last year to go on to bigger and better things. I know I was not the only student he impacted and I am sure I can speak on behalf of all of us when I say, thank you for all of the time you have taken to help each one of us.

As influential, if not more, have been the friends I have been blessed to make while here at Marquette especially those on “The Warrior” staff whom I have had the pleasure of working with. I have enjoyed knowing each and every one of you throughout my time here and as we head our separate ways I look forward to seeing our future accomplishments. I would specifically like to mention those of us who will be serving in the Marine Corps or Navy upon graduation whom I have had the pleasure of knowing and working with. For the past four years we have been looking forward to May 2009 and now it is upon us. I’m not sure what will be in store for each one of us but I am sure it will be exciting.

Finally I would like to urge those of you who will be remaining here at Marquette for the years to come to take advantage of the opportunities here. Attend the speakers who come to campus, get involved in university activities, attend every basketball game possible or come and write for The Warrior. This university has much to offer anyone who wants to be involved. To all of you who have been reading my column for the past few years, thank you very much; hopefully you enjoyed some of them. To those of you who either were offended or frustrated by them, particularly the one entitled “Practice social justice, respect the wealthy,” hopefully it made you think – you’re welcome.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Congratulations to the Marquette University Class of 2009. For a mere $120,000 you are now the proud owner of one sheet of paper that says you may know a little something about something. I say that not to diminish the value of your education, but because if I have learned one thing during my time at Marquette, it is that the difference this school expects you to become has little to do with what you pursue as a career and has even less to do with how well you learned the academic material the university has foisted upon you.

As you leave Marquette, you enter a world that is radically different from the one that existed when you entered this school. In 2005 this country was cresting an unprecedented economic boom and losing a war in Iraq. Now, in 2009, we are winning a war in Iraq and watching an unprecedented economic collapse. Ironically, the one thing that is the same now as in May of 2005 is the cost of a barrel of oil.

In the midst of all these changes in the past few years, one tradition that has not changed is the annual scramble among universities to find the most highly regarded commencement speaker available to come and impart some wisdom, in the hopes that one day, you too may be called upon to address the next generation. Sometimes these speeches are little more than the awkward reminiscences of accomplished individuals; other times these addresses can offer valuable lessons and insights regarding life, success and what you can do to make that difference in the world. It also sets an artificial standard of what it means to graduate from that university. Don’t worry, if you aren’t as funny as Chris Farley, as athletically gifted as Dwyane Wade or as notorious as Senator McCarthy, you are not necessarily a failure.

A commencement speech should serve as a capstone to what you have learned over the past several years of your life. If your college experience has been anything like mine, much of that learning took place outside the classroom through your friendships, experiences and changing perceptions of the world of which we are all a part. These experiences constitute some of the most important learning that occurs in college, and now that this stage of your education is complete it is important to remember that it was only by going out and getting involved, by taking part in the larger campus and city communities around us that those experiences were gained, those friendships formed and those perceptions changed. It is only by continuing to put yourselves out there that you will persist in adding new friends, experiences and understandings to your lives. This is all the more true if you choose to get off the beaten path, try new things and drive the back roads whenever possible.

The past few years have hopefully equipped you to begin a career or continue your education as well as having helped you to find something that you passionately want to do. The difference that Marquette often references is not made on basketball courts by all-stars, during stand-up comedy routines on Saturday Night Live or by earning as much money as you possibly can. Rather, it is made by everyday people who are dedicated to what they do; people who serve at the tip of the spear or as boots on the ground in places of great need, which are inherently also places of great opportunity. There is an old saying that it is not what you say but rather how you say it that matters. Likewise, it is not what you do after graduation but how you do it that makes the difference. Being “boots on the ground” does not mandate that you go to some distant war zone to practice medicine or traipse through the jungles of Brazil to educate Amazon natives; it simply means continuing to put yourself in position to contribute in whatever field you work towards some greater good.

As Marquette sends another class out into a world that continues to evolve and rapidly change, it is indeed sending forth students who collectively represent much of the proverbial “promise of a generation.” The undergraduate portion of your education is complete, but your lifelong education is just beginning and it has no syllabus to follow – you make it up as you go along, learning from mistakes and successes and occasionally remembering the lessons learned while here at MU. You are now completely free to do whatever you would like to do. Don’t forget to have fun while throughout the rest of your lives – after all, you can only do this once - and always remember that having a degree does not make you educated.

I will leave the flowery speeches and lofty expressions of congratulations to Dick Enberg, the real 2009 commencement speaker; I am sure his observations and life experiences will present far more fascinating insights than my own rambling editorial based on my somewhat typical collegiate career.

But let me offer one more congratulations to the graduates. You’ve succeeded in getting to this point in your lives and now is the time to go find other worlds to explore; just make it a point to remember the lessons you are taking away from Marquette that really matter. And, if you happen to have a few extra minutes every now and again, you really should drive those back roads.
Best of luck 2009, congratulations!

Popularity: 10% [?]

A few weeks back Christopher West came to University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee to speak about Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body. While the speech itself was extremely interesting, many of the Marquette students who attended wondered why a presentation like this has not been put on at our own campus or why there has generally been a lack of speakers visiting this University over the past few semesters.

This has not always been the case. Two years ago student organizations at Marquette had invited so many different speakers that it was impossible to attend them all. Some of the most notable was the production of “Porn Nation,” and two extremely interesting speeches by Reza Aslan and former Attorney General John Ashcroft. But since this period there have been increasingly less and less high profile speakers coming to this University, while UWM has consistently been able to attract exciting, controversial speakers such as Walid Shoebat.

While Marquette University could certainly do a lot more to attract interesting speakers with extremely important messages like Christopher West, much of the fault lies with us - the students. As members of various student organizations we must take the necessary steps to search out and ask different speakers to come to this campus to discuss topics relevant to that particular organization.

But rather than making an effort to search out speakers that would be both interesting and relevant, we have gotten lazy, resorting simply to having  a campus showing of a certain film that we could just as easily watch on our own.
All of us only have a short time here at Marquette, and we need to make the most of this opportunity. We should all be striving to learn as much as we can not only in our classes and from fellow students but from people who have actually had experiences and have acquired knowledge they can impart to us.

These different perspectives will further a free market of ideas that will help students better understand the world and the problems we will all face in the future. We should be making an effort to ask speakers from many different backgrounds who can discuss specific topics relevant to our world today. This will not only allow us to better understand the world we live in but will also allow us to better determine what type of life we will choose to lead.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Although the Freedom of Choice Act has not even been introduced to the 111th Congress, it has drawn significant attention from the pro-life community. Every pro-life activist in this country knows that if the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) is introduced, it or a similar version of the bill will only be stopped with a filibuster. And since Republican Senators Snow, Specter and Collins like to ally themselves with left-wing politicians, a filibuster is beginning to seem very unlikely.

One would think that pro-abortion advocates would be satisfied with legislation from the Supreme Court. However, the left is organizing itself to make the most sweeping anti-life legislation this country has ever seen under the misleading title of Freedom of Choice Act.

Presently, abortion is, in a certain sense, a choice on the federal level. If a woman wants to have an abortion, the federal government says go ahead but take care of it yourself. But FOCA is a mandate of support for abortion from the federal government. Tax-payers will now be forced to pay for abortions with their own hard-earned money. I always thought that freedom of choice meant you did not have to categorically give support to a decision you disagreed with. Then again, I am old-fashioned.

But this bill gets even more dangerous. Interference is eliminated. This has the potential to prevent parents from counseling minors as to what is the best decision to make, even though the purpose of parents is to help children make good decisions. Moreover, the government would not even be able to make informed consent laws. If neither parents nor the government can help an individual decide whether or not to have an abortion, who is supposed to help the woman make the right decision?
Yet this bill gets even worse. Currently, physicians and hospitals are not required to conduct abortions if they have a conscientious objection. However, FOCA aims at eliminating this also. Catholic hospitals and physicians may be forced to perform abortions even though Canon Law clearly states that procuring a successful abortion results in automatic excommunication.

Apparently, if you are a pregnant woman, you have every right to abort your child and every right to force someone to help you do it. But if you are a faithful Catholic, you do not have the right to follow your conscience and spare the child.
Finally, the bill allows for partial-birth abortion to be allowed once again.

If you thought this bill could not get any worse, you were wrong. Partial-birth abortion borders on infanticide. This could lead to the outright murder of children who are in fact born. For those who think this is merely a joke and has no possibility of happening, I would like to inform them that President Obama, while serving in the Illinois state legislature, effectively voted in favor of infanticide. Oddly enough, even Secretary of State Hillary Clinton voted against this bill in the United States Senate.
If there was ever a time for pro-life activists to panic, it is now. FOCA is the single most comprehensive, pro-abortion legislation this country might ever see. It could stick a dagger in the very heart of the pro-life movement.

Popularity: 6% [?]

There is much debate among those in Middle America about the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA). This act prohibits any legislative body from interfering with a woman’s right to reproductive freedom.  The proposals set forth in the Freedom of Choice Act would guarantee the right to choose for all women in America, no matter who may occupy the White House or control the Legislature.

The right to choose is a fundamental part of the American concept of freedom, and protecting women’s rights is as important to uphold in our courts and legislatures as was the idea that a person of color was more valuable than 3/5 of a person. The principle is the same: a woman, a minority, must have the same rights under the law if we are to stand on our platform as a nation of character and a community of character.

The various provisions of the Freedom of Choice Act can be debated – viability, parental consent etc – but let us not kid ourselves; the fundamental issue at hand is much more simple, it is a debate about abortion, it is a debate about life itself.  The right to choose is a right afforded to women by the 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade.  Since 1973, it has been repeatedly attacked and undermined by the anti-choice movement.  But the fact is, it is within no one’s rights to impose their own values on another person; it is within no one’s rights to tell a woman what she can and cannot do with her body. The greatest thing about our nation is that it is a place of extraordinary freedom. If those freedoms are undermined by the elected representatives or appointed members of the judiciary, then America loses something; its position as a beacon of freedom dims and it is Congress’ right, not to say duty, to guarantee these rights for posterity.

Underlying the divisive and complex debate surrounding the right to choose is the idea that any one person has the judgment and the wisdom to determine such issues as when a life begins, and can make these judgments with such absolute certainty that they are willing to impose their beliefs on millions of others.  The facts are simple, where abortion is illegal, women still obtain abortions.  However they do so in a black market, unsafe environment, and are subject to imprisonment for exercising their judgment about whether or not they want to use their body to house a fetus for nine months.  Forcing abortion out of mainstream America merely forces women into potentially hazardous situations – situations they should never have to face while the technology and the ability to protect their rights as a nation exists.

The Freedom of Choice Act is just the latest installment of the pro-choice movement to ensure the fundamentally equitable treatment of women and the protection of their rights to choose. There is no provision in the constitution that gives anyone the right to impose their values on others; as a matter of fact, this nation came into existence based on the principle that no one can do that.  We call it the Freedom of Religion and it ensures that anyone can believe anything they choose. The far-right idea that the founding fathers only meant this to include values that jived with their Judeo-Christian values is ludicrous, and the idea that the religious movement’s values, while certainly valid, should be imposed on those of differing opinions is equally ludicrous. They have no right to tell a woman what she can do with her body, they have no right to tell a couple that they cannot marry because it differs from the practices of their beliefs and they have no right to base our laws off of their sacred scriptures. If we allowed this to happen, there would be community stoning for dishonoring the Sabbath.

America is a place where all are welcome.  No one is passing a bill that forces a woman to perform or receive an abortion, FOCA simply gives her the choice to do so. If her values and beliefs differ from others on this matter, that’s fine – it’s perfectly fine to disagree, it is not okay to undermine another’s beliefs simply because they do not agree with our own. That’s the issue here.  It isn’t this bill in particular, it isn’t about any of its particular provisions, but it is about protecting the fundamental values of our country – the values that have created the most free and open society on earth, the values that permit these differences to be openly debated and for no one side’s opinions to be forced upon others.  It is these values that have created a government for ALL the people who live in this great nation, not simply the far right or far left. It is these vary values that inherently protect the rights of the minority and it is these values that are at stake today.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Stating that gas chambers were not used and that only 200,000-300,000 Jewish men women and children were intentionally exterminated by the Nazis and their collaborators, is in fact Holocaust denial. It is one of the key aspects of Holocaust denial. Few if any people claim that no Jews died, instead they make arguments like the ones of Bishop Williamson, that far fewer people died and that there were no gas chambers, implying that there was no systematic murder. Denying this not only attacks history, but minimizes the suffering of millions of innocent people. There is no excuse for these actions. Simply because Bishop Williamson chooses to believe the lies of so called historians does not excuse his actions, nor does it mean that he is not spreading falsehoods. In addition, the “historian” whom Williamson cites, is Fred Leuchter whose “findings” have been thoroughly debunked for 20 years, and who is only cited by Holocaust deniers. The report which Williamson cites was funded by Ernst Zündel, who was at the time on trial for, and later convicted of, Holocaust denial, and who has published Nazi and Neo-Nazi propaganda. As such, Williamson’s statement that he will change his opinion when his sources change theirs is absurd, insofar as his sources are known anti-Semites.

It is an established fact that six million Jewish men women and children were systematically killed by the Nazis and their collaborators. There is no real debate regarding this. There are those who promote the truth, and there are anti-Semites who deny the truth in order to further their own ends. And yes, it is anti-Semitic to deny the Holocaust, as it creates a situation in which the Nazis and their collaborators did not kill as many people as history has recorded, meaning that they were not as evil as has been believed. In addition it means that someone has been intentionally spreading information that six million Jews died, which in turn implicates Jewish people, meaning that within the framework of Holocaust denial, Jews are responsible for spreading lies about Nazis and their collaborators. Denying “aspects” of the Holocaust is Holocaust denial.

The excuse that Bishop Williamson is just a conspiracy theorist further shows the lack of ground on which the bishop stands, in that the best label for him, albeit one which is severely whitewashed, is that of someone who believes in conspiracies. Sadly this is not the case, but rather Bishop Williamson supports the ideas of anti-Semites, and in doing so is acting as an anti-Semite. This stance is unconscionable, and cannot be the stance of a Roman Catholic bishop. Unfortunately the time for action against the Holocaust has long passed, yet we can still act in the memory of those who died. Not just the six million Jews, but also the five million others who were killed. The Roman Catholic Church stands, as it should, for truth, and the truth of the matter is that six million Jews died. As such, it is imperative that Pope Benedict XVI reaffirm the Church’s stance for truth and punish Bishop Williamson for his anti-Semitic attitude.

Popularity: 5% [?]