I probably could spend about 1000 words describing the obstacles and achievements The Warrior has experienced in my time as editor, and what I perceive as The Warrior’s role on campus to be over the next few years.

But those things, you can see for yourself. And in regards to The Warrior’s future, that’s still to be seen.

I’m not an expert college student or even expert editor, but the best piece of advice I’ve ever received is this: Don’t settle.

Settling is the ultimate act of cowardice. It’s putting your hands up in the air and saying, “I give up, I don’t care, do with me as you will, world.”

Settling manifests itself in many ways. Sometimes it’s indifference, not caring. It’s knowing the student government is spending your money unwisely, and then accepting a higher student activity fee. It’s finding out the Vagina Monologues will be performed on campus and not voicing your disapproval.

Sometimes, settling is tolerating the status quo – Knowing tuition rises every year but never asking why; accepting that Daniel Maguire will be on campus next year and trying to pretend he isn’t as loud and obnoxiously anti-Catholic as he really is. This is the type of settling, I would say, that allows for situations to worsen.

Other times, settling is letting somebody else tell you how things should be. It’s hearing a Theology professor cite universal health care as a part of Christian discipleship but not speaking up in class.

Settling is letting others get the best of you. It’s letting opportunities pass you by, and not caring enough to realize they could have been yours. It’s lowering your standards for the sake of peace-making and compromise, or for the sake of remaining favorable in the eyes of people who may not even matter in a few years.

Of course, it is hard to be bold all the time, but I hope you can draw strength from this verse a friend shared with me last week: “Put on the armor of God so that you may be able to stand firm against the tactics of the devil… stand fast with your loins girded in truth, clothed with righteousness as a breastplate, and your feet shod in readiness for the gospel of peace. In all circumstances, hold faith as a shield, to quench all flaming arrows of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.” -Ephesians 6:10

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I may not be as popular or as stylish (I’ll leave that one up for debate) as P. Diddy, but if there’s one message I want to get across to the readership this issue it’s the importance of voting. Now, I’ve only been old enough to vote for two years. That automatically disqualifies me as this “experienced and aged voter,” as some of our parents and professors are, and I haven’t been living long enough to observe voting trends or even multiple election turnovers. Continue Reading

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Senior year in high school, I was in an AP English Literature class. By many accounts, it was one of my favorite classes throughout high school.

The teacher, “Brother Tom,” had this knack for invigorating the writer within at every class session— something that can be difficult to do with antsy high school students, already accepted to colleges and eager to begin the next chapter of their lives.

While in his class, I came up with the concept of “literary moments,” one I still flirt with today.

Literary moments, by my definition, are times when something happening in real life has nuances of one of the mechanical or technical devices writers use in literature or poetry. To give a simple example, if it is raining outside while I am very sad, that is somewhat a “literary moment.” I’ve seen these moments on deeper levels in my own life… sometimes when I am faced with a question about the direction I am moving in, personally or career-wise.

And I saw these literary moments again this past issue. Two to note:

1. While columnist Daniel Suhr attended a panel on media convergence, The Warrior had a “convergence experience” of its own. One of our goals this year is to work with MUTV so both media outlets can thrive, ultimately achieving the mission of an informed campus.

2. Sophomore Tim Blattner, the subject of the cover story, is hardly your typical sophomore. He looks beyond his own needs, beyond the needs of most his age and has dedicated his passions to helping those across the globe. Talk about seeing beyond the campus.

Each of these moments incurred feelings within me of what life is like outside of campus, and how our life inside campus is like a small mirror version of what we can expect in three, two or even one year. And just the way many of us reflected on these things in AP English our senior years, I encourage you to ponder them within yourselves as “literary moments.”

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Lately, I’ve been thinking about the weather.

No, not the mix of snow/sleet/rain/mush that is falling outside my bedroom window and leaves the bottoms of my pants legs consistently wet. Rather, I’m thinking about the social and structural climate at Marquette. Continue Reading

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As does most every other freshman upon arrival at Marquette, I went through the stages of “first meeting people” throughout my freshman year. And sometime near the end of the first semester, I met Heidi Vanderloop.

Heidi is a native of Menomonie, WI, and a sophomore International Affairs major and French minor. She is on Schroeder Hall Council, works as a lifeguard, teaches swimming lessons at the Rec Plex in Straz Tower and is also in a service organization called “Circle K.”

Upon graduation from Marquette, she aspires to become a teacher or work for NASA.
She is a twin sister to Molly, a sophomore at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and an older sister to Elly and Gretle. Among her favorite things to do with her family is go to Packers games with her father… her adopted father.

When Heidi was a few days old, she and Molly were put up for adoption by her birth parents, who were 18-years-old at the time. “Children weren’t in their plan,” she says of her biological parents’ choice to give her and her sister to another family.

Heidi has lived a normal childhood, and says she has had opportunities she never could have gotten from her young parents. She feels her adopted parents have always treated her as their own and is one whose gratefulness for life is evident in her daily vigor.

But her story prompts me to ask the question, what if there was no Heidi?
For those of you who don’t have the privilege of knowing her, let me try to illustrate what that would be like for me.

Last year, I would not have had the fortune of always being met by a smiley face eager to get to know me. This summer, I would not have conversations with a motivated young lady who dedicated many hours to her local 4-H chapter but was always interested in what was happening in my life.

Upon returning to school, a group of friends and I would have been one person short when we went to Cathedral Square for Jazz in the Park. When it was my birthday recently, I would not have received a frantic iChat message from Heidi asking if I wanted to be taken to dinner on a busy weekday night.

As the staff and I planned for this upcoming issue, especially the cover story about Students for Life’s trip to Washington D.C., I could not help but think about how grateful I was Heidi’s parents did not take the route that has left the United States with 47 million fewer babies.

I hope that every time you run into a friend like Heidi, you think about what it could be like without them or if their parents had not chosen to act out of love as Heidi’s parents did.

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Last week I was doing some reporting on one of the feature pieces in this issue- an interview with Dr. Daniel Maguire.

For anyone not familiar with Maguire, he is a Theology professor here at Marquette who has gained a reputation as quite an outspoken fellow. An ex-Jesuit, Maguire now claims to derive inspiration from a number of world religions and insists Jesus did not come into this world to serve in Christians’ atonement.

(Without stealing Maguire’s mantra, I will just say that he and I differ on almost every issue and tangent addressed in the 45-minute interview.)
But at the end of the interview, Maguire said something that startled me, because it was something with which I agreed. In far more words than this space can host, he alluded to people who do not realize their positive skill level or potential because they are blinded by societal stereotypes.

This seems to be a recurring theme on campus.

Some students will settle for mediocrity, because they are meeting the “normal expectations” and do not realize they could possibly achieve more. They will not try to gain entry to a higher level course; they will not generate change within their student organizations; they will settle for the “college student” stereotype that everybody else sets.

Perhaps what strikes me the most are students who do not believe they have anything valuable to say. They cannot speak up in class or they do not find a forum in which they can release their concerns about the university.

Perhaps this is the unfortunate effect of a campus culture in which a different opinion is sometimes viewed as heretical and an outspoken student is considered a bigot.

The Warrior is taking special strides to rid the campus of this problem. First, its existence as an alternate voice sets the scene. We exist to host the perspectives not commonly heard and to staff the students who want to serve this mission.

Next, we have an opinion page that will be happy to publish pieces written by students and other members of the Marquette community.

Thirdly, there is the “Post it!” section, where the non-serious thoughts of students can get some gametime as well.

We hope this issue will help move the campus more towards taking stands, speaking out and not being afraid of the limits society may set.

After all, when we speak out, you may be surprised who has something valuable to say.

DIANA.SROKA@MU.EDU

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Dear readers,
The staff and I wish to extend our gratitude to you for the warm response to our November 2 edition of The Warrior.

The feedback we’ve received is overwhelmingly positive, and we are working to continue our mission of providing the campus with information. Therefore, we decided to release this special edition.

In the two week intervals between full editions of the publication, we will be releasing these sheets with a few stories and information about upcoming events or projects for which we need reader feedback.

This issue we address the recent vision speech for the College of Business Administration as well as the Student Leadership Summit sponsored by the University. We felt these two issues were too pressing to hold on to until November 30.

We are also seeking reader feedback on a new feature in our publication: Post it!

Post it! is going to be another way for our publication to reach out to students (besides personally handing most readers their copies of the publication). We want Post it! to serve as a published tagboard for readers… the refrigerator door… the little note you leave for yourself.

We are excited to be returning in two weeks and wish each of you a blessed Thanksgiving next week. Please send your Post it! suggestions and general issue feedback to: editor@thewarrior.orgThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Happy reading,
Diana Sroka

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A fellow warrior and I were waiting for one of this issue’s stories to print for editing when he asked a question that caught me by surprise: “Why are you doing this?”

He pointed out the numerous other ways I could be spending my Saturday night. For a few moments, my mind lusted after extra hours of sleep and the conservation of cell phone minutes.

It’s not that I had blindly become a member of this publication; quite the contrary, in fact. But up until that point, it seemed the reasons for my involvement in The Warrior– and dare I say the involvement of the other 22 members who contributed to the issue– were tacit.

For several weeks we gathered, brainstormed, reported, wrote and edited. We took photographs, created templates and info-graphics and proofread. And all the while, each member of this publication willingly volunteered his or her time to help create the present campus’ only independently run and funded publication.
As this year’s first issue pulled together and the staff prepared to deliver its work to you, the readership, the reasons for our coming together became clear: you have stories to tell.

Stories about students who disagree with the current administration’s efforts to “enhance the curriculum” through racial diversity… a story about a student who protected America’s freedom through his service in Iraq… and we have to share the musings of a basketball enthusiast. You hold perspectives that are sometimes ignored or even ridiculed by existing publications— at times, even professors.

We are here to tell those stories to the rest of the campus and stand up for you when your opinion is opposed.

We can’t promise we will have the largest circulation and budget, at first, or even that everyone will like what we publish.

But what we can do is guarantee you the truth. We will always keep our ears open. And we will never cease to put forward our most honest efforts.These issues are for you.

It’s a great day to be a Warrior.

PS: The staff wishes to extend its prayers and best wishes to fellow warrior Katie Dorman in her absence this semester.

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