The Office of Marketing and Communication (which I call the "MUPU" -- Marquette University Propaganda Unit) -- has announced that $43 million in scholarship money has been raised to honor Robert Wild. This is a wonderful addition to his legacy. Until last May, I would have been honored to contribute to the honoring. I had always liked Wild since knowing him in 1976, when I was a freshman resident of O'Donnell Hall and he was the hall chaplain. Last May, when he undid the contract with Jodi O'Brien on what I believe was sheer pretext -- her alleged inadequacy to represent MU's Catholic identity as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, I felt betrayed. I felt I had not really known this man, nor the institution at which I had spent 6 years as a student (B.A., then M. A.), and 21 years as a faculty member. I have not yet come to grips with this betrayal, nor the secrecy surrounding it. I carry this wound as I would a piece of shrapnel embedded in my flesh, with no way of removing it.
All of this was exacerbated by the sexual assault scandals that broke this past spring, as well as about the revelations that Wild had protected an alleged pedophile and had allowed MU facilities to be used to help the man prepare his legal defense. With these events, MU has not exactly "been the difference," at least not in a positive sense.
Before last May, an image of Wild prevailed that had been carefully presented to the MU community -- that of a benevolent "father figure." Yet it had become clear in recent years that Wild was being fed information -- told what to say at public events. He "punted" on difficult questions to his underlings. None of that was surprising, as higher administrators often defer to subordinates who have more "hands on" experience with knotty problems. Besides, people generally liked Wild -- he used to be a likeable guy, and his fuzziness and lack of contact with what was going on inside MU didn't seem to make much of a difference. Until last May, that is, when his lack of contact with reality exploded like a bombshell and harmed so many people, both inside and outside of MU. At the end of the day, Wild's legacy is far from untarnished.
Where do we go from here? Wild retires on July 31. On August 1, Scott Pilarz, SJ, will assume the presidency at MU. I hope he will give us what we need: a firm and committed leader. What MU needs now is an actual President -- not the dithering ball of fuzz and confusion that Wild turned out to be. We do not need yet another administrator. MU is chock full of those -- people who cannot or will not utter a clear sentence -- probably due to their concern with "plausible deniability."
With the appointment of Jodi O'Brien as Arts and Sciences Dean, we had reached a crossroads and were clearly moving ahead. Some people couldn't tolerate that, yearning, apparently, for some sort of pre-Vatican II version of conservative Catholicism. They knew which buttons of Wild's to push, and pushed they did. With the breach of Dr. O'Brien's contract, MU was set back by at least 20 years. Will Pilarz be up to the challenge of restoration?
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