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July 2022
Dear Faculty, Staff and Students in the Klingler College of Arts & Sciences,
I hope your summer has been a good one thus far. As I mentioned in last month’s message,
for my family this season brings significant milestones. One of them is my husband’s
and my thirtieth wedding anniversary. We celebrated this month with a visit to Yellowstone
National Park, where we spent our honeymoon and have returned for our anniversaries
every five years. In Yellowstone, the earth is tangibly alive, with bubbling mud pots,
geysers and geothermal features in a spectrum of colors. The expanse, peace and stunning
beauty of the Rocky Mountains, the big sky, the rivers and lakes bring to mind both
the preciousness and the precarity of the natural world.
Not long before this trip, I enjoyed a tour of the Near West Side courtesy of Marquette’s
Center for Peacemaking, an opportunity to see up close some of the wonderful work
made possible through the Near West Side Partners. The NWSP is a testament to the power of a committed group of collaborators to build
community, drive economic development, decrease crime and foster a better quality
of life. The challenge and opportunity to foster integral ecology is clear and compelling
right here in the urban landscape of Milwaukee as well as in the wilderness of a national
park.
Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si' offers rich insights on this topic: “The urgent challenge to protect our common home includes a concern to bring the whole
human family together to seek a sustainable and integral development, for we know
that things can change. […] Young people demand change. They wonder how anyone can
claim to be building a better future without thinking of the environmental crisis
and the sufferings of the excluded.” The call here aligns with two of the Universal
Apostolic Preferences of the Society of Jesus: “to collaborate in the care of our
Common Home” and “to accompany young people in the creation of a hope-filled future.”
These imperatives echo our values and priorities at Marquette as a Catholic, Jesuit
university.
Integral ecology teaches us to see the natural world and the human world as closely
interrelated. I take seriously the responsibility of being an Anthropocene dean. Here
at Marquette, many of you along with other members of the campus and broader communities
are actively engaged in the work of sustainability and integral ecology to which we
are called. There is the water research group; ecology research in areas ranging from honeybees to elephants and trees; green chemistry;
environmental history; policy work and more. Among our newest undergraduate majors
is Environmental Science, building upon the popularity of our major in Environmental
Studies. A wide variety of other degree programs relate to integral ecology, including
data science and peace studies. Arts & Sciences faculty have taught a Methods of Inquiry
course in the Marquette Core Curriculum on Energy Use and Human-Induced Climate Change.
The excellence of our faculty, staff and students in Biological Sciences and cognate
fields heightens the urgent need of new facilities for BioDiscovery, as President
Lovell and other campus leaders have recently noted. Our colleagues in Facilities
are also hard at work exploring ways to make our campus more sustainable.
Collaborations are underway with the city of Milwaukee to explore a carbon-neutral
and more sustainable future, echoing the calls to action of documents like the 1.5 degree lifestyles report. Here on campus, let’s continue to seek ways to practice integral ecology, in collaboration
with partners across the city, region and beyond. There is a high degree of convergence
among our various aims—student success, research excellence, employee engagement,
community thriving—which illustrates that integration is at the heart of the Arts
& Sciences at Marquette. As we bring these efforts together, we continue to demonstrate
that the difference is in the “and.” In support of these aims, during Fall 2022 I
will again teach Arts & Sciences Influentials, a one-credit virtual course on professional
discernment and preparation that features visits by amazing alumni across a variety
of fields. Please encourage any rising A&S juniors or seniors to consider enrolling;
information is here.
In closing, I’d like to invoke a beautiful passage from Belden Lane, The Solace of Fierce Landscapes: “The interior truth here is that human beings don’t long for another world, far beyond
the ordinariness of this one. We long for our own world, perceived in all its hidden
grandeur. We sense it to be filled with a glory we could see if only we had the gifts
of attentiveness and the proper rituals of entry” (144). Whether in a National Park,
along the shores of Lake Michigan or on Wisconsin Avenue, we can find possibilities
to work together to foster integral ecology and promote the flourishing of all.
As always, please feel free to contact me with questions, concerns or suggestions. I appreciate hearing from you and exploring
ways we can all work together for the common good.
Dr. Heidi Bostic
Dean, Klingler College of Arts and Sciences
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