UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES - GUIDE TO MARQUETTE STUDENT ACTIVISM/PROTESTS

For more information please contact the University Archivist.

Marquette students had little history of political protest before 1960, but that changed in the following decades, with students taking up a wide variety of causes. Protests at Marquette were less violent than those on other campuses, but they did force university officials to re-evaluate policies and their relationship with students in their care.

As campus events developed quickly and organizations grew up overnight, those interested in researching this topic will want to spend some time creating general timelines of events from the period (the Marquette Tribune is a useful source for this) and searching archival finding aids using a wide variety of keywords, including:

• protest
• demonstration
• power
• SURE (Students United for Racial Equality)
• student rights and responsibilities
• RESPOND
• speakers policy
• status and role of students, etc.

Primary Sources Related to Student Activism/Protests

• Records documenting specific incidents and policy development are contained within the records of high-level administrators such as
  • University President Rev. John P. Raynor, S.J., because the Raynor administration nested topics in different ways over time to reflect the changing administrative organization of the university, it is worthwhile to consult all sections of the finding aid because related topics often fall into multiple categories. 
  • Quentin Quade (Vice-President of Academic Affairs; Executive Vice-President), note that Quade's material is currently being processed.
• The Student Demonstrations/Student Power series is an artificial 4 box group of materials that contains information related to campus happenings, as well as clippings related to what was going on elsewhere throughout the country.
• The Status and Role of Students at Marquette University series comprises two boxes, primarily records from the Ad Hoc Committee to Study the Status and Role of Students at Marquette University, 1966-1970.
• The Offices of Student Affairs and Student Life played a role in responding to campus activism and in setting policy. Amongst the subject files likely to be of interest are those related to the speakers policy, student power, correspondence from the deans, and records from the Committee on Student Life.
• In a similar manner, student government contributed to the ongoing discussion on campus. The administrative subject files contain records related to the ROTC protests; depending on how researchers choose to situate the topic, there may be student government legislation that is relevant as well.
• The student newspaper, The Marquette Tribune, covered games, wrote profiles of players, and voiced opinion on the team and the university's decisions. The publication is in the process of being digitized; a rough index to headlines through the mid-1970s is available upon request. Print copies of the Tribune are available for consultation in the Archives Reading Room. 
• The Photographs and General Information Files contain photographic prints as well as assorted newspaper clippings and print materials documenting student activism and protest. The following files are likely to be of interest: 01144 (Protests, Student; many folders), 01290 (Students United for Racial Equality), and 00130 (Black Students/Third World Union).
• Faculty member James Barrett was a well-known peace activist and tireless supporter of human rights causes. From marching with James Groppi and the NAACP Youth Council for fair housing in the 1960s, to serving on the board of the Milwaukee Area Chapter of the ACLU in the 1990s, Barrett spent much of his adult life championing causes of peace and social justice. Series 1 of his papers documents his service on committees and ad hoc groups related to Marquette University, including the Faculty Association for Interracial Justice.
• Researchers interested in following changes in formal written policies may want to consult student handbooks; events and policy are also documented in the records of the Vice President for Academic Affairs (VPAA) and the Provost. 
• High level policy change and discussion may also be documented in the records of the Board of Trustees and its predecessors, the Board of Governors and Board of Regents. These records are open prior to 1970. 

Audiovisual Sources Related to Student Activism/Protests

• Many images are digitized and part of Marquette University History Online.

• The Hilltop yearbooks (1915-1996) have been digitized and are available online. They contain photographs and other information documenting protests and activism on campus.  Use the “Advanced Search” feature to limit your search by date. Keep in mind that not all images are captioned, and it may worth your while to browse through specific volumes for images related to your topic.

• The Photographs and General Information Files contain the bulk of the photographic prints related to protests. File number 01144 (with many folders) specifically relates to student protests. The university's slide collection mirrors the Photographs and General Information Files in its arrangement, but is limited to images in color slide format.

Secondary Sources about Nicknames/Mascots and Marquette University

Milwaukee's Jesuit University Thomas J. Jablonsky

Published in 2007, this is the most recent book about Marquette University's history, covering the first 100 years (1881-1981). 

 

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