Who Exactly Does Marquette Hire?

In light of today's Marquette Tribune article regarding the cost of going to private universities in the United States, I have decided to analyze the number of people in a variety of departments at Marquette, in order to gain a better understanding of where all of our tuition money is going. The largest single collection of staff at Marquette is the Dental School which has 301 professors and staffers. This makes sense given that MU has the only dental school in Wisconsin. Other departments seem to have an excessive number of staff. 157 people work for University Advancement, apparently attempting to "advance" the state of Marquette by raising more money to be sent to the endowment and the basketball team, while the rest of us eat crappy dorm food and pay $28,000 a year to go here. Speaking of the basketball team, 91 people work for Intercollegiate Athletics, aka the Athletic Department. Given the massive salary of "Buzz" Williams, one can easily conclude that this department receives a lot more funding than say, the History Department with its paltry staff of 54, which by the way includes the graduate students. The fact that twice as many people work on raising money than teach history is questionable to say the least. Another questionable staff decision is to have 94 people work for DPS, and only 50 in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures. Apparently we need two fake cops for every language teacher at MU, rather than, for example, hiring new language professors and teaching more than a handful of languages here. The president of MU and the senior vice president each have 4 staffers, yet only two people work at MU press, and you wonder why no one gets their books published at MU. Wouldn't it make sense to combine the staffers for the President and the Senior Vice President, and spend the other money on creating a legitimate University Press? No, that would make MU an academic institution, rather than being a for profit venture. MU also has 7 full time staff in the "Office of the University Architect" and 9 in the "Office of the General Consul". Apparently MU needs 7 architects and 9 lawyers on hand for all of the building projects and lawsuits. Or MU could just hire an architect when it needs one, for example, if it ever built a humanities building, and could have one or two lawyers on hand in case it needed to deal with an issue. The unnecessary bureaucracy at MU is the reason that tuition is so high. Top heavy departments which do little or no good, or like DPS just commit felonies, keep the university from spending money on professors which would make it a better institution. The misguided belief that building new buildings will make MU a great school is absurd. How about hiring some new professors, keeping the good ones that we have, and creating a legitimate university press? Maybe if Fr. Wild spent more time focusing on academics and less time caring about the basketball team MU would be a real school. Until then I hope that eveyrone likes paying $28,000 a year to be part of a for profit venutre which has a company basketball team.

Armed Robbery

Two DPS officers approached a pair of students in an alley on 14th street just north of Wells St. These officers then demanded to now what was in the backpacks of the students, upon finding beer, the officers then confiscated the beer, and took a fake identification from one of the students. This is of course illegal. I cannot go up to you take your backpack, search through it, and then confiscate any items in it, regardless of whether or not you can legally possess said items. DPS cannot do this either. Therefore, since they used their arms as a means of intimidation, the officers are guilty of armed robbery. If I walk up to you pull a gun and demand to see your backpack, and if it, for example, has marijuana in it, I cannot confiscate it, no, that would be armed robbery, even if I left my gun in its holster, that would still be armed robbery. Once again DPS flaunts the law and fail to realize that its officers are not in fact police officers, but rather security guards. So if in the future at any point in time a DPS officer approaches you anywhere that is not on campus property, do not let them search you, but rather fight back against this assault on freedom, and call the police if they try to search you.

DPS Threatens to Murder Area Residents

On the night of Friday September 11, 2009 a DPS officer threatened to murder several area residents by driving over them in his cruiser. The residents were standing on the sidewalk at the entrance of an alley. When the officer approached he ordered them to leave, which was beyond his authority. He then yelled at the residents. When they still stayed put, he threatened to run over all of them with his cruiser, which would have, in all likelihood, resulted in their deaths. As such, he did in fact threaten to murder them. The officer then contacted his superiors. Two commanding officers arrived, along with 5 other officers in 4 squad cars. The officers then interviewed the residents, and concurred that they had not broken any laws, and were within their legal right to refuse to obey the orders of the DPS officer. Moreover, the residents were within their right to refuse to turn over their identifications to the DPS officer, given that he is not a police officer. The commanding officers then apologized for the violent behavior of the DPS officer, and assured the residents that it would not happen again. Nevertheless, this scenario si horrifying, in that a DPS officer threatened to murder people by driving them over with his car. Hopefully in the future DPS will better screen its officers to make sure that they do not threaten nor attempt to murder anyone else.

I again thank my anonymous sources for providing me with the details of this tragic incident.

Swine Flu knows where you live

That's right fellow warrior watchers, swine flu is now on campus, and is spreading pretty fast. According to the university there is only one confirmed case, a female living in Schroeder, although MU won't disclose that last part. In addition, there are several suspected cases living in Straz, although again the university is not commenting on this. One of these cases reportedly ate in the cafeteria potentially infected everyone who was eating there. In addition according to several anonymous sources, a Straz cafeteria employee was sent home today with flu like symptoms, although again this information is not being discussed, and these sources were told only to say that the individual was not feeling well and were informed that the phrase "swine flu" was not to be said in the cafeteria.

It appears that in light of these recent cases the university is attempting, poorly, to cover up the actual extent of swine flu on campus and in doing so is merely increasing the likelihood that it will spread quite rapidly. Rather than being proactive and public about every case, MU is relying on students to determine whether or not they feel healthy enough to go to class, and if they don't they are to call Student Health Services (SHS) in order to find out if they have symptoms which may be swine flu, or H1N1/novel H1N1 as the university prefers, and then quarantine themselves. It would be much more helpful if the university released a daily chart of where the outbreak is occurring. For example if it were the case that the flu was most prominent at Schroeder, it would make sense for students to avoid that cafeteria, yet without any information students are effectively gambling and hoping that they can avoid contracting a deadly virus, which many epidemiologists fear will be as bad as the Spanish flu of 1918 which killed millions. If the outbreaks continue to worsen and people get sicker and sicker, it will be interesting to see if the university continues to try to keep everything under wraps, or if it owns up to the numbers of ill on campus and tries to intervene before something tragic happens. Let us all hope that MU is smart enough to get proactive, by passing out masks and hand sanitizers and isolating sick students.

I would also like to thank all of my anonymous informants without whom posts like this would not be possible. I owe many thanks to these individuals for their inside information into the workings of the university.

More Assaults on the Rule of Law

Apparently DPS not only believes in assaulting the rule of law, but is so arrogant, that it actually brags about its actions. Take for example its response to a fight on the corner of 16th and Wisconsin which occurred at 4:22pm on Tuesday September 1. 10 DPS officers responded to the fight, and attempted to intervene. Given that they were not present when the fight began, they of course had no reason to intervene. They were then brazen enough to call the Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) and request their aid. Not request that they come and do their jobs, no, they were there to help DPS be cops. Because that completely meshes with Wisconsin State Law. Oh wait, no it does not. DPS has no right to intervene then, and calling MPD to aid it only shows how absolutely arrogant DPS officers have become. They actually think that they are cops.

Continuing on the theme of DPS officers think that they're cops, they have continued to brag about illegally imprisoning two individuals on the night of August 10-11. For the uninformed that is a Class H Felony in Wisconsin, and as much as DPS, and MU, think they operate in their own universe, they are in fact subject to the laws of the state, yet instead of apologizing, they portray themselves as heroes. Just like all the other people that run around detaining other people, oh wait those are usually serial killers or people taking hostages, but not DPS, no they are heroes.

This past week DPS continued to think that it was a branch of the Milwaukee Police Department, on the evening of September 3, a DPS car "aided" MPD officers in purusing a suspect who was guilty of violating an open container law. Which, by the way, is a municipal offense, and is only a ticktable offense. Yet, MPD, which has clearly forgotten its role in upholding the law, asked DPS, a private security contractor and not a police force, for help in catching a kid who was given a ticket. Now if that isn't great police work I don't know what is. Run down a kid to give him a ticket, and break the law by having a private security contractor get involved in the chase, instead of doing something useful, like arresting people who commit felonies.

In a second instance last week, MPD again asked for DPS assistance because of someone urinating in public. The fact that MPD ran after someone for this and needed DPS' help for this, is pathetic on the part of MPD, in that it can't even do its own job. In addition, it is sickening that MPD is calling DPS over and over again to "aid" in detaining people. DPS cannot legally act in this capacity, they are not nor have they ever been police. They are private security contractors, much like Xe and ArmorGuard. In fact it would probably make us all safer if the university replaced DPS with one of those groups, I mean they have tanks, and helicopters, and are experienced in ignoring any form of law and just doing whatever they can to oppress people. So really we have two options right now, either fight back against oppression, or embrace it wholesale and hire mercenaries to "protect" us from "criminals".

DPS Officers Invade an Apartment

This morning at 5 am two MU DPS officers entered an apartment in a university owned apartment complex. They did so because the door was ajar. Not because of loud noises, not because of any suspicious activity, but rather the door was ajar. In doing so they trespassed and committed a Class A misdemeanor according to Wisconsin State Statute 943.14 which states "Whoever intentionally enters the dwelling of another without the consent of some person lawfully upon the premises, under circumstances tending to create or provoke a breach of peace, is guilty of a Class A misdemeanor." The key here is that in entering the apartment and waking and then berating the occupants, the DPS officers clearly intended to wake people and breach the peace of the apartment. As such the officers committed a Class A Misdemeanor.

In addition the officers did not have a right, as agents of the owner of the property, to enter into the apartment under the terms of the lease, particularly Section 4.2(a) of the lease, which states that entering into the apartment is only allowable without prior written and/or verbal consent, if there is a health/safety emergency. Given that a door being ajar is not a clear sign of a safety emergency they, as agents of the owner, did not have the legal right to enter the apartment. Thereby, they not only committed a misdemeanor, but also violated the terms of the lease.

Once again DPS oversteps its bounds and violates the rights of multiple people on campus. In berating the students, they created a climate of fear within the apartment. No one would positively react to people in fake cop uniforms going into his apartment at 5 am, shining flashlights around, opening his bedroom door, and the proceeding to berate him for having an apartment door which was ajar. Hopefully this blatant assault on freedom will not go unpunished and the two officers who committed this crime will be reprimanded in order to guarantee that it never happens again.

In Financial News

For the curious out there MU's endowment in 2001 stood at $2 million. Today it stands at over $260 million. Before the financial crisis the endowment stood at over $330 million. For a supposedly Jesuit and Catholic institution, the radical increase in endowment is surprising, especially given that this money comes from the pockets of indebted students. Instead of increasing its tuition by about $1,000 a year, the university could do something like reroute endowment money to making tuition affordable. Back in the 1920's, when MU was run by Jesuits who believed in what they taught, it was cheaper to get a law degree at MU then at UW-Madison. Now days, there is no way that a student could achieve this, at least not without massive financial aid lowering MU's tuition cost. The absurd cost of $29,000 per year, puts most MU students well over $100,000 in debt before graduation, meaning that they are unable to start paying for things like a car or a house, until a decade after graduation. Given that the church teaches that people have a right to an education, and that charging excessive amounts for anything is a grave sin, MU is clearly flaunting Catholic teachings in favor of embracing a culture of greed which is promoted by the "leading" US educational institutions. Harvard has a large enough endowment for all of its students to attend for free, yet it still charges $40,000+ a year to attend. MU should separate itself from greedy schools like that, and instead cater to all people, instead of only to the wealthy.

DPS officers commit Class H felony

That's right, last night DPS officers responded to a shooting in the campus area. In doing so they apprehended and detained two suspects in the shooting. According to Wisconsin state statute 940.30 "Whoever confines or restrains another without that person's consent and with knowledge that he or she has no lawful authority to do so is guilty of a class H felony." That sounds exactly like what happened last night. Yet DPS brags about their response, as if it were some heroic act, rather than a felony. Sure people should respond when they physically see another person in trouble. DPS, should not, however, use video cameras to monitor the entirety of the campus area, and then show up and illegally imprison people. It's not their place, if they want to do that, then they should become cops. Moreover, the reaction of DPS, and their bragging about it fosters a culture on campus in which students feel that DPS has the right to respond this way. Students believe that they are being made safer because DPS officers ride around in their cars, with their faux police badges, and guns. The question is, wouldn't we be even safer if we hired Xe, formerly Blackwater Security, to patrol campus with tanks, helicopters, and assault rifles? The answer is, of course, but we would then be living in a self imposed police state. Freedom matters, and so does the law, which is why the DPS officers who responded last night should be arrested and charged with illegal imprisonment. Only through rejecting the oppression of DPS can we foster a culture of freedom and a true rule of law, for if some are exempt from following the law, then there is no true rule of law on campus.

I'm Back

After a long summer hiatus I am once again back at my job of monitoring what is happening at MU. I am also working on a new project, which I will hopefully finish this summer and the results of which will be posted on this blog. The project is to photograph and catalog the location of all DPS security cameras on campus and in the surrounding area. With this information everyone will be able to know for themselves exactly when they are being monitored. They won't just have to rely upon signs saying that they might be monitored, but rather have the ability to know exactly where to look when walking around campus.

I will also continue past crimes at the cafeterias in order to, hopefully, inspire others to take action against the horrifying food conditions. One fun story is that the outbreak of "rotavirus" around two years ago, was not actually rotavirus, but rather was due to undercooked french toast. This conclusion comes from interviews with those who were sick and did not live at Schroeder, meaning that they would not be exposed to the virus, but only ate at the cafeteria. These people, along with those who lived at Schroeder, attested to eating french toast on the same day. Both salmonella and rotavirus have similar symptoms, including nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea, all of which were listed as symptoms by MU. The university, in covering its tracks, failed to account for those who became ill but did not live at Schroeder. In addition, since no one became seriously ill, all of those who were infected went only to student health services, which as a branch of the university, was able to publicly anounce that everyone tested positive for rotavirus, and not salmonella. In the future, everyone should think twice before eating food at the cafeterias, because you never know what could have infected the food.

And now for another type of post

I am now going to begin a series which will detail the horrific conditions of Marquette's cafeterias. Although I do have one other thing to quickly note. Did anyone else notice how there was a lot of grass seed laid down a few weeks ago? Well guess what, either all of that grew overnight, or MU laid down sod on top of the grass seed. According to some sources that I have, the cost of this yearly operation is $20,000-$30,000. It's good to know that our tuition money is being well spent.

In case no one else heard, this semester Straz tower had a second health inspection on top of their pathetic first one. And by pathetic I mean the health inspector did not check the temperature of the milk nor anything in the Grill/Pizza area. Yes, the grill and the pizza areas have been comined as part of a cost cutting measure. Why they need to cut costs is not clear, given that the cafeteria system brings in an estimated $5 million per semester. I came to this conclusion by multiplying the rough number fo students who have a meal plan, by a number between the lowest and middle level of meal plan options, given that those are the ones used by the most number of students who eat at cafeterias. During this second inspection, the pizza was discovered to be 90 degrees of temperature, a mere 30 degrees below what it should be, and the milk was 50 degrees, only 10 degrees above where it should be. Please note the sarcasm when describing the temperatures. These were dangerous temperatures, yet nothing was done until a second inspection was made. This inspection was done by an anonymous acquaintance of the Warrior Watcher. I will eventually post much more about the cafeteria system, and will also overview past crimes which occurred at them.

No DPS has not gotten me...yet

Sorry for the long absence. I, your friendly neighborhood Warrior Watcher, have been busy with classes and finals. But now all of that is done and I can get back to letting you know what is going on with the University. First of all, look through any back issues of the Marquette Tribune that you have for the last month or so, or just go to their website if you don't hoard back issues of the Tribune. The DPS reports have an interesting line in them, that being that DPS is now in its own words "detaining" suspects. As I am sure you are all aware, that is illegal for anyone to do for a non-citizen's arrest crime. Unfortunately the Tribune has not yet posted those reports online. However, when reading the articles I did note that none of the crimes which were committed were citizen's-arrest worthy. An example of another crime which DPS responded to which was not within their ability to do so, was an argument outside of the Dogg Haus on April 1. But our friendly neighborhood private security force with no respect for the law deemed it necessary to run over their and pretend like they were police. Here's a tip for all DPS officers, either become a cop, or stop acting like one.

Weekly DPS Criminal Report

Every week I will publish an analysis of the criminal activity committed by DPS as reported in the "DPS Reports" section in the Marquette Tribune. The first criminal action committed by DPS was on March 7 when they used surveillance cameras to track down a student who had committed vandalism. Since vandalism is a misdemeanor, and since DPS was not present at the scene of the crime it did not have the legal right to follow nor to detain the student. The next crime occurred on March 11, when DPS followed an individual who stole a car from a Marquette University parking lot. While DPS did have the legal right to detain the individual on Marquette University property, if the DPS officer saw the crime being committed. However, since the crime was observed through a video monitor, according to Circuit Court rulings in both Forgie-Buccioni vs. Hannaford Bros. and City of Everett v. Rhodes viewing criminal actions both on tape and live on video monitors does not constitute being present for the commission of a crime. As such, DPS was not present and its following of a suspect until it got a Mliwaukee Police officer to arrest the suspect, was an action which was outside of its legal bounds. On March 17 DPS stopped a car for driving through a red light, a municipal offense, then contacted MPD and had the driver arrested for OWI. While OWI is a serious enough offense to allow for citizens arrest in Wisconsin, DPS did not stop the driver for OWI, but rather for running a red light. Again DPS forgets its role as a private security force that has absolutely no legal jurisdiction and cannot under any circumstances act as a police force. A simple rule of thumb regarding DPS is that if an average citizen cannot act in any particular manner, then DPS cannot either. Since one cannot act as a one man police force, neither can DPS. Remember, do not fear DPS nor obey them, you are all free citizens and should never bow before private security forces and their supposed law enforcement actions.

Private Security Forces, aka DPS

Marquette University has a security force which is called the Department of Public Safety, DPS for short. The purpose of this force is to ostensibly protect the student body, which is surely why all of the officers need to carry semiautomatic pistols with them. DPS has over 400 cameras on campus, and in the campus area. Which is a wonderful thought, a private security force, which does not answer to the public, which has little to no oversight, having 400 cameras monitoring the movement of students and those who live in the general neighborhood of the university. Meaning that if one were to walk within a roughly 4 block radius of the heart of campus, 14th and Wisconsin Ave., one would be continually monitored, even though a majority of that radius is not the property of the university. Privacy advocates should take issue with this, but then again, privacy does not exist at private universities. Moreover, DPS admittedly uses these cameras to monitor the Marquette area for any and all criminal activity. Sure it's great to have friendly people with pistols monitoring your every move to see if you get mugged. Sounds like a great idea, until they illegally enter into homes to arrest people. Go outside of their legal bounds in order to "detain" people suspected of crimes until they are arrested by the Milwaukee Police Department.
Students at the university fail to realize that under Wisconsin State Law, Marquette's Department of Public Safety, cannot be a police force. It has absolutely no legal jurisdiction whatsoever. It can only act under the guise of cititzen's arrest, meaning that I and you have exactly the same rights as DPS does. Unless of course you are on MU's property, at which point in time it has a lot more rights. However, DPS acts as if it is a real police force. They drive around in faux police cars, with lights, they carry guns, have the police like laptops in their cars, and interrogate suspects. They admit to investigating crimes, which is of course illegal in Wisconsin.
So the next time a DPS car rolls by, just make sure you're not committing a felony, disorderly conduct, assault and/or battery, 4th degree or greater sexual assault, drunk driving, or illegally firing a weapon, and you're perfectly fine, because no they cannot stop you for violating open container laws (a city ordinance) or public drunkenness, or whatever you may be doing, such as sitting in a parked car (which happened to yours truly, in which I was asked by DPS why I was sitting in a parked car on a street, I happened to be wating for a roommate to show up to sign my lease).

Introduction

The purpose of this blog is going to be to monitor the activities at Marquette University in Milwaukee Wisconsin. This university, which labels itself as "Milwaukee's Catholic Jesuit University" rarely if ever fills up to its billing. The cost of the tuition, room, and board, is excessive for what one gets from the university. Moreover, this has absolutely nothing to do with being a Jesuit University. As such, as the "Warrior Watcher" I will compare the policies of this university to the teachings of St. Ignatius of Loyola. As an individual who has in depth knowledge of certain aspects of this university, I will hopefully add insight into the true nature of what thousands of people are paying $30,000 a year for. That is, a highly secular education which is rooted in profit margins, and greed, rather than "Cura Personalis" (care for the whole person). Another supposed motto of the university, as with all Jesuit schools is AMDG "Ad Majorem Dei Glorium" or for the greater glory of God. To which I retort, which part of paying $1200 a semester for food is promoting the glory of God? How exactly does this university actually live up to Jesuit ideals, or even the ideals of the Roman Catholic Church? I hope that everyone will enjoy this blog, as I point out the failings of the university, and hopefully this will lead to some progress towards recreating a university which once had a law school which was cheaper than that of UW-Madison.