OPINIONS

Tuesday, February 1, 2022

The MarqueTTe Tribune OpiniOns

PAGE 10

Aimee Galaszewski, Executive Director Benjamin Wells, Managing Editor of The Marquette Tribune Skyler Chun, Managing Editor of The Marquette Journal

ediTorial board

Alexandra Garner, Executive Opinions Editor Hope Moses, Assistant Opinions Editor

Megan Woolard, News Executive John Leuzzi, Sports Executive Randi Haseman, A&E Executive Lelah Byron, Projects Editor Eleanor McCaughey, Copy Chief Grace Pionek, Design Chief Izzy Bonebrake, Executive Photo Editor Nancy Flaherty, Social Media Executive Andrew Amouzou, Station Manager of MUTV Reese Seberg, Station Manager of MURadio Alex Rivera Grant, Editor of Diversity and Inclusion

STAFF EDITORIAL MUPD must do better, promptly inform campus

Marquette University Police Department has a responsibility to promptly inform the Marquette community of incidents on campus, regardless of their threat status.

A Milwaukee Police Department officer who responded to a welfare check of an individual sitting in a car at 21st Street and St. Paul Avenue was shot during the evening of Jan. 27.

The officer and the suspect exchanged fire. Then the suspect stole the officer’s car, drove it and crashed it into another vehicle on 17th Street and Clybourn Avenue. The suspect fled the scene, but was taken into custody by MPD on 17th Street and Wisconsin Avenue near McCabe Hall, Humphrey Hall and The Commons, where many Marquette students live.

Many MPD and MUPD vehicles lined up on 17th Street near these buildings, red and blue lights flashed and caution tape was strung up.

Students were alarmed and panicked as they looked out of their residence hall and apartment windows. With no information from MUPD, students were left to speculate about what was happening and potentially spread misinformation to other students. Many sent text messages to their friends and peers trying to figure out if it was safe to go outside.

MUPD did not send out any information to students at the beginning of this time.

Police officers were dispatched around 6:30 p.m. and arrived on the scene before 7 p.m. However, the first communication from MUPD was a safety alert at 7 p.m. Jan. 27 that said, “Situation stabilized, No threat to campus.”

MUPD sent a safety alert at 7 p.m. Jan. 27.

There was no information about the “situation,” leaving students and parents who have opted into safety alerts confused about what situation had been stabilized.

One student said they saw someone getting put into an ambulance; another student said they saw someone carrying an assault rifle.

Not providing adequate and timely information can create just as much panic as keeping students informed if there was an active threat to campus.

The next MUPD alert was sent at 7:16 p.m.: “MUPD assisting MPD. No active threat to campus. Stay away from police investigation west of 16th Street.”

The third MUPD alert was sent at 8:29 p.m.: “Continued police presence on campus due to MPD investigation of non-MU incident. Situation is stable and no active threat to campus.”

If MUPD would have sent out this information when they first arrived on the scene, students could have been put at ease and not left wondering about the safety of their friends and themselves.

Students deserve to know what is happening on campus, even if there is not an active threat. When people see over a dozen police vehicles and caution tape, it is not unreasonable for them to think there is a threat on campus. MUPD could have easily said that they were assessing a situation when they arrived on the scene.

Marquette University Police Chief Edith Hudson released a statement Jan. 28 to discuss the situation that happened Thursday night.

Hudson assured the Marquette community that there was no active threat to campus, and that MUPD was assisting MPD with an investigation of the shooting.

“During an active investigation, ensuring the safety of our community and the accuracy of information is critical,” Hudson said in the statement. “We communicated as soon as we could through social media and text that there was no threat to campus and that we were assisting MPD.”

Later in the statement, Hudson advised students, faculty and staff to opt into text messaging safety alerts, download the Eagle Eye app and follow the MUPD Twitter account for updates.

The statement said that MUPD posts updates on Twitter “in real time.” However, the tweet had the same message verbatim as the safety alert and was sent out on Twitter at the same time as the text message at 7 p.m.

MUPD needs to consider how students are feeling, and not leave them in the dark. Instead, they should be proactive rather than reactive with their communication.

Additionally, failing to be transparent can cause parents to panic. With no information and many not being near Marquette, parents don’t have insight into what’s happening on campus and they will likely worry about the safety of their children.

MUPD’s lack of transparency has been an ongoing issue.

MUPD sent a safety email March 14, 2021 about a male individual who was threatening and striking women in the Marquette area.

The March 14 message was the first direct communication with the Marquette community, despite the individual engaging in

more than one violent incident on campus prior to the MUPD safety email; the individual was also seen in Mashuda Hall the week before where he threw a water bottle at a desk receptionist. MUPD also failed to provide timely information Feb. 16, 2020 when a bullet entered a study room of Wells Street Hall in The Commons. A safety alert was sent to students nearly 40 minutes after the incident, merely saying that shots were fired near North 17th Street and West Highland Avenue. MUPD did not say a residence hall had been affected until nearly an hour and a half later. Another incident occurred October 2019 when MUPD and Marquette failed to provide information about a Marquette student who was missing for five days. Although the university said the incident was a family matter and wasn’t supposed to be public, the missing student’s friends did not keep the incident private, so MUPD should have communicated with the Marquette community to seek involvement in locating him. MUPD needs to reassess what they deem necessary to share with students. Failing to provide information in a timely manner is putting the safety of campus at risk, not protecting it. Movie industry must be mindful of ongoing pandemic

Krisha Patel

Although it seems the world is returning to a sense of normalcy, large industries like the film industry have a responsibility to take into account a changing COVID-19 landscape when deciding on movie releases.

The most recent Marvel Studios movie, “Spider-Man: No Way Home,”was released Dec. 2021 grossing $1.6 billion and ranking as number six on the box office list. Although it was the highest grossing movie yet to come out of the COVID-19 pandemic, its release during the height of the omicron variant may have contributed to a rise in cases.

Movie theaters play a key role for not adhering to COVID-19 guidelines. Some theaters require masks and/or proof of vaccination, while others don’t. And even when theaters check COVID-19 vaccination proof or negative COVID-19 tests, they often don’t o verify the information with a form of ID. Many also don’t implement social distancing in the theaters, making it easier to spread COVID-19 if people aren’t wearing masks to eat and drink, or at all.

Additionally, for such an anticipated movie as “SpiderMan: No Way Home,” many theaters were likely packed to capacity.

The movie prior to “No Way Home,” “Spider-Man: Far from Home,” came out in June 2019 and left off on a cliffhanger, making fans more excited to see the next movie which was still slated for its original December 2021 release date. And with the movie coming out during the holiday season, there was likely to be a high viewership in the theaters.

Social media was also not a huge help during this tim. Instead of encouraging people to stay home and wait until it was safer to see the movie or even wait until the movie could be streamed or bought at home, lead actors of the movie Tom Holland and Zendaya encouraged people to buy tickets early and see it in theaters.

With the current rise of COVID-19 cases and a lack of enforcement of health guidelines in theaters, “SpiderMan: No Way Home” should’ve been pushed to a later release date. Being flexible and cognizant of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the rise of omicron cases, would have been a safer choice for a lot of people and could have led to possibly even more anticipation of the release; with omicron cases expected to plateau or decline in the near future, more people may have felt comfortable going to movie theaters and there would be less spread of COVID-19.

Postponing movie release dates is not a new adjustment.

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, “A Quiet Place Part II” was held and released in May 2021, instead of its original release date in March 2020.

Another popular change has been sending movies straight to streaming services instead of movie theaters at all.

The live action Disney remake of “Mulan” was originally slated to come out in March 2020, but because of the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the movie came out on instead Disney+ in August 2020.

If movie theaters were determined to have “Spider-Man: No Way Home” released in theaters, they should have enforced COVID-19 precautions.

To help prevent the rise of COVID-19 cases, movie theaters could have better enforced social distancing and face masks and verified proof of vaccination status and negative COVID-19 tests.

They should continue these practices in the future, as big blockbuster movies like “The Batman,” “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” and “Avatar 2” are expected to come to theaters this year.

Movie theaters need to take higher precautions instead of solely focusing on the revenue the movie is going to make and be advocates of people’s health and safety. While a new and exciting movie is always fun to look forward to, the changing COVID-19 pandemic should be central to industry decisions as well.

Rethinking New Year’s resolutions, mental health

Grace Cady

The new year can be an idyllic opportunity to have a fresh start and set new resolutions.

Especially with challenges like the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, a heated political climate, persisting social injustices and a worsening climate, reflecting can be important to personal growth and health. However, sticking to resolutions can be difficult.

We are almost one month into 2022, which means it’s likely that about 80% of resolutions have already failed. This number may seem disappointing, but it’s important to understand why so many resolutions fail in order to make them succeed.

Some of the most common resolutions include exercising more, being more organized and living life to the fullest. These can mean largely different things to different people. One main issue with these resolutions is that they’re so generalized. When we aspire to “exercise more,” the “more” is very relative. More could mean five days a week, once a month or one more hour a day than one normally does. The same idea applies for being “more organized.” Even more so, “live life the fullest” can mean a million different things. Instead, we should focus on setting concrete, tangible goals rather than resolutions.

This can come in many different forms. Whether it be writing down how many days of the week specifically we want to workout, aiming to organize particular areas of our life and accounting for how we can do that or making a list of things that make you happy which we can commit to doing in order to live your life to the fullest for you. That’s where the process to make resolutions more positive and achievable can begin.

Author and journalist Ashley Stahl wrote an article for Forbes about setting goals in the new year. Five specific tips that she gave to achieve our 2022 goals are to reflect over all areas of our life, write down our goals, post goals where we can see Although self-growth is “ important... we should also give ourselves more grace and move forward.”

them, tell a friend and be flexible with ourselves.

It is important not to attach our self-worth or contentment to whether or not we follow through on our resolutions and goals. Although self-growth is important, in the event that we fall behind on our to-do list or are not “making every moment count,” we should also give ourselves grace and move forward. Additionally, if we set a goal that isn’t serving us anymore, we should feel free to let go of it.

Another element that comes into play with the progress of our goals is how it affects our mental health. If there are setbacks or we fall short of what we want to achieve in the year, it can create phases of anxiety or depression. Instead, we should strive to set goals to improve our mental health so that these kinds of setbacks do not affect us as strongly.

In an article from the Priory Group, a private mental health and addiction organization, there is some advice for how to focus on our psychological wellbeing and mental health in the new year.

It is important for people to limit alcohol intake and avoid drugs; This may seem glaringly obvious, but especially for college students alcohol and drugs can go hand in hand with socialization and party culture.

Another important step is to take care of ourselves physically. Physical and mental health can have direct connections, so we should strive to incorporate some of those stereotypical exercise and diet goals into our 2022 in order to look after our mental state. Another goal to make in the new year could be to cut back on our use of social media. This can help us all focus on ourselves and not be strained by comparison.

All of these issues are important to consider. Being nearly a month into the new year, it is a good time to reflect on resolutions we’ve made and consider turning them into measurable, positive goals if they are not already. In order to keep consistency and contentment, we should also not put too much weight on whether or not we achieve everything we have in mind for this year; but let’s do what we can.

Grace Cady is a sophomore studying Journalism. She can be be reached at grace.cady@mar-

quette.edu

Congress profit privilege unethical

Laura Niezgoda

Five hundred and thirtyfive members of the United States House of Representatives and the Senate are supposed to speak for the American people as Congress, but most do not truly represent the people they claim to speak for on the political stage.

Seventy percent of congressional members attended graduate schools, 95% worked white-collar jobs and 80% possessed previous political power before joining Congress. Many of these opportunities are out of reach of everyday Americans, therefore determining Congress as the unofficial ruling class of the American people.

America deserves public servants who are competent, but currently most of those in power abuse it and focus on their personal pursuit of profit.

Congress has the duty to debate and negotiate policies that affect everyday life, including economic policies. Like every American, members of Congress also have the opportunity to engage in the free market, more widely known as the stock market.

These practices pose a problem, as Congress knows when or if specific policies would be put into place that would affect the stock market before the general public does, giving them an unfair advantage.

This practice is called “insider trading,”which is illegal in the U.S. and has seen multiple revisions to expand its enforcement. First and inequality displayed in Congress, and 27 lawmakers have signed a letter to ban owning and

trading stocks while in office.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi spoke out against this in December, saying that America is a free market and Congress should be able to participate in that.

However, it should be noted that TikTok users watch Pelosi and her husband closely to follow their stock market exchanges, calling her a “psychic” and the “queen of stocks.”

After criticism, Pelosi recently said she’d be open to negotiation regarding changing the law but stressed that she trusted her fellow lawmakers.

The congressional approval rating is currently low, according to Gallup, as 73% of Americans disapprove of how Congress is handling its job.

Congress members are not above the law and their financial practices should be dealt with differently regarding stocks, as they have access that the average citizen lacks to sensitive information and can

push for different policies that would positively affect their stock profits.

Simply giving their financial holdings over to an independent third party that would make the Congress members’ financial decisions for them would not fix the problem and have no communication regarding their stocks, as the current system of disclosure is not working. How can Congress be expected to obey this no communication if they cannot disclose their holdings now?

Members of Congress should not be allowed to own or sell stocks and instead should focus on their governmental job of serving the people.

According to The Economist, 70% of Democratic voters and 78% of Republican voters believe that Congress should be banned from trading individual stocks. This change could help the

with President Ronald Reagan in 1988, and then with President Barack Obama in 2012 with the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, otherwise known as the STOCK Act.

The STOCK Act prohibits Congress from using non-public information for their personal gains, thereby requiring members of Congress and their immediate families to disclose their trades on the stock market within 45 days of making them.

Recently, it seems as though some members of Congress have been violating the terms of the law.

Fifty-four Congress members were found to violate the STOCK Act due to oversight and error by accountants or clerks throughout 2021. Some of these “errors” amass to millions of dollars worth of stock trades. Members of note include Senator Rand Paul, whose wife bought into Gilead Sciences, a company that now makes a COVID-19 antiviral drug, and Senator David Perdue, who bought into Pfizer and Netflix. Both of these exchanges happened early on in the COVID-19 pandemic or before. Representative John Yarmouth bought cannabis stock while promoting bills that would support the budding industry.

Congress sold more than $364 million worth of assets last year. The punishment for violating the STOCK Act is only $200. This $200 fine is barely a dent into their salaries, as a congressional member has an average salary of $174,000.

Some members of Congress, such as Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have spoken out against the unfairness

Photo by Alexandra Garner alexandra.garner@marquette.edu

The STOCK Act has been a recent topic of discussion in Congress. American people gain trust in their lawmakers again, as it could bring bipartisan approval.

The disparity between the American people and Congress is apparent, as Congress seems to favor the need for business and their profit over their responsibilities as public servants.

We, as Americans, should be able to trust our lawmakers and have faith that they are advocating for issues that would benefit the people, not themselves.

They are public servants to the American people. They work for the American people. They are the voice of the American people.

Congress’ actions must reflect that.

Laura Niezgoda is a sophomore studying communication studies and criminology and law studies. She can be reached at

laura.niezgoda@marquette.edu

Statement of Opinion Policy

The opinions expressed on the Opinions page reflect the opinions of the Opinions staff. The editorials do not represent the opinions of Marquette University nor its administrators, but those of the editorial board.

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