The Marquette Tribune
Opinions
Tuesday, December 7, 2021
PAGE 10
Editorial Board
Alexandra Garner, Executive Opinions Editor Hope Moses, Assistant Opinions Editor Aimee Galaszewski, Executive Director Benjamin Wells, Managing Editor of The Marquette Tribune Skyler Chun, Managing Editor of The Marquette Journal
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 Kate Hyland, 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
MU community should foster inclusive community for student-athletes
While student-athletes are often known around Marquette University’s campus for playing on the field or court, they are still students first. The Marquette community must work to change the campus culture and create a more inclusive environment for student-athletes in the student body. The culture of sports often calls for athletes to spend a lot of time with their teammates, whether that is living together, eating together or spending time together outside of practice and games. While spending the majority of time together can improve team chemistry, students, faculty and staff should work to make sure studentathletes feel they can be part of the Marquette community beyond playing sports. Many student-athletes are often glorified and praised by the rest of the student population. While these interactions are positive, they may create a divide between the student-
Krisha Patel When COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization in March 2020, everyone was advised to stay at home to prevent the spread of the life-threatening virus. That is, everyone except for essential workers, such as health care workers, protective service workers and grocery store workers. Health care workers, specifically nurses, reported being “overworked” and “exhausted” during the pandemic. However, despite all their hard work, the current salary nurses
Photo via Flickr
athletes and students. Students can work to break down the barriers with student-athletes by making efforts to talk to them in classrooms and on campus, as well as inviting them to participate in or join student organizations. Students can also attend outreach events hosted around Marquette. The Marquette men’s basketball team has always hosted several lunches this semester for students who are season ticket holders for the Marquette men’s basketball team. The Marquette men’s basketball team also invited season ticket holders to watch a preseason practice in Fiserv Forum in October. While hosting these types of events work to bridge gaps between student-athletes and student ticket holders, there should also be efforts to engage students who are non-ticket holders as well. An example of this was the 5K fun run hosted by student-athletes in November to support University
President Michael Lovell through his diagnosis with sarcoma. Another example was when the head coaches of the men’s basketball team and the women’s basketball team, Shaka Smart and Megan Duffy joined Marquette University President Michael Lovell and Sendik’s Fresh2Go owner Ted Balistreri to hand out donated breakfasts to students on the first day of classes for the fall 2021 semester. A couple other examples of more engagement with non-student-athletes were the block party hosted by Marquette University Athletics in July, and the Rally the Valley event hosted by the Marquette men’s lacrosse team in April 2019. Hosting more events like this can not only increase the visibility of student-athletes and coaches on campus, but it can also create more opportunities for engagement with other members of the Marquette community. Another way to engage Mar-
quette students with student-athletes is through outreach with the Milwaukee community. This September, the Marquette women’s basketball team partnered with the University of WisconsinMilwaukee women’s basketball team and the Milwaukee Police Department to host a free basketball clinic at North Side Washington Park. The Marquette men’s basketball team also hosted a Haunted Hoops event this October, where it played an intersquad scrimmage in front of fans who could also participate in a costume contest and trick-or-treat. The men’s basketball team also went to the Salvation Army in Waukesha last month to help prepare and serve dinner on Thanksgiving, and donated gifts to the team’s adopted class at St. Catherine’s School. Marquette’s campus should explore more ways that studentathletes and non-student-athletes can engage and serve in the Milwaukee community.
An example of this occurred last September, when Marquette studentathletes joined students, coaches, faculty and staff in a march for social inequality and injustice from the Athletic and Human Performance Research Center to Valley Fields. Creating more connections across campus, especially between studentathletes and non-student-athletes, as well as with the Milwaukee community is important to fostering more unity, as well as encouraging more understanding and meaningful relationships. It is important that everyone part of the Marquette community does their part to uphold “cura personalis,” and care for studentathletes beyond the field and court. While progress has been made, there is a clear divide between student-athletes and non-student-athletes on Marquette’s campus. This gap can be bridged if all students, faculty and staff make intentional efforts to engage across campus and the Milwaukee community.
get doesn’t reflect all the work they put in to save people’s lives. Even in a pandemic, their salary has barely gone up. There has only been an increase of 6.2% in salary, or $6,730, according to Nurse Journal. Furthermore, there is a current shortage of nurses, further worsened by the pandemic. Data shows that due to the severity of the pandemic, 18% of health careworkers have quit their job. There is always a shortage and many nurses actually report quitting due to unfair wages that don’t reflect all the work they put in and lives that they have helped to save. The role of a nurse is to be at the patient’s bedside upon admission to the hospital to even after the patient
leaves. Nurses often perform a medical background history and physical exams, monitor changes to the patient’s body, administer medications and treatments and collaborate with a team for proper care. They even provide care for the family of the patient with counseling, support and education. Marquette University’s mission statement provided by the College of Nursing states that, “nurse leaders to promote health, healing and social justice for all people through clinical practice and development of nursing knowledge.” Nurses work on average 40 hours a week, with shifts as long as 12 hours. The starting salary for nurses is $75,000. Certain specialties within the field of nursing can make more, such as critical care nurses as they are on the frontline and the patients have sudden, life-threatening injuries. During the pandemic, nurses have to work at least 10 hours overtime with shift changes and more sick patients as a result of the high transmission rate of COVID-19. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 1.2 million people have been hospitalized with COVID-19 through the year 2020. While nurses deserve a pay raise, it doesn’t accurately reflect just how important they are, especially during 2020. They have continued to
deal with understaffing, a lack of personal protective equipment, excessive numbers of patients, increase in deaths and putting their lives at risk everyday. Other medical professions have experienced the same thing in terms of raises during the pandemic. Physician salaries went up $6,000, or about 3%, which doesn’t accurately reflect the work that they are putting in during this time. Nurses go to school for three to four years to become registered. During those years, the coursework is often fast-paced and rigorous, followed by many hours spent at clinical sites to perfect their skills. Some examples included classes heavily based on anatomy, disease processes, drug classes and priority nursing interventions. Without pursuing additional education, such as graduate or medical school to become a health care provider, nurses will only make a minimum raise of $12 more during their career, which potentially won’t even reach six figures. Additionally, the lower pay mostly affects female nurses. In the field, 87% of nurses are female. With the shortage of male nurses and to attract more males into the profession, they are given a significant wage increase of $6,000.
Nurses make up an integral part of the health care team. Without an adequate amount of nurses, many other members of the medical staff would not be able to do their job. While doctors diagnose and prescribe, nurses carry out the orders of health care providers such as identify the complications of the disease or injury, administer medications, change wound dressings, and care for the overall wellbeing of the patient. Doctors would not be able to treat their patients around the clock, surgeries wouldn’t take place and hidden complications may be overlooked in patients resulting in often fatal results. Increasing wages will have more benefits to nursing beyond improving their financial situations. It will make nurses feel more valued for their role as part of the health care team as well as in patient and family lives. It ensures stronger job security which is crucial after going through the COVID-19 pandemic, having more nurses employed will help keep any potential disease outbreaks under control. Nurses are an important factor to why the COVID-19 pandemic is almost over and it’s imperative that they get the appreciation for all that they’ve done.
Nurses deserve higher pay
A sign shows appreciation for health care workers during the pandemic.
Krisha Patel is a junior studying nursing and Spanish for the health professions. She can be reached at krisha.patel@marquette.edu
