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Missed free throws spell defeat for men’s basketball
EDITORIAL: MU courses should integrate practical interactive components
Greek life heats up with annual Brew City Stomp Down
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2010, 2011, 2012 SPJ Award-Winning Newspaper
Volume 98, Number 40
www.marquettewire.org/tribune
Thursday, February 20, 2014
25 MU staff members receive layoffs Cuts made as part of effort to reduce future increases in tuition By Joe Kaiser
joseph.kaiser@marquette.edu
Marquette is eliminating 25 staff positions in an effort to cut costs, announced Interim University President the Rev. Robert A. Wild in a letter to faculty and staff Wednesday. No faculty positions are affected. Andrew Brodzeller, associate director of university communication, said he could not provide specific details about the positions being cut, but did confirm that supervisors were in the process Wednesday of informing the 25 employees their time at Marquette is ending. “Decisions such as these are among the toughest we face as university leaders,” Wild said in the letter. “Although Marquette has operated with positive margins for the past 16 years, they have remained thin. The decisions announced today are steps we must take to ensure the university’s long-term fiscal health.” See Layoffs, Page 4
Tribune file photo
Interim president the Rev. Robert A. Wild said in a letter to faculty Wednesday the layoffs were necessary to prevent a large increase in tuition next year.
Recent seasons see slip in men’s basketball crowds Number of students at games decreasing since 2006-07 season
Poor attendance at games hitting home for MU SuperFans
By Andrew Dawson
By Patrick Leary
National Marquette Day drew a crowd of 18,644 fans, the second largest crowd of the season, to watch the men’s basketball team defeat Xavier, according to Marquette Athletics. But this is not the norm. The average attendance for Marquette’s home games stands at 15,255 for the 2013-14 season so far, with Wednesday’s Creighton game attracting 15,539 fans. While the number is a slight increase from the 14,778 mean last season, average attendance for men’s basketball experienced a 9 percent drop between the 2006-07 and 2012-13 seasons.
Moments before Marquette’s basketball game against Providence Jan. 30, Spencer Bonahoom looked behind him, and what he saw from his front row seat was disappointing. “You just turn around and you see that the lower bowl’s not even full in the student section,” Bonahoom said. “We sort of laugh it off, but it’s kind of frustrating. It’s like, ‘Well, should we even be yelling as loud?’” Bonahoom, a senior in the College of Business Administration, is the president of SuperFans, a student organization that works “closely with
andrew.dawson@marquette.edu
See Attendance, Page 4
patrick.leary@marquette.edu
Photo by J. Matthew Serafin/matthew.serafin@marquette.edu
INDEX
CALENDAR...........................2 DPS REPORTS......................2 CLASSIFIEDS........................5
See MUBB, Page 11
So far, this year saw a slight increase in average attendance, but not enough to match numbers seven years ago.
MARQUEE...................6 VIEWPOINTS..............8 SPORTS.......................10
NEWS
VIEWPOINTS
SPORTS
eLIMO
Fransen
Killian
MU students work to create electric-powered LIMO. PAGE 4
Malicious protagonists are an unsettling trend in television. PAGE 8
U.S.-Canada matchup could be best game of the Olympics. PAGE 11