How Marquette Starts With “Why”

As someone who works in Marquette’s Office of Marketing and Communication, I’m surrounded daily with positive messages and imagery about my school. It’s impossible to escape the content I see that tries to get prospecting students to attend, current students to take part, and alumni to donate. And the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ of what Marquette is about changes constantly between these motives and target audiences.

What stays the same, and what Marquette emphasizes the most, is the why of what we do. We do what we do because we believe that our students can Be The Difference. We do it because we are guided by our values, and we believe in the Jesuit mission of being men and women for others. While every metric should be looked at, anyone who’s familiar with Marquette knows that our beliefs and values mean more to us than the kinds of classes we offer, what our job placement percentage is, or the college ranking we have.

It’s more than just faith. Marquette focuses on trying to make the best student experience possible, and this is visible everywhere you look, whether it be social media or how we approach education. But this focus is all drawn from our core mission and beliefs, and no matter where you look, you’ll see it.

Marquette is definitely an organization that starts with the why. It’s what makes them stand out from the rest. When students have so many choices for college, they’re drawn to messages that really resonate with them, not so much statistics or figures. While numbers can tell you that we’re “better” than someone else, it’s the why that tells you why you should care.

Marquette always starts with the why, because it’s the why that defines us.