Alec Brooks studies journalism at Marquette University, oversees copy-editing for the Marquette Tribune and other student publications, and writes for the Tribune. Previously, he wrote for the Lake Mills Leader and produced stories for Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service.
Highlights
Marquette Student Government has more than $250,000 in its reserve fund - more than five times times the amount required by MUSG's financial policies - with no plans in place to use it. The reserve is MUSG's largest account.
Review of "Uncommon Folk" exhibit at the Milwaukee Art Museum for "Covering the Arts."
A new pump and irrigation system have been installed at Fondy Food Center’s farm to deal with months of drought that have left fields almost empty.
Parking enforcement officers issued 15,390 parking citations in 2012 on campus, making it the most heavily cited school campus in the city. (With Erin Heffernan)
Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service
The Carmen High School of Science and Technology has been working with future neighbors on the north side as it prepares its new campus.
The MPS Arts Internship Program gave 58 area high school students the chance to work at an arts organization during the summer.
Students from Our Next Generation, local organizations and the neighborhood had a chance to explore 30 careers by talking with local volunteers.
The International Learning Center at Neighborhood House is the latest group to install a Little Free Library, making it easy for students and neighbors to borrow books.
Eugene Kotowski has participated in Fourth of July parades for 70 years, starting a tradition that continues with his nieces, nephews, children and grandchildren.
The Boys and Girls Clubs of Milwaukee partnered with the Hillside Family Resource Center for the first time to host the clubs’ annual walk and health fair.
When the Supreme Court upheld the healthcare reform bill, I and six others reported on its impact to Milwaukeeans the same day.
Urban Ecology Center’s new location in Layton Boulevard West won’t open until September, but neighborhood residents are already on board.
Arts @ Large works with public schools to provide an arts education for all their students by empowering teachers and putting them in contact with artists.
Layton Boulevard West Neighbors recently took 60 potential buyers on a bus tour of six homes in the community.
Students from Westside Academy II marched alongside community members in a peace rally that concluded with the dedication of a memorial garden for victims of violence.
Safe and Sound's Lauren Thrift works with teenage burglars to show them the impact of their crimes by bringing them face-to-face with the community they wronged.
Classmate Ryan Ellerbusch and I produced two stories about the Next Door Foundation, a Milwaukee nonprofit that runs after-school and adult education programs.
Student Media
Marquette University announced benefits to the same-sex spouses of faculty and staff, in the wake of controversy surrounding the aborted hiring of a lesbian dean.
Through stories from places as distant as Sudan and as close as Minnesota, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and Marquette alumna Jacqui Banaszynski addressed Marquette students, faculty and fellow alumni last Thursday about the role of compassion in journalism.
Centered on the theme of identity, 13 acts performed at Justice and Java, an open mic night, on Feb. 14. From a small men’s choir to lone poets, students looked at social justice from a personal level.
Theodore Fontaine was only seven when he was taken from his family to attend a boarding school designed to remove any trace of his Native American identity. The anti-Indian messages he endured left him with a sense of shame about being Ojibwa, leading to substance abuse and despair.
Problems like large-scale protests and natural disasters happening in other countries often seem remote and distant to Marquette students, but for students studying abroad they become an issue of personal safety.
Videography