Northern Michigan University and the City of Marquette Arts and Culture Center will be joining forces this year to increase its community involvement, starting off with an open house event.
The event will be taking place from 4 to 7 p.m. Tuesday Feb. 4 at the Peter White Public Library. ASNMU will be representing the university with their own display table showing their commitment to the furthering of this relationship.
ASNMU academic affairs chairman Vito Giannola and the City of Marquette said the open house event will be a great way for students and the community to get together and start collaborating student art within the area.
“NMU and the City of Marquette have had a long standing history and this new opportunity gives us the option to fully prosper in the 21st century,” Marquette City Manager, Bill Vajda said. “The most important resource we have in capturing the hearts and minds of our community comes from the great brains here at NMU. What we want to see is what these great brains can bring to the economy and community in order to prosper, grow and hopefully eventually settle in Marquette.”
According to Vajda, the new Arts and Culture Master Plan the city created aims at upping the city’s image and perspective right from the first impression.
“What you can do here in Marquette, you can almost do anywhere else,” Vajda said.
The city is looking to increase the quality of living and amenities available to make the city of Marquette stand out and attract bright new minds to the area.
“With this new master plan, we can help create the future for the next 25 to 30 years,” Vajda said.
Giannola is not only focused on what NMU can do for the community, but vice versa.
“It’s a norm to earn a college degree,” Giannola said. “The extra that is needed is the experience, the involvement and those things come from volunteering, internships or planning an event. What this opportunity does is gives students a chance to apply what they learn in a classroom to real life, to help give them that extra needed step in order to succeed.”
Not only are Giannola and ASNMU working to increase student involvement within arts and culture, they’re also working to have more NMU students claim Marquette as home.
“We want to get the vote out whether students want to register to vote or become citizens of Marquette,” Giannola said.
Currently the NMU student population makes up about a third of Marquette’s total population.
Freshman art and design major Winter Rafferty and Marquette local, is excited for the potential growth.
“This idea is excellent,” Rafferty said. “With everything Marquette already has to offer, one more positive initiative like this just gives people one more reason to come and move to Marquette. Increasing outlets of arts and culture and diversifying the area is exactly what we need.”
ASNMU will be holding a “Let’s Chat” session Thursday, Feb. 20 at the UC. City commissioners and Arts and Culture representatives will be available to help answer questions.
To contact ASNMU, call (906) 227-2452 or email [email protected]. The ASNMU office is located in Room 1203 of the University Center.
