One thing Michael Lovell has learned about Marquette University since starting as president on July 1 is that there are many people on campus who have great pride in the institution and who want to make it better.

“There’s a lot of penned up energy,” Lovell said during an “On the Issues with Mike Gousha” session at Eckstein Hall on Tuesday. “People have some great ideas and they’re just waiting to go . . . For some reason or other, they just didn’t feel empowered to take those great ideas and just make them happen.”

That will be one of his main goals, Lovell said: Providing the resources and guidance for fresh ways to improve Marquette in all its aspects.

But Lovell held off on giving many specifics on what his agenda will be. For one thing, he said he is planning to unveil some plans during the events marking his inauguration next week. He reiterated previous statements that filling “a lot of open senior positions,” as he put it, is his first priority. “It is so important to get the right thought leaders in place.”

Past, present, future—the Summer 2014 Marquette Lawyer focuses its attention on important and interesting facets of all three. But let us draw your attention to it foremost for its thoughts on the future, including:

The future of campaign spending. In the cover story, Heather K. Gerken, the J. Skelly Wright Professor at Yale Law School, examines the impact of the Citizens United decision of 2010, in The Real Problem with Citizens United: Campaign Finance, Dark Money, and Shadow Parties. Based on her Boden Lecture last fall at Marquette Law School, Gerken suggests that the case’s most important result could be a gulf between the elites involved in national political campaigns and the rank and file party members who have historically been the backbone of the parties. The article may be found by clicking here.