Commencement is just around the corner for thousands of college students in Milwaukee. At Marquette, some students are pushing back after the university announced that its graduation speaker this May will be Chris Duffey. He’s the head of AI products and platforms at Adobe.

To understand student reaction, WUWM education reporter Katherine Kokal spoke with Elena Metinidis, a reporter at Marquette’s student newspaper, who gathered reactions from students.

In 1993, five women decided to start and run Renaissance Theaterworks after recognizing the clear inequities professionals like them faced on stage and off. One of those women was Suzan Fete.

For more than three decades, Renaissance has championed women’s stories and careers and worked towards gender parity. Co-founder Suzan Fete has led the company as artistic director through over 200 productions and readings while fostering opportunities for women theater professionals. She'll be retiring this spring after directing one last show - “Barefoot in the Park.”

Milwaukee is fortunate to have some historic movie theaters still in operation - from the Oriental and Downer on the city’s east side, to the Avalon in Bay View. But the city was once home to many lavish movie palaces – with seats for thousands of movie goers.

For decades, these theaters lined the streets of downtown Milwaukee - but now, only a few remain. To learn more about the rise and fall of Milwaukee’s movie palaces, Lake Effect's Joy Powers is joined by historian Matthew Prigge, who wrote about it for this month’s Milwaukee Magazine.