“Privilege and Opportunity” will be the theme of Butler University’s Founder’s Week 2016, which will be celebrated across campus from February 7-13.

One hundred and sixty-one years ago, Butler University was founded on the principles of diversity, equality, innovation, and access. Those characteristics are still vital today as the University seeks to recapture and reclaim the values of Ovid Butler.

The University will celebrate with these public activities:

Sunday, February 7

• 2:00 PM, Women’s Basketball, Butler vs. Providence. A limited number of Founder’s Week T-shirts will be distributed.

Monday, February 8

• 2:00 PM, kickoff event, Irwin Library. A class photo including Gertrude Mahorney (Butler’s first African-American graduate, in 1887) will be unveiled. Also on display will be an art exhibit featuring the work of students from Shortridge International Baccalaureate High School.

Butler University Founder’s Week 2016

Wednesday, February 10

• Noon, Johnson Room (Robertson Hall), panel discussion, “Campus Speech: Free or Filtered? Privilege or Opportunity?” Part of the First Wednesdays series presented by ACLU of Indiana.

The impassioned anti-war activism of 1968 showed the power of campus speech on policies, actions and how we talk and think about the underlying issues. Recent protests for movements like LGBT rights and #BlackLivesMatter demonstrate that campus speech is alive and well. Or is it? Has the movement on campuses toward speech-free “safe spaces” and trigger warnings for potentially offensive content jeopardized the free and open exchange of ideas? Are we still allowed to express our opinions and question what is deemed politically correct, or is it better to remain silent? Is it a privilege just to have the right to speak up? What opportunities lie before us?

Friday, Feb. 12

• 2:00-4:30 PM, screening of documentary film “Tested” by Curtis Chin, in Pharmacy Building 156.

In New York City, where blacks and Hispanics make up 70% of school-aged youth, they represent less than 5% at the city’s most elite public high schools. “Tested” follows a dozen racially and socio-economically diverse 8th-graders as they fight for a seat at one of these schools. Their only way in: to ace a single standardized test. “Tested” explores such issues as access to a high-quality public education, affirmative action, and the model-minority myth. The screening will be followed by discussion by filmmaker Curtis Chin.

Saturday, Feb. 13

• 2:30 PM, Men’s Basketball, Butler vs. Xavier. A limited number of Founder’s Week T-shirts will be distributed.

 

Media contact:
Marc Allan
mallan@butler.edu
317-940-9822