The CUE Gets a Makeover; Adds an ‘S’ to Promote Sustainability, Put Work Into Action
PUBLISHED ON Apr 18 2019
INDIANAPOLIS--The Center for Urban Ecology at Butler University started 15 years ago. It was the brainchild of three biology faculty members who were all engaged in urban ecology research. They wanted to get undergrads involved in research, too, so decided to start a center as a way to get students more engaged.
But, as time marched on, the center grew. A farm was established. Last year, 10,000 pounds of produce were grown. And the center is now involved in six research projects across campus.
A major question remained, though—how could the center make even more of an impact?
To address exactly that, the CUE has added a letter—S. Now, 15 years later, the center will be called the Center for Urban Ecology and Sustainability, or CUES. The goals are twofold: use the work the center is already doing—studying urban ecosystems—to solve sustainability challenges, while also serving as the central hub to bring all the sustainability-centered projects happening around campus together.
“There is so much important work already taking place around Butler, from rain gardens, to infrastructure improvements, to LEED gold buildings. We want to leverage all of that work to educate students,” says Julia Angstmann, Director of CUES. “At the same time, we want to use our research findings to inform how to solve sustainability challenges the entire world is facing.”
For example, Angstmann explains, the center is involved in the Indy Wildlife Watch research project. The project monitors wildlife around the city in an effort to study how increased populations in cities impact these organisms.
Instead of just doing the research for science’s sake, Angstmann explains, the goal now is to use the findings to solve existing sustainability challenges.
“We plan on engaging in conversations with city planners, for example, and explaining to them that our research from the Indy Wildlife Watch project showed we should manage green spaces in a certain way, so both humans and wildlife can benefit,” Angstmann says. “We now want to use our research to solve sustainability challenges.”
In addition to research projects, the center will continue to focus on the farm and sustainability projects. The main shift, though, will be incorporating sustainability into all three areas. To help with that effort, CUES has hired a new Assistant Director of Sustainability, Jamie Valentine.
Valentine says she plans on continuing with existing sustainability projects, such as recycle-mania, permeable pavement on campus, and growing native plants. She wants to bring action steps to Butler’s commitment to become carbon neutral by 2050.
She is also excited to get the wider campus community more involved with sustainability.
“When we talk about sustainability, we are talking about the interaction of people, the planet, and profit,” Valentine says. “We are looking at the system in which we all live, and the way real world problems are all interconnected. We cannot just look at one side of a problem or issue, fix one thing, put it back into the system in which we all live, and expect it to be solved. To have a truly sustainable system that will work for everyone for the long term, we need to look at all connections and relationships, and work on fixing them all.”
To do that, Valentine hopes to get the wider campus more involved. One idea she plans on implementing is a Sustainability Green Office Program for staff and faculty to help incorporate new sustainability initiatives into offices and classrooms around Butler’s campus.
Sustainability will also be incorporated into more internships and research projects—staying true to the original reason the center was started 15 years ago.
Jake Gerard ‘20 is one of those students. The biology major has been involved in CUES for two years. After an internship over the summer at a wildlife center in Ohio, Gerard became increasingly fascinated by that type of work. He returned to Butler wanting to get more involved in wildlife research.
“I knew I wanted to do research, but I didn’t want to be in a lab all day,” he says. “I wanted to be outside, in the field.”
So, Gerard got involved in the Butler Wildlife Watch project. He sets up cameras around campus, then goes through the footage to determine what types of wildlife are here, and what effects those species will have on campus.
At first, Gerard wanted to get involved in research to boost his resume in hopes of getting into vet school. But now, especially with the sustainability focus, he sees how important the work is to making actual change. The results of the research he is doing, he says, could lead to conversations with administrators about green space on campus.
“Working with the center changed my entire point of view on vet care,” he says. “I realized it is not just private practice with dogs and cats, but there are research aspects to it. Yes, what we do in a clinic is important, but a lot of that is reactionary. Research is so important in a preventative way to make the job easier in the long run because it can lead to actual change beforehand, so you won’t have to deal with those real time issues in the end.”
The CUE Gets a Makeover; Adds an ‘S’ to Promote Sustainability, Put Work Into Action
The center will be called the Center for Urban Ecology and Sustainability, or CUES.
Caring for Our Community at the Community Outreach Pharmacy
PUBLISHED ON Mar 13 2019
The man’s blood pressure is 160/88, which is one reason Butler University Pharmacy student Michael Grim is sitting beside him on a folding chair, explaining why it’s important for the man to take his medicine and an 81-milligram aspirin as prescribed.
Grim sits with the man for a few minutes to make sure he understands. When he’s sure the man does, Grim hands over a bag containing his prescription.
It’s a scene that will play itself out a few dozen times on this particular Saturday, when Grim and five of his Pharmacy classmates are volunteering at the Butler University Community Outreach Pharmacy (BUCOP) on the eastside of Indianapolis.
From 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM on Saturdays, BUCOP volunteers are an integral part of the IU Student Outreach Clinic, which provides care for underserved people who live in the area near the Neighborhood Fellowship Church, 3102 East 10th Street.
Here, inside the church, Butler Pharmacy students join University of Indianapolis students studying Physical Therapy, and IU students training in medicine, dentistry, occupational therapy, social work, ophthalmology, law, and other areas, to get practical experiences in the field.
In 2018, 217 Butler Pharmacy volunteers filled 3,275 prescriptions for 1,047 patients—some were repeat visitors to the Community Outreach Pharmacy. Mostly it's preventative medicine—for diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and acute sicknesses like strep throat.
BUCOP spent over $9,500 on medications and medical supplies. It also works with partners like CVS, which donated vials, and Walgreens, which donated flu shots.
"We’ve had some patients who are so happy with the students that they cried in gratitude," says Assistant Professor of Pharmacy Practice Kacey Carroll '12, who serves as BUCOP faculty advisor. "I think that’s meaningful for the students to see their impact. Some come just to say 'hi' and 'thank you.' One patient didn’t understand what high blood pressure meant. Our student spent an hour with her to explain. No one had done anything like that with the patient before. Though it took a long time, it was time well worth it."
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On this particular Saturday, there are no tears—just grateful patients. Grim and Kate Gordon, another P2 Pharmacy student, are the managers today. Their job is overseeing the operation and working with patients to explain their medicines.
"It's really cool being with all these other areas of practice," Grim says. "We communicate with the medical team all the time."
To their left is Alyssa Mason. She's training to be a manager, so she's watching what Gordon is doing. At the tables behind them, Tyler Kennedy is reading the prescriptions, instructions, and dosages written by the doctor so she can make the label. Rachel Robb is recording prescriptions in the database and printing their labels to pass on to fillers so they can fill them. And Lauren Schmidt is filling prescriptions and giving them to the pharmacist to check.
The pharmacist today is Bradley Carqueville Pharm.D. '17, who's in his second year of residency with Community Health Network, specializing in ambulatory care. Carqueville had volunteered at the clinic when he was a student; now he's the licensing professional, double-checking what the students are doing.
"I let the students run the show," he says. "They're supposed to do all the counseling, they do all the filling, and the documenting. I'm just here making sure everything is right, but I'm supposed to be in the background."
If the students have questions, they can ask Carqueville or the two Medication Therapy Consultants in the next room. Today, that's Chandler Howell and Nichole Barnard, both of whom are set to graduate in May.
"It's rewarding to be here, knowing that it's a great thing for the community," Howell says. "It's also rewarding to work with the medical team. You have so many opportunities to work with so many professions so closely. It gives you more experience working with the entire team, and I think it helps seeing what the other professions are doing, their thought processes."
"Rewarding" is a word that comes up often in conversations with the student volunteers. Grim tells the story of a patient on oxygen who was out of the inhalers he needed to breathe. He helped him fill out the paperwork to get the man what he needed.
"For me, what's most rewarding are the educational aspects—being able to talk to the patients after we fill the medications and counsel them on specific things," Gordon says. "For example, one time a lady picked up a medication for her cholesterol. I started asking her questions about it and she was like, 'I don't know why I have to have a cholesterol medication. Everybody has cholesterol.' I was able to explain that there's bad and good cholesterol, and this medication helps lower her bad cholesterol. It's rewarding to build connections with the patients."
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The IU Student Outreach Clinic, which celebrated its 10th anniversary on February 14, was founded by Indiana University Dr. Javier Sevilla M.D., who wanted to create a free, student-led clinic in a neighborhood that desperately needed doctors. According to the clinic's website, among the 15,000 homes in the area, half live at or below the poverty level and report unmet health needs due to cost, lack of transportation, lack of a primary care provider, or unemployment.
At first, the clinic provided only medical care. The student-doctors would write prescriptions and church leaders would reach into their pockets and do the best they could to help the patients. Within a couple of months, Sevilla invited Butler's College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences to participate.
"Once that happened," says Sevilla, "there was a cascade of other partners who were waiting. Butler has been key to making this clinic the largest, most vibrant student-run clinic in the nation."
Jim Strietelmeier, the church elder who oversees the clinic, says Butler "has gone far and above what anyone would have expected."
"When I speak to the pharmacists," Strietelmeier says, "I tell them what Martin Luther King Jr. said: 'Everyone can be great because everyone can serve.' Pharmacists are by far the servants of the crowd. They take instruction and then give what's necessary."
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Kacey Carroll was a Butler Pharmacy student when BUCOP started and has been the advisor since joining the Butler faculty in August 2017.
She remembers realizing as a student that there are so many barriers to healthcare — "unintended barriers," she says, "but it doesn’t mean that any person is any less deserving of receiving healthcare."
"If there’s anything I can do with the knowledge that I’ve gained to help people improve their life and improve their health, I want to do that. So it helped instill in me a need and a want to reach out to the community and use this skill that I have to give back."
What she often hears from students who volunteer through BUCOP is about how much they appreciate experiencing the practical application of what they learned in class. The common refrain is: "We talked about this in class, but once I did it, I see that it matters and it made a difference."
As Javier Sevilla says: "It is a beautiful, beautiful service learning opportunity for all of us."
Caring for Our Community at the Community Outreach Pharmacy
Here, Butler Pharmacy students get practical experiences in the field.
Here, Butler Pharmacy students get practical experiences in the field.
PUBLISHED ON Aug 10 2018
It was never supposed to happen this way.
The goal was one, if that, and that alone seemed daunting, even impossible at times. Starting a school, and not just any school, was the dream for Ena Shelley, Dean of Butler University’s College of Education. But in reality, she couldn’t imagine the pieces coming together.
It was after a sabbatical in Italy in 1998. Between all the pizza, Shelley managed to fall in love with something else. A new style of teaching, the Reggio model, and she vowed to figure out a way to bring it back with her.
The idea of a Lab School was born, but it was very much just an idea, she says.
“I knew I had to change my curriculum, but I didn’t have any schools where my students could actually see what I wanted to do,” Shelley says. “My dream was to have a Lab School in Indianapolis that we could share with the community, but also use to teach Butler students. The dream was never to have two.”
About 20 years after her initial trip to Italy, Shelley’s seeing double. A second Lab School, born out of demand, success, and lots of work, is up and running at 54th Street.
And even though it was never part of the plan, well, it sure seems like it was.
Lab School 55’s campus happens to occupy the school building that is named after Eliza A. Blaker. Named after the founder of Butler’s College of Education. This was a complete coincidence and just happened to be a building that the Indianapolis Public Schools Superintendent said was available and was in close proximity to Butler.
“The community has responded in ways I never anticipated,” Shelley says. “Being asked to open a second one is really an honor. The dream has gone way further than I ever thought it could.”
What is the Lab School?
It’s a couple weeks before school starts and Nicole Kent is talking on the phone, cradling it between her ear and shoulder, while she furiously types an email on her cell phone.
She’s at School 60, the original Lab School. But really, she is itching to get to School 55, the new Lab School. Furniture is about to be delivered and from the sounds of the conversation, there are a few hiccups with the delivery.
Kent, who graduated from Butler’s College of Education, will be the principal at the new Lab School. She used to teach at the original Lab School and was the assistant principal for two years.
That’s not uncommon. Butler graduates tend to flock to the Lab Schools. In fact, at Lab School 60, or the original, 69 percent of teachers graduated from Butler with either a Bachelor’s or a Master’s Degree. At Lab School 55, or the second Lab School, 61 percent of the teachers are Butler grads.
Teachers receive continued professional development from Butler, and the Lab Schools also serve as a classroom to current Butler education students. Some also student teach at the Lab Schools.
But, says Ron Smith, the Lab Schools don’t hire just Butler grads. Smith is the principal at the original Lab School. He says they hire from wherever, but, because the Lab School program is different than a traditional learning environment, they need teachers who are able to teach that style, and, Butler grads are familiar with the Reggio model.
Learning at the Lab Schools is project based. There aren’t a lot of worksheets where students are mindlessly copying things down. The curriculum is teacher created. Art is infused into most classrooms. Inquiry, research, and exploration are the cornerstones of the Lab School curriculum, where there is a bigger picture behind each lesson. It is not about memorizing facts, but rather about communicating and collaborating and acquiring life skills.
“Of course, we want our students to do well on the standards you would find in the state curriculum, but beyond that we want our kids to become life-long learners,” Smith says. “We want them to find joy in learning, we want them to ask questions of their own and to find answers to those questions and projects help us get at that. That helps us get beyond the state curriculum.”
The Lab Schools are magnet schools. Students are chosen by random lottery from all who apply, with preference given to applicants who live nearby, have siblings in the school, and then children of either Butler or IPS employees.
Lab School 60 has consistently been one of the two most requested elementary schools in Indianapolis since 2012. Students come from Broad Ripple, Butler-Tarkington, Meridian Kessler, to name a few, and the hope is that with a second school, even more of the city will be served.
“As a University, we value being a really good community member,” Shelley says. “We not only want to serve the community, but also learn from the community. We are not separate, but we are better together, and I think we are always striving to fulfill that mission.”
Is it working?
Amy Goldsmith vividly remembers the first time she met Ena Shelley.
Goldsmith was serving on the Indianapolis Public Schools’ Strategic Planning Committee and Shelley was presenting on the concept of the first Lab School. Goldsmith, whose daughter was about to enter kindergarten, was planning on sending her to School 57, but after hearing Shelley speak, everything changed.
“I remember thinking to myself, ‘wow, there really are people who think the same things as me about education,’” says Goldsmith, who lives in Irvington. “I was so excited that Indianapolis was going to have something like that for our community.”
Quickly, Goldsmith changed course and enrolled her daughter in the inaugural year of the first Lab School. And her family hasn’t looked back. She has a seven-year-old, 10-year-old, and 12-year-old who are all in the Lab School.
Prior to Shelley’s presentation, Goldsmith had never heard of Reggio Emilia. After doing some research, and listening to Shelley, she was sold. And now, three kids later, she is the one constantly pitching the Lab School to friends, and really, anyone who will listen.
“It’s hard when you find something you love, you can’t stop talking about it,” Goldsmith says. “I find myself making the sales pitch all the time, maybe too often. People are probably sick of hearing it from me. But I really do mean everything I say.”
And it is not just Goldsmith’s words. The statistics support her pitch.
By the end of second grade each year, about 75 percent of Lab School students are above grade level on the text reading and comprehension assessment. In language arts, the achievement gap between white and black students has been reduced by more than 25 percent.
There are delegation days at the Lab School where groups from around Indiana, and outside of the state, come to visit and see what’s going on.
“It has been great to get a lot of interest and have the program be so popular,” Kent says. “But at our core we always want to be a place that is representative of our whole city. The second school gives us a chance to enroll more students and serve more students. The goal is to always serve our community as best we can.”
What’s next?
The original Lab School has grown to pre-K through 8th grade. It opened as pre-K through 1st grade and added a grade every year. This is the first year the original is at capacity, which is about 570 students.
The second Lab School opened with pre-K through 6th grade and each year they will add a grade until they have 8th grade. In its inaugural year, School 55 has around 300 students. Last year, about 180 attended the school.
Most families who had children attending School 55 prior to it becoming the Lab School this year decided to keep their kids at the school, Kent says. Of the 180 students that attended the school last year, about 150 are staying.
“I was asked early on, in year two or three, if I thought this was scalable and if we could replicate it and at the time I really didn’t think we could,” Shelley says. “But when I see the community response and the potential we have, I find myself wondering if a third is possible. But that is just me wondering. Right now there is much work to be done and we are just happy to be part of our community.”
Media contact:
Rachel Stern
rstern@butler.edu
914-815-5656
Popularity, Success Spark Second IPS/Butler Lab School
Starting a school, and not just any school, was the dream for Ena Shelley.
Starting a school, and not just any school, was the dream for Ena Shelley.
PUBLISHED ON Nov 30 2015
Butler University has signed its second retail customer for the Sunset Avenue Parking Garage—a 1,400-square-foot Pita Pit franchise owned by 2003 Butler graduate Travis Sealls.
Pita Pit, “a fresh, healthy alternative to fast food,” will open in late February or early March. The restaurant will seat approximately 20 inside and will have an outdoor patio that will accommodate 20-30.
Sealls said Pita Pit will deliver on campus and the surrounding neighborhood. It will be open for lunch and dinner, and offer beer and wine.
“Butler holds a special place in my heart,” he said. “I met my future wife, Whitney ’03, at Butler, and now we have three wonderful kids. From a business standpoint, Pita Pit is a perfect college campus addition. The first Pita Pit was founded at a university. We will offer a quick and healthy alternative to the normal campus culinary scene.”
Sealls, whose degree is in Finance, got into the restaurant business after working as a budget analyst at the University of Albany (New York) while Whitney went to medical school at Albany Medical College. She is now in scientific communications for Eli Lilly and Co. They moved back to Indianapolis in 2008.
Sealls has owned and operated the downtown Indianapolis Pita Pit store since 2009 and was the franchisee of the year in 2013. He also owns another restaurant, Punch Burger, which opened in Indianapolis in 2012 and expanded to Carmel in 2015.
Butler’s new facility, which opened for parking in August, has 17,000 square feet of retail space on the first floor of the five-story structure, as well as 1,033 parking spaces. In August, the University announced that Scotty’s Dawghouse would be the anchor tenant in the garage, taking 6,400 square feet in the northeast corner of Sunset Avenue and Lake Road. Scotty’s is scheduled to open in February.
Donna Hovey, Vice President, and Gordon Hendry, First Vice President, of CBRE’s Indianapolis office represent Butler University as the leasing agent. The new mixed-use retail and parking garage offers suite sizes ranging from 1,200 to 8,400 square feet, many with patio and outdoor dining options. For more information, visit http://www.cbre.us/butler-retail.
Pita Pit started in Canada in 1995 and moved into the United States in 1999. Its U.S. headquarters are in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho.
"We're excited to bring Pita Pit to campus,” Butler Director of External Relations Michael Kaltenmark said. “They are a perfect fit for Butler's new parking facility, both literally and figuratively. With the ability to occupy an ideal footprint of prominent storefront space along Sunset Avenue, Pita Pit provides the convenience, quality, and variety that Butler's students, faculty, staff, and neighbors have requested."
Media contact:
Marc Allan
mallan@butler.edu
317-940-9822