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.
Butler Announces New Strategic Direction, Historic $250 Million Campaign
PUBLISHED ON Oct 05 2019
INDIANAPOLIS—Butler University today unveiled its new strategic direction and largest ever comprehensive fundraising campaign. Butler Beyond: The Campaign for Butler University seeks to raise $250 million by May 2022 to deliver transformative change to the University, region, and the world.
To date, the campaign has raised more than $171 million from more than 27,000 donors.
“Our strategy for Butler Beyond acknowledges the reality that the higher education landscape is changing, and we must change with it,” President James Danko says. “We intend to hold firmly to the traditions and values that have always defined a Butler education, while evolving to meet the changing needs and expectations of learners, employers, and society in the 21st century. Philanthropic support will be absolutely essential to achieving this vision.”
Combining tradition with innovation, the new strategic direction will build upon Butler’s strengths in delivering an exceptional undergraduate residential education, while expanding to offer opportunities for lifelong learning and new educational pathways that are more affordable and flexible.
These new opportunities include growth in customized corporate education programs, non-degree certificates and credentials, and community-focused talent development programs. Butler’s founding mission that everyone deserves access to a high-quality education regardless of race, gender, or socioeconomic status will be the guiding light for Butler Beyond as the University aims to reimagine a Butler education that is accessible to all learners.
The Butler Beyond campaign is organized around three pillars aimed to fuel this new strategic direction: student access and success, innovations in teaching and learning, and community partnerships.
“These Butler Beyond campaign pillars represent areas for philanthropic investment that will fuel our vision for the future,” Vice President for University Advancement Jonathan Purvis says. “These priorities were developed with input from donors, alumni, faculty, staff, and community partners who helped to identify the areas where Butler University is uniquely positioned to ignite positive change. Support for these strategic initiatives will propel our vision of transforming lives through education at Butler and beyond.”
Campaign funds will empower students by expanding donor funded scholarship support and other resources needed to ensure student success, elevate learning by further investing in high-impact practices and faculty development, and engage communities through innovative partnerships and collaborative programs.
Student Access and Success
As Butler works to solve the problem of higher education affordability, growing the University’s financial aid program through donor funded scholarships will be essential. And, welcoming students of all ages, life stages, and backgrounds will require robust student support services.
In 2018-2019, the University provided more than $78 million in scholarships to students. Of that total, only $3.2 million was funded through scholarship endowment or other philanthropic support. Closing this nearly $75 million gap in annual scholarship costs is essential to removing financial barriers for all students.
To address the challenge of affordability, growing the scholarship endowment and the annual Butler Fund for Student Scholarship will be key funding priorities during the campaign.
Innovations in Teaching and Learning
Recruiting, developing, and retaining the nation’s top educators and scholars is another chief goal of the campaign. State-of-the-art facilities for teaching and research, as well as funding to support ongoing training and development, are crucial for recruiting and keeping top talent.
Among the key funding priorities in the category of innovations in teaching and learning are the growth of Faculty Opportunity Funds, the Sciences Expansion and Renovation Project, and the new building for the Andre B. Lacy School of Business.
“The work our faculty do with students on a daily basis—teaching, mentoring, and student-faculty collaborative research—makes up the very foundation of a Butler education,” Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Kate Morris says. “One of the most effective ways to support Butler students is to invest in the ongoing development of our faculty.”
Community Partnerships
Strengthening community partnerships is a particular point of emphasis in the new strategic direction. Increasing Butler’s engagement with businesses, community organizations, educational providers, and government entities will lead to new academic programs, ventures, and experiences for Butler students. These mutually beneficial partnerships will enable faculty, students, and community partners to work together in tackling complex issues facing the region.
These collaborations will also provide experiential learning opportunities for Butler students, while responding to the educational needs of our communities and corporations through the co-creation of new education and talent solutions.
To this end, a key funding priority for community partnerships is the newly established Transformation Fund, which is aimed at fueling the development of new educational models and advancing projects that contribute to the long-term vision of the University. The Transformation Fund will also provide a means to invest in new ventures supporting Butler’s desire to think differently about the future of higher education.
“Great universities have great responsibility for positively impacting the communities in which they reside,” Vice President of Strategy and Innovation Melissa Beckwith says. “Butler is committed to developing talent that meets workforce needs, offering programs and experiences that contribute to the city’s vibrant culture, and encouraging creativity in solving some of our community’s most pressing challenges.”
Unprecedented Philanthropic Support
Butler has been the recipient of unprecedented levels of philanthropic support during the campaign’s quiet phase, which started June 1, 2015.
“Investing in Butler’s future at this pivotal moment will result in lives changed in our community and around the world through expanded access to a Butler education and through the meaningful work Butler graduates will go on to do with their lives,” says campaign co-chair Tina Burks.
“We are convinced that every gift to this campaign will have ripple effects beyond our imagination for years to come,” added Campaign Co-Chair Keith Burks MBA ’90. “We are thankful for the many generous donors who have already made a lasting impact through support of Butler Beyond.”
Many noteworthy gifts have been previously announced during the campaign quiet phase, including the following:
- In 2016, Butler received its largest gift ever from an individual or family—the $25 million commitment from Andre B. Lacy and his wife, Julia, resulted in the College of Business becoming the Andre B. Lacy School of Business. The Lacy gift inspired 11 additional families to give $1 million or more toward construction of a new building for the School, which opened in August.
- With lead gifts of $13 million from the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation, $5 million from alumnus Frank Levinson ’75, $2 million from emeritus trustee chair Craig Fenneman ’71, and $9.5 million collectively from other alumni and friends, the Butler Board of Trustees approved a $100 million investment in the renovation and expansion of the University’s sciences facilities. To date, more than $29.5 million has been raised toward a total philanthropic goal of $42 million for the project.
- Restoration of Hinkle Fieldhouse was another key infrastructure project of the past decade at Butler, costing a total of $46.5 million over two phases. With help from the Efroymson family’s leadership contributions totaling $2 million, more than $32 million in philanthropic support has been raised to date for the effort, which has enhanced the student-athlete and fan experience.
- The Hershel B. ’52 and Ethel L. Whitney Chair in Biochemistry was established through a $2 million gift from the estate of Hershel B. ’52 and Ethel L. Whitney, making it the first new endowed chair established during the Butler Beyond era. Associate Professor of Chemistry Dr. R. Jeremy Johnson was selected as the first to hold the endowed position, which provides support for critical research he is conducting alongside undergraduate students into halting the spread of tuberculosis.
- In 2017, Butler announced a $5 million commitment from Old National Bank to create the Old National Bank Center for Closely Held Business, which provides privately owned businesses throughout Indiana with training, education, mentoring, and networking opportunities to help them succeed. The Center, located in Butler’s Andre B. Lacy School of Business, places special emphasis on serving the unique needs of this core segment of the Indiana economy, which employs more than 2.5 million people.
Butler Beyond: The Campaign for Butler University is the University’s largest-ever comprehensive fundraising campaign with a goal of $250 million. The campaign will conclude May 31, 2022.
Media Contact:
Rachel Stern
Director of Strategic Communications
rstern@butler.edu
914-815-5656
Butler Announces New Strategic Direction, Historic $250 Million Campaign
Butler Beyond seeks to raise $250 million by May 2022 to deliver transformative change.
Butler Beyond seeks to raise $250 million by May 2022 to deliver transformative change.
New Building for Lacy School of Business Ready to Serve Butler and Indy Community
PUBLISHED ON Aug 14 2019
INDIANAPOLIS—The new building for Butler University’s Andre B. Lacy School of Business (LSB) is officially open.
After nearly two years of construction, the 110,000-square-foot building is now ready to serve a student population on the rise, along with the local, regional, and national business community.
The building is central to Butler’s 2020 strategic vision to make the University a leader in business, innovation, technology, and student-centered experiences that prepare graduates to pursue fulfilling careers and make a positive impact.
“It is a physical manifestation of a culture in which faculty and staff work in true partnerships with business leaders for the benefit of our students,” says LSB Dean Steve Standifird.
With a curriculum steeped in hands-on experience, adaptability, and student-faculty engagement, LSB has grown its enrollment by 60 percent in the last five years. As a result, the new building is about six times larger than the business school’s previous home in the Holcomb Building. LSB will serve 1,150 undergraduate business students this year.
The building will also be home to Butler’s Career and Professional Success office, which serves the entire Butler student body and includes the FirstPerson Interview Suite, featuring private interview rooms, work space, and a lounge for recruiters.
The $50 million building is complete, but fundraising efforts are ongoing as the University seeks to name the building. Support for the project has come from both the Butler community and beyond. Four of the top donors to date are not Butler graduates, but they invested due to their belief that LSB is making a strong impact on the Indianapolis business community.
The Old National Bank Center for Closely Held Business, for example, connects local businesses with resources and advisors. And the Butler Business Consulting Group works directly with companies to solve business challenges.
The building will allow such partnerships to expand and will foster new program offerings, new centers, and new relationships with employers and business leaders. The Innovation Commons space, for example, was modeled after The Speak Easy spaces in Indianapolis and designed to facilitate collaborations between LSB and business community members. The new building’s cafe was added to encourage visitors to stay.
“Our goal was to create a space where there is no line between where the classroom ends and the business community begins,” Standifird says.
“Andre and Julia Lacy had an incredible philanthropic vision,” said Butler President James Danko. “They wanted to enrich learning experiences for young people; support experiential curricula that emphasize family-run businesses, innovation, and leading with integrity; and to invest in our city and state. We are honored to carry out the legacy they intended. I only wish they were here to see their vision come to fruition and to see how excited Butler students are about learning in this extraordinary new building.”
Media Contact:
Rachel Stern
Director of Strategic Communications
rstern@butler.edu
914-815-5656
Innovations in Teaching and Learning
One of the distinguishing features of a Butler education has always been the meaningful and enduring relationships between our faculty and students. Gifts to this pillar during Butler Beyond will accelerate our commitment to investing in faculty excellence by adding endowed positions, supporting faculty scholarship and research, renovating and expanding state-of-the-art teaching facilities, and more. Learn more, make a gift, and read other stories like this one at beyond.butler.edu.
New Building for Lacy School of Business Ready to Serve Butler and Indy Community
The space designed to inspire collaboration between LSB and the business community is now open.
The space designed to inspire collaboration between LSB and the business community is now open.
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.