The Speak Easy, A Butler Partner, To Add Second Location
PUBLISHED ON Sep 11 2017
The Speak Easy, a member based non-profit organization that brings established businesses and entrepreneurs together in the spirit of growth and acceleration, will open a second, downtown location this summer with founding partners Butler University, Bruce A. Bodner Company, Inc., and Nextech.
The Speak Easy Downtown will be located within the Mile Square in the historical Morrison Opera House building at 47 S. Meridian St. Its doors are scheduled to open July 2016.
Founded in 2011, The Speak Easy has graduated over 170 new companies from its Broad Ripple location. The approximately 300 active members of The Speak Easy range in size from small to medium sized locally owned businesses, to high-growth startups and established enterprise companies.
“When you look at research surrounding innovation hubs throughout the country, you find the most successful ones involve partnerships across multiple organizations with differing backgrounds,” said The Speak Easy Executive Director Danielle McDowell. “We want to accelerate the growth of these companies by convening the right players in our community – like Butler, Bodner, and Nextech – to set The Speak Easy apart as an institution for collaboration, not just business incubation.”
Like its Broad Ripple location, the Speak Easy Downtown will provide an inspirational and collaborative environment for entrepreneurs; however, it’s strategic focus will extend beyond early-stage companies and offer resources and programs to fuel the success of companies in the growing and scaling stages. In addition, with founding partners Nextech and Butler, the focus will expand beyond the current community of entrepreneurs to also include Indy’s next generation of innovators and business leaders.
“Thanks to our partners, the Speak Easy Downtown will be a hub of mentorship and critical business resources such as education, funding, and talent,” added Andy Clark, Board Chairman and co-founder of The Speak Easy. “This project is about serving our community of entrepreneurs by giving them the space and the resources to grow.”
The new location will offer co-working concepts, reservable desks, and small-office micro leasing. In collaboration with founding partners, the space will include programming, education opportunities, and exposure to collaboration resources needed to accelerate business.
“Butler University is passionate about innovation and community,” said Butler President James M. Danko. “This new partnership with the Speak Easy Downtown will allow us to further our support of Central Indiana businesses and entrepreneurs, while also providing exceptional opportunities for our students, faculty, and alumni to connect and collaborate.”
The Speak Easy was founded in 2011 with a mission to cultivate the healthiest entrepreneurial ecosystem, anywhere. Since openings its doors to the Indianapolis community five years ago, it has brought together active and engaged entrepreneurs at every stage of business.
For more information on the Speak Easy, visit https://www.speakeasyindy.com/.
Butler Named 'Most Innovative School' In the U.S. News 2018 Rankings
PUBLISHED ON Sep 12 2017
Butler University is the only Midwest Regional University to earn the U.S. News designation as Most Innovative School, according to the magazine’s 2018 rankings released on Tuesday, September 12. For the eighth consecutive year, Butler ranks No. 2 overall among 171 Midwest Regional Universities. Butler is also recognized among the best in the nation for four co-curricular programs that enhance the educational experience for students.
U.S. News created the Most Innovative School category three years ago “so high-ranking college officials could pick schools that the public should be watching because of the cutting-edge changes being made on their campuses.” Butler has claimed the top spot in the Midwest Regional Universities category every year.
A fundamental part of the University’s strategic vision, Butler 2020, is a commitment to creativity in all aspects of the learning environment and organization. “We’ve set a course to become an innovative leader in the creation and delivery of transformative, student-centered education,” said President James M. Danko. “These rankings demonstrate that we’re living up to this commitment and that our academic peers are taking notice.”
Some notable innovation initiatives at Butler University include:
- launching 18 new majors and 11 new minors in the past 6 years;
- awarding 43 Innovation-Fund grants to support inventive ideas among students, faculty, and staff;
- creating the first-of-its-kind student-run captive insurance company;
- partnering with The Speak Easy to launch a downtown space devoted to collaboration, creativity, and learning among entrepreneurs and students; and
- co-developing technology solutions for higher education with partners including High Alpha’s ClearScholarand Salesforce.org.
Butler’s commitment to innovation stems from its goal to prepare graduates to make a meaningful impact in the world. This year’s U.S. News rankings list Butler among the best in the nation for internships, the first-year experience, study abroad, and undergraduate research/creative projects.
Internships. Schools that make this list require or encourage students to apply what they’re learning in the classroom to the real world. Seventy-five percent of Butler students graduate having completed an internship. In the Lacy School of Business, all students are required to complete two internships.
First-Year Experience. According to U.S. News, “Many schools now build into the curriculum first-year seminars or other academic programs that bring small groups of students together with faculty or staff on a regular basis.” Through Butler’s first-year experience, students know what to expect inside and outside the classroom through peer-to-peer and faculty engagement.
Study Abroad. Programs ranked in this category are recognized for substantial academic work abroad for credit—a year, a semester, or an intensive experience equal to a course—and considerable interaction with the local culture. One-third of Butler students study abroad, and cite their experiences as some of the most transformational and enriching of their time as undergraduates.
Undergraduate Research/Creative Projects. Through the Undergraduate Research Conference—the largest in the Midwest—the Center for High Achievement and Scholarly Engagement, and the Butler Summer Institute, Butler encourages students to investigate and explore research projects alongside faculty mentors.
Media contact:
Marc Allan
mallan@butler.edu
317-940-9822
Butler Named 'Most Innovative School' In the U.S. News 2018 Rankings
Butler University is the only Midwest Regional University to earn the U.S. News designation as Most Innovative School, according to the magazine’s 2018 rankings released on Tuesday, September 12.
Butler University is the only Midwest Regional University to earn the U.S. News designation as Most Innovative School, according to the magazine’s 2018 rankings released on Tuesday, September 12.
Visiting Writing Series Announces Spring Speakers
PUBLISHED ON Dec 04 2017
Series begins February 1 with Kazim Ali.
Novelist/biographer Edmund White and Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Louise Glück will be among the speakers this spring in Butler University’s Vivian S. Delbrook Visiting Writers Series.
The series begins February 1 with poet/novelist Kazim Ali and continues with novelist Ali Eteraz (February 15), poet Danez Smith (March 22), White (April 3), and Glück (April 18). Times and locations are below.
All events in the spring 2018 series are free and open to the public without tickets. For more information, call 317-940-9861.
More information about each speaker follows.
Kazim Ali
Thursday, February 1, 7:30 PM
Eidson-Duckwall Recital Hall
Kazim Ali’s books include several volumes of poetry, including Sky Ward, winner of the Ohioana Book Award in Poetry; The Far Mosque, winner of Alice James Books’ New England/New York Award; The Fortieth Day; All One’s Blue; and the cross-genre text Bright Felon. He has received an Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council, and his poetry has been featured in Best American Poetry. His novels include The Secret Room: A String Quartet, and among his books of essays is Fasting for Ramadan: Notes from a Spiritual Practice.
Ali is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing and Comparative Literature at Oberlin College. His new book of poems, Inquisition, and a new hybrid memoir, Silver Road: Essays, Maps & Calligraphies, are scheduled for release in 2018.
Ali Eteraz
Thursday, February 15, 7:30 PM
Atherton Union, Reilly Room
Ali Eteraz is the author of the debut novel Native Believer, a New York TimesBook Review Editors’ Choice selection. He is also the author of the critically acclaimed memoir Children of Dust, which was selected as a New Statesman Book of the Year, won the Nautilus Book Award Gold, and was featured on PBS with Tavis Smiley, NPR with Terry Gross, C-SPAN2, and numerous international outlets. O, The Oprah Magazine, called it “a picaresque journey” and the book was long-listed for the Asian American Writers Workshop Award.
Previously, he wrote the short story collection Falsipedies and Fibsiennes. Other short stories have appeared in The Adirondack Review, storySouth, Chicago Quarterly Review, and Forge Journal.
Eteraz is an accomplished essayist and has been spotlighted by Time Magazine and Pageturner, the literary blog of The New Yorker.
Danez Smith
Thursday, March 22, 7:30 PM
Eidson-Duckwall Recital Hall
Danez Smith is the author of Don’t Call Us Dead (2017), finalist for the National Book Award in poetry; [insert] Boy (2014), winner of the Lambda Literary Award and the Kate Tufts Discovery Award; and the chapbook hands on ya knees. Their writing has appeared in many magazines and journals, such as Poetry, Ploughshares, Beloit Poetry Journal, and Kinfolks. Smith is a 2011 Individual World Poetry Slam finalist and the reigning two-time Rustbelt Individual Champion and was on the 2014 championship team Sad Boy Supper Club.
In 2014, they were the festival director for the Brave New Voices International Youth Poetry Slam and were awarded a Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry fellowship from the Poetry Foundation.
Edmund White
Tuesday, April 3, 7:30 PM
Atherton Union, Reilly Room
Edmund White is America’s preeminent gay writer. In biography, social history, travel writing, journalism, the short story, and the novel, this prolific and versatile author has chronicled the gay experience in the United States from the closeted 1950s through the AIDS crisis and beyond.
His first novel, Forgetting Elena, published in 1973, is the story of an amnesia victim, set at a stylish resort reminiscent of Fire Island. With the classic coming-of-age tale A Boy’s Own Story, White cemented a place for himself—and for gay fiction—in the cultural consciousness. His celebrated fiction also includes Nocturnes for the King of Naples, Caracole, The Beautiful Room Is Empty (winner of the 1988 Lambda Literary Award), The Farewell Symphony, The Married Man, Fanny: A Fiction, Hotel de Dream, and Jack Holmes and His Friend. His latest is Our Young Man.
White has been involved in the gay rights movement since the Stonewall riots in New York City in 1969 and has acted as one of its canniest observers. His pioneering The Joy of Gay Sex: An Intimate Guide for Gay Men to the Pleasures of a Gay Lifestyle was published in 1977 and served as a national coming-out announcement for the entire gay community.
White has also made his mark as a highly accomplished biographer. Genet: A Biography is recognized as a definitive work on writer and playwright Jean Genet, and in 1993 it won both the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Lambda Literary Award. White also authored the well-received Marcel Proust and Rimbaud: The Double Life of a Rebel. His memoir Inside a Pearl: My Years in Paris recounts the fifteen years he spent living there—one of the most productive and creative phases in his career.
White is a regular contributor to The Times Literary Supplement, The New York Times Book Review, and Vanity Fair, and is a member of both the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Louise Glück
Wednesday, April 18, 7:30 PM
Atherton Union, Reilly Room
Louise Glück is the author of twelve books of poetry and served as the U.S. Poet Laureate from 2003-2004. In 1993 Glück won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for her collection The Wild Iris. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Rockefeller and Guggenheim Foundations and from the National Endowment for the Arts. Other honors include the Academy of American Poets Prize, the William Carlos Williams Award, the Bobbitt National Poetry Prize, the Ambassador Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and her most recent book of poems Faithful and Virtuous Nightxs received the 2014 National Book Award. Her book of essays Proofs and Theories: Essays on Poetry (1994) was awarded the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for Nonfiction, and her book Vita Nova (2001) won the first New YorkerReaders Award. In 2001 Yale University recognized her lifetime achievement by awarding her its Bollingen Prize for Poetry.
Glück is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and currently serves as the Rosenkranz Writer-in-Residence in the Department of English at Yale University.
Media contact:
Marc Allan
mallan@butler.edu
317-940-9822
Visiting Writing Series Announces Spring Speakers
The series begins February 1 with poet/novelist Kazim Ali and continues with novelist Ali Eteraz (February 15), Barry (March 1), poet Danez Smith (March 22), White (April 3), and Glück (April 18). Times and locations are below.
The series begins February 1 with poet/novelist Kazim Ali and continues with novelist Ali Eteraz (February 15), Barry (March 1), poet Danez Smith (March 22), White (April 3), and Glück (April 18). Times and locations are below.
Howard Caldwell, Alumnus and Former Trustee, Dies
PUBLISHED ON Sep 11 2017
Beloved alumnus had lifelong ties to Butler.
Howard Caldwell ’50, MA ’68, whose distinguished career at WRTV (Channel 6) in Indianapolis earned him induction into the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame and Indiana Broadcasters Hall of Fame, died Monday. He was 92.
Caldwell earned his bachelor’s degree in journalism and his master’s degree in political science from Butler. He served as a trustee from 1980-1983 and was awarded an honorary doctorate in 1984. In 1992, he received an honorary doctorate from Indiana University.
He had lifelong ties to Butler. His parents, Howard ’15 and Elsie ’17, and his sister Virginia Caldwell ’40 all were Butler alumni, as is his daughter Tracy Reidy ’80, MS ’84. His wife of 62 years, Lynn, has served on the Clowes Women’s Committee.
Caldwell served in the Navy during World War II and the Korean War. After graduating from Butler, he was a News Manager with WTHI radio in Terre Haute, Indiana. He joined WRTV (then called WFBM) in 1959 as a reporter and spent 35 years at the station, retiring as Senior Anchor. He was named the 1978 Newsman of the Year by the Indianapolis Press Club, a first for a television reporter. He was the first American reporter to interview the newly elected Indian Premier Indira Gandhi, and his documentary on hunger in India earned him several honors.
He was inducted into the Indianapolis Public Schools Hall of Fame in 2008. That same year, he received an Indiana Lifetime Achievement Award, one of the state’s highest awards given to any individual who demonstrates outstanding devotion to Indiana. He received the Hilton U. Brown Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Irvington Historical Society in 2006.
In addition, he is the author of Tony Hinkle: Coach for All Seasons (1991) and The Golden Age of Indianapolis Theaters (2010).
Visitation is Thursday, September 14, from 2:00 to 8:00 PM at Castleton United Methodist Church, 7101 Shadeland Avenue, Indianapolis, with funeral services Friday, September 15, at 11:00 AM at the church.
Media contact:
Marc Allan
mallan@butler.edu
317-940-9822
Howard Caldwell, Alumnus and Former Trustee, Dies
Howard Caldwell ’50, MA ’68, whose distinguished career at WRTV (Channel 6) in Indianapolis earned him induction into the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame and Indiana Broadcasters Hall of Fame, died Monday. He was 92.
Howard Caldwell ’50, MA ’68, whose distinguished career at WRTV (Channel 6) in Indianapolis earned him induction into the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame and Indiana Broadcasters Hall of Fame, died Monday. He was 92.