7 minute read
CORE VALUES
By Hailey Radakovitz ’21
Generations of Butler students have come to know and embrace the University’s dedication to serving the Indianapolis community. Through neighborhood cleaning initiatives, fundraising events, and more, Butler and its students have always been committed to making an impact.
The Indianapolis Community Requirement (ICR), which integrates community involvement into Butler’s Core Curriculum, has been a key part of this mission. Since its establishment as a requirement for all students in 2010, ICR courses have been the source of many formative moments for students and Indy community members, alike.
The initial idea behind the ICR was to implement servicelearning for Butler students. In the early 2000s, the Center for Citizenship and Community encouraged the University to embrace an interactive experience in which students and community partners learn from one another, through projects like creating marketing campaigns for nonprofits or caring for residents of assisted living facilities. During a revamp of the Core Curriculum in 2004, this course concept was approved and added as a Butler requirement.
Regardless of discipline, the learning objectives for all ICR courses are the same: Each student is encouraged to integrate academic knowledge with community service, explore their relationship with the Indianapolis community, and further their commitment to service. Though students provide valuable service to Indianapolis communities through ICR classes, what students learn about themselves in relation to community is what Dr. Donald Braid, Director of Butler’s Center for Citizenship and Community, wants students to keep in mind.
“These courses are really more about reciprocal learning,” Braid says. “Students are doing something of value requested by the community and interacting with community members while learning a great deal at the same time.” This concept of a mutual exchange is one of the most important takeaways for students to reflect on.
Braid says ICR students often tell him they’re getting more than they’re giving. But this is where the idea of reciprocity comes in: Students may know and understand what they feel when serving, but it can be hard to comprehend just what they’re giving to other individuals. Braid explains that service can simultaneously have a profound impact on the recipients of that service, while also helping students learn more about others and broaden their worldview.
Currently, ICRs are offered in nearly all fields of study. Some popular ICR courses include Service-Learning in Spanish, in which students mentor and learn with underserved, Spanishspeaking students in IPS classrooms, and Health Disparities, where students work to better understand how socioeconomic and environmental factors affect individuals in the healthcare system.
Braid hopes these courses provide meaningful learning opportunities and lessons students will carry into the rest of their lives. “Students in ICRs learn that the more they give, the more they learn,” he says. “There’s an exchange that happens, and it’s part of what it means to be human—it’s part of caring about other human beings. It can change the way you think and live your life.”
CORE
VALUES
MUSIC IS THE
MESSAGE
By Meredith Sauter ’12
Sophomore and Indy native Tim Reed has always known that he wanted to be a music teacher. An active participant in his high school’s show choir, Butler first appeared on his radar when he met a representative from the Jordan College of the Arts (JCA) School of Music at a show choir competition. Then, during his junior year of high school, his school hired Butler grad Kelly Cassady ’13 as the new choir teacher, who also encouraged Reed to learn more about the University. “My high school choir teacher raved about the School of Music and about the community at Butler,” he says. “She knew I was interested in Music Education, which was also her major, so she highly recommended that I learn more about Butler and seriously consider pursuing the program.”
Reed did just that. He spent hours perfecting his audition repertoire for admission into JCA, and was ecstatic when he learned of his acceptance, both to the University and into the Music Education program. The only thing holding him back from accepting his offer of admission was the cost of tuition.
“Coming to Butler was my dream, but financially, my family and I were questioning whether it was really the best choice for me.”
Thankfully, Reed was a contender for the Butler Tuition Guarantee, a program that provides full-tuition scholarships each academic year for students in Marion County who show significant financial need. He interviewed for the scholarship during Butler Blue Scholars’ Day, and found out a few weeks later that he received it.
“Finding out that I received the scholarship was one of the best days ever,” he says. “Knowing that all of my tuition would be paid for was such a huge gift. If I hadn’t received the scholarship, I wouldn’t have come to Butler.”
He started college in fall 2020, and while he acknowledges that COVID-19 put a bit of a damper on his first year, he says that he and his fellow first-year students forged an even stronger bond due to the challenges the pandemic presented.
In addition to his Music Education coursework, Reed is also the President of Butler’s chapter of the American Choral Directors Association, where he leads the group in planning meetings and professional development opportunities for his fellow Music Education majors. He also shadowed the Artistic Director of the Indianapolis Children’s Choir, a premiere children’s choir that rehearses on Butler’s campus, and works part time at the Health and Recreation Complex.
After graduation, Reed hopes to be both a high school choir teacher and direct a show choir. He also has ambitions to earn both his master’s degree and his doctorate in Music Education so he can one day teach at the University level, preparing the next generation of music educators.
LONG-TIME DREAM
REALIZED
By Meredith Sauter ’12
Senior and Indianapolis native Raziya Hillery wanted to come to Butler University since she was in third grade, when her student teacher (who went to Butler) gifted her with tickets to a basketball game.
Over the following years, she visited campus multiple times, beginning with her first official visit as an eighth grader and then almost every year after. “I probably visited Butler four or five times,” she says. “Way, way more than any other University I was considering.”
During her visits as a prospective student, she not only got a feel for campus, but was also able to interact with faculty in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Before she had even applied to the University, she’d had in-depth conversations with two different faculty members in the majors she was considering: Dr. Margaret Brabant with Political Science and Dr. Elise Edwards with Anthropology.
“The fact that professors were so willing to talk to me and be such a helpful resource even before I was a student told me that Butler was a place where I could have those personal relationships. It was the place I wanted to be.”
Although it was her dream to come to Butler, making that dream a reality—financially—was a massive hurdle. “Butler’s tuition was going to be a challenge for me and my family,” Hillery says. “I knew that I would need substantial scholarships and financial aid in order to attend.” During her senior year of high school, after being admitted to the University, she was invited to campus to interview for the Butler Tuition Guarantee, a full-tuition scholarship available for students in Marion County who show a high financial need. She ultimately received the scholarship, and happily accepted her offer of admission.
Now a senior at Butler, Hillery is a triple major, studying Political Science, International Studies, and Spanish. She’s the President of the Black Student Union, is a multicultural mentor for the Diversity Center, and the Co-Team Director for Delight College Ministries. She’s also completed three internships, participated in the Rangel International Affairs Program, and is in New York City this semester, where she will intern with the Permanent Mission of the Dominican Republic to the United Nations. She hopes to one day work for either the United Nations or the Department of State as a Foreign Service Officer.
“Coming from the far East Side of Indianapolis, a lot of students think that Butler is just not attainable for them. I used to think that, too,” she says. “I just want to tell those students to reach high and apply. If this is somewhere you really see yourself, you can make it here. Butler is here to support you.”
