Students will be able to cruise around town next fall when a bike share program goes into effect.

The project was developed by the Council on Presidential Affairs, student affairs, the department of recreation, facilities and the purchasing department.

Bikes will be available for check out for either a whole semester for $50 or a daily free rental. One hundred customized Butler University bikes will be ordered for this program.

Seventy-five will be designated for semester rental, and 25 will be for daily rental.

Junior Kelly Cassady, a member of CPA, said renting out a bike will be like checking out equipment at the Health and Recreation Center.

The bikes will be housed at the HRC because of the efficient equipment checkout system already in place.

“We have the software system for equipment checkout that can handle it,” said Josh Downing, associate director of recreation, said. “The system reports what equipment hasn’t been returned, then puts a hold on the student’s account.”

The initial conversation between CPA and the HRC began in December right before winter break. Once the spring semester started, the conversation became more serious.
Rich Michal, project engineer and utility manager, was approached by CPA to create a temporary rack to house the bikes.

The structure will be alongside the HRC and will be a double-decker rack. Once students check out the bike through the HRC, they will be able to unlock the bike from the structure and take it down themselves.

“It won’t be difficult for students to do themselves,” Michal said.

Both CPA and the department of recreation said this will benefit Butler students.

“We live in this wonderful metro area, and students don’t use it to their advantage,” Cassady said. “This program will open up the city to students.”

The program could decrease the number of cars on campus, CPA Chair Mike Tirman said.

“We’re beginning to market this to incoming students,” he said. “We’re telling students that they can get places on a bike.”

This program, advocates said, could potentially be a part of a bigger picture and discussion.

“Overall, we’re excited to be asked to be a part of this,” said Scott Peden, director of the department of recreation. “It’s a hot topic at other universities, and it’s nice to be leading the trend instead of being at the tail end.”

Michal said that hopefully in the future this program can expand to be a part of a regional, multimodal transportation hub.

“We need to think about what to do about the streetscape,” he said. “Hopefully, we can bring back public transportation to campus.”

Tirman said this project is just the beginning of a bigger program.

“We want to make the campus look like a campus,” he said. “This project will take about 10 to 15 years to be complete.”

Photo by Marcy Thornsberry

Alex Davidson, Katie Youngen and Stephanny Tauber won awards last week for their stellar performance in campus jobs.

Davidson, who has been working in the Learning Resource Center for three years, won the Student Employee of the Year award.

Davidson works with transfer students and the peer tutoring program.

“I was a transfer student myself, and my transition wasn’t very easy,” he said. “I make sure transfers don’t have to experience that.”

Emily Burke, Davidson’s supervisor and associate director of the LRC, said that she doesn’t have to supervise him in a way that’s intrusive.

“We all value him, and we know we can lean on him,” Burke said.

Tauber, administrative intern and Teaching Fellow for the Butler Community Arts School, won the student employee leadership award.

“I didn’t think I was going to [win this award],” Tauber said. “I’m very thankful, and it’s very humbling.”

Tauber reaches out to young students who are in late middle school or early high school. She said the students are underprivileged and have a lot of questions about college.

Tauber’s supervisor is Karen Thickstun, the director of the Butler Community Arts School.

“She has been a mentor more than anything,” Tauber said.

Last summer, Tauber supported nine BCAS camps.

Thickstun said Tauber handled the administrative aspects with efficiency and excellence.

“[Stephanny] also went the extra mile, like eating lunch with the campers, cheering them on at the final recital and even helping one camper find an instrument to use for the summer,” Thickstun said.

As a teaching fellow, Tauber teaches theater classes to children at the International School and Christel House Academy.

“Both schools speak very highly of Stephanny’s classes and have asked that we continue to offer theater classes,” Thickstun said.

The winner of the Outstanding New Student Employee of the Year award was Youngen.

She is the student helper in the CHASE office.

Youngen said she helps organize the Undergraduate Research Conference, the honors program and the summer institute.

“I’m the only helper in [the CHASE office], and it’s a big office,” she said. “I am appreciated by four different women who coordinate four different areas.”

Youngen said she is happy she won the award but was surprised because she didn’t even know the awards existed.

“It’s good to know people appreciate what I do,” she said.

Other winners were similarly appreciative.

“They’re rewarding me for what I’m benefiting from,” Davidson said.

Tauber said she was offered a promotion and a pay raise after winning the award.

Burke said she is incredibly proud of Davidson, and was not completely surprised with his win.
“We’re lucky to have students doing such high- level work for us,” she said.

Butler University officials are hoping to spread some beauty around campus with the revitalization of the apothecary garden.

An apothecary garden features plants and herbs that are used in pharmaceutical drugs.

“The garden brings an awareness to people,” Phil Villani, a biology professor, said. “People don’t realize that medicines come from plants.”

Located along the walkway between the Pharmacy Building and Robertson Hall, the apothecary garden was established by Waqar Bhatti, a longtime College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences professor who died last year.

Yesterday a revitalization project reception was held, which included a talk about medicinal plants, a choral performance by the Butler Chorale and a discussion on the art installation.

There are two separate sections of the garden that house different plants sparked by where they come from and what they do. The traditional Chinese medicine garden presents peonies, which can be used in a “four thing soup” that was a sort of tonic in Chinese medicine for women.

Garlic is also found in this garden.

If garlic is crushed or cooked, it produces a sulfur-containing compound that is biologically active and has some therapeutic values, Kim Beck, an adjunct medicinal chemistry professor, said.

Dianthus, also in the garden, can be used to treat illnesses of the kidney and urinary tract.

“Most of the plants here are medicinal, but some are here to beautify the area,” Beck said.

For example, the beautyberry produces a vibrant purple berry that Beck describes as “remarkable.”

The other garden is the Native American and Western European medicinal herb garden.

The Madagascar periwinkle in this garden is known to have anti-cancer agents in it, and it is modified into a pharmaceutical drug.

While some plants may be marketed as  pharmaceutical drugs, others are simply there because they have a history of being medicinal plants. For example, the common bearberry isn’t marketed, but it can be used as a diuretic to treat urinary infections.

The garden holds historical value because it showcases where medicines come from.

“Nature can design amazingly complex structures with therapeutic action,” Beck said. “It’s a pretty amazing designer.”

The apothecary garden on Butler’s campus is supposed to be a living lab where the plants can be used for study purposes in biology and pharmacy.

Becky Dolan, the director of the herbarium, said the garden presents informal science education because it is in a high traffic area.

This spring, the garden has been revitalized as part of the Earth Project. Students, faculty and staff got together one Saturday to plant everything.

Beck that the groundskeepers have been extremely helpful and really friendly when it has come to this project.

“I hope to get a student organization created to maintain the area,” Beck said.