When soon-to-be graduates and the rest of the university community visit Butler University’s historic Hinkle Fieldhouse this weekend, they’ll be seeing double.

Butler employees built a mini Hinkle Fieldhouse playhouse, complete with entrances for Butler Blue II and Trip, that will be displayed May 10-14 in Hinkle Fieldhouse before being bid on or bought as part of Habitat for Humanity of Greater Indianapolis’ charity project Play It Forward.

Butler engineer Rich Michal said building the playhouse, which stands 10 feet by 5 feet by 5 feet, was a great opportunity for Butler’s staff to get involved with a cause in the community.

“Our job as staff is also to do outreach,” Michael said. “It’s a great organization I think we all believe in and support.”

Michal said most of the supplies needed to build and decorate the playhouse were donated, so Butler’s contribution was its employees’ time.

“It’s been a labor of love,” Michal said.

Michael had the help of several other bulldogs who donated their expertise and time to the planning and execution of the project:

-Jerry Carlson, director of maintenance services

-Charlie Truax, maintenance services supervisor

-Colin Moore, architectural intern

-Karen Quattrocchi, administrative specialist

-Jonathon Kunkle, lead carpenter

-Michael Goldsmith, truckpointer

-Chris Renollet, truckpointer’s assistant

-Paul Thornton, lead locksmith

-Napoleon Watkins, locksmith

Other organizations that donated services and materials to build the Hinkle playhouse include Ratio Architects, Southeastern Supply Company, Connor Fine Painting, Fastsigns, and Folletts.

President Jim Danko has imagined some possibilities of his own for Butler University after completing his first year as the university’s 21st president—and he expects “dramatic plans” for improvement to start next year.

On the horizon for Butler, Danko said, is sorting through funding challenges, beefing up enrollment for undergraduate and graduate programs, making major investments in student facilities and dorms and encouraging strategic-thinking academic colleges.

And that’s just the beginning. Danko already is looking ahead to the Butler of 2025.

“It’s an emerging picture,” Danko said. “I do have a vision. I see this shining university on a canal.”

Fundraising
The university currently is 87 percent dependent on tuition. Generating funds through new programs, increasing the enrollment and growing the $150 million endowment pose unique challenges, but Danko said he is excited to work on them.

He said when he accepted the job, he was not naïve to the university’s financial situation, but it became more apparent once he arrived.

“The reality once you’re here is more stark than I expected,” Danko said. “Our low endowment puts us at a real disadvantage relative to the types of schools that people expect us to be like.”

Growing Enrollment
When the Board of Trustees arrives in May, a goal will be to come up with a plan for growth in the university’s enrollment, Danko said, as well as to identify new programs.

Enrollment could grow by 10 to 20 percent, he said. New programs that have been suggested include an expanded physician’s assistant program, as it currently has about 1,000 applicants for 50 spots, as well as a full-time master’s of business administration program.

“We’ve asked each of the colleges to think about a creative opportunity in their areas to help us grow,” Danko said. “It could even be a non-degree program.”

Student Life
The current Campus Master Plan identifies student housing as a top priority for improvement. Danko said he echoes the importance of making these improvements.

“We have people walking into dorms that haven’t been touched in 30 years, and there’s not even enough outlets for people to plug in the electronics they bring to campus,” Danko said. “We have fallen woefully behind other schools that have made that a priority, and it means something.”

Additional soft space and the ongoing renovations to Atherton Union are also part of Danko’s vision.

Although money isn’t exactly lying around, he said now is the time to start thinking of creative ways to afford improvements, including potentially borrowing money or working with developers who might absorb some of the cost.

Empowered Colleges
Danko said one of the most exciting parts about his job is getting the colleges and their faculty to think outside the box.

“The theme of this year was to think of programs that have not existed before,” Danko said. “One of the reasons I was brought here is to raise our standards.”

The university’s newest college, the College of Communication,
may get a boost in funding, although Danko said it is important that no college receives favoritism.

“Like any good father that’s got six children, I need to be an equal-opportunity provider,” Danko said. “But I’m not naïve to the fact that our youngest college probably needs more nourishing than the other colleges.”

Danko said the first investment was hiring the first permanent dean, Gary Edgerton, who will be coming to Butler from Old Dominion University.

Keeping the college competitive is a high priority for Danko. This includes investing in internships.

“If we’re going to do CCOM right, if we’re going to be competitive, we’re going to need to make some investments,” Danko said. “We can’t keep it status quo.”

Moving Forward
The relationships that Danko created this year both inside the Butler community, in Indianapolis and across the country with alumni have been imperative, he said.

“You need people’s support as you move forward,” Danko said. “Part of that is getting to know people on a personal level.”

As he looks forward, Danko said he’s learned many lessons during his first year, including one that other university presidents warned him about when he first started at Butler.

“You have far more demands on your time and far more requests than you can reasonably meet,” Danko said. “But I have a high energy level, so I thrive on that.”

The Butler Collegian’s next head honcho brings more than two years of Collegian editing experience, a passion for investigative journalism and a spunky sense of humor to Butler University’s national-award-winning student newspaper.

Jill McCarter, who has served as the paper’s news editor for two consecutive years, was chosen April 13 as the paper’s next editor in chief by a selection committee.

McCarter, a junior journalism major, said she is excited to lead a staff of student reporters, editors and artists as they hone their journalism skills and act as Butler’s student watchdogs.

“I’m hoping to take the paper to an even higher level than it is now,” McCarter said. “There are a lot of opportunities to build off of what we’ve put together this year and add to the legacy in a different way.”

McCarter was largely responsible for The Collegian bringing home the top honors from national, regional and statewide contests during this academic year, including five individual awards for her reporting, editing and design.

McCarter brings a wide theoretical and technical skill set to The Collegian, including five semesters of Collegian experience. She will continue to hone her journalistic skills this summer in her hometown at a reporting internship at the Evansville Courier and Press.

McCarter said she wants to expand on The Collegian’s coverage area, including adding more coverage of Butler’s student organizations and looking more closely at what goes on in each of Butler’s six academic colleges.

“I want to continue shedding light on important issues that people are talking about but don’t necessarily know all about,” McCarter said.

In January, McCarter was selected as one of 75 journalism students nationwide to participate in the Campus Coverage Project, an intensive investigative reporting training program at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

Expanding The Collegian’s social media presence is also important to McCarter.

“We have to continue to engage our audience in many different ways to show that we’re there,” McCarter said. “We want to reach out beyond a once-a-week newspaper and continue the conversation online each day.”

Loni McKown has worked with McCarter both in her capacity as The Collegian’s adviser and as a professional practice faculty member in the Eugene S. Pulliam School of Journalism.

“Jill’s strengths are her passion and dedication to The Collegian,” McKown said. “She is an excellent story idea brainstormer and a strong writer.”

McKown said she anticipates a strong Collegian staff next year.

“What I’m looking forward to next year is building on the achievements of this year,” McKown said. “It’s exciting that we’re going to retain many people from this year’s staff who will bring a lot of skills and talent with them.”

Sophomore Colin Likas, the current sports editor, said he is looking forward to working with McCarter next year in his new role as print managing editor.

“I’m excited to work with Jill, because I think we will make a good leadership duo,” Likas said. “I think we can make the paper even better.”

Senior Sara Pruzin, the current print managing editor, said she is confident that McCarter has the reporting and writing skills it takes to lead The Collegian.

“She’s done a really good job of running her section this year,” Pruzin said. “I feel like as a graduating senior that I’m leaving the paper in good hands.”

McCarter said she looks forward to working with next year’s staff.

“The best part about working for The Collegian is that at the end of the day, I know I work with people who really are able to stand behind what we’ve done,” McCarter said. “I don’t know what I would do without them.”

With her new staff behind her, McCarter said she ultimately is most excited about continuing to serve the Butler community through journalism.

“The Collegian is a great liaison between different colleges, students, administrators and faculty members,” McCarter said. “We’re also a watchdog to make sure that people are held accountable, to make sure people are doing what they’re supposed to be doing.”

I never imagined how dramatically one series of news stories would affect change at Butler University when I started reporting on Butler’s parking capacity problem back in August.

By shedding light on the parking issue and its many facets, The Collegian started a community conversation, and administrators ran with it.

It’s thrilling for me to see Butler’s top administrators work with the Indianapolis community to solicit plans and ideas for a future on-campus parking garage, which could simultaneously bring parking spots and new opportunities for student recreation.

The Collegian’s parking series is just one example of how good journalism is essential to Butler’s vibrant, thriving community.

The purpose of journalism is to explore, examine and expose issues while bringing readers news, views and entertainment.

Making the university seem pristine by re-purposing press releases is not only the opposite of a journalist’s job description but also doesn’t allow for positive change to be affected.

Good journalism isn’t supposed to please readers. It’s supposed to inform them.

As I reflect on my tenure as editor in chief of The Collegian, I am proud to say that we’ve done just that this year, and I wouldn’t trade the dozens of insults about our aggressive reporting for anything.

Butler administrators and student leaders have accused the Collegian staff of hurting the campus climate this year by being too aggressive in their reporting.

But what good is a consistently warm and sunny forecast if there’s some rain and thunder to report?

While some worry that The Collegian makes Butler look less than pristine by exposing problems and issues, I offer a counter perspective.

The Collegian’s aggressive reporting does more to promote Butler than one might think.

Because of our “aggressive” reporting standards, we’ve garnered an overwhelming amount of praise from national journalism professionals, which we share with the entire Eugene S. Pulliam School of Journalism, the College of Communication and Butler University.

This year, we won the highest honor in collegiate journalism from the Associated Collegiate Press and recently brought home 36 honors from regional and state competitions, including the title of  “Newspaper of the Year” in both contests.

The awards honor many different areas of The Collegian’s work, but what they really mean is this: We’re doing journalism that is at an exemplary professional standard.

I have the utmost confidence that next year’s staff will continue to uphold the same values and keep exploring, examining and exposing stories on Butler’s campus.

On May 24, I’ll be moving out of The Collegian’s newsroom and taking my trusty reporter’s notebook up to the Lafayette Journal & Courier where I was recently hired as a full-time reporter.

While I definitely won’t miss the sleep deprivation, I look back on my three years of working at The Collegian most fondly.

These years taught me how to be a professional journalist.

This story is part of a series evaluating the internship coordinator position in the College of Communication.

Part One | Internships in the spotlight—CCOM position cut

Part Two | Students, Alum Petition CCOM

Part Three | Internship Coordinator’s Contract to Expire

Part Four | Coordinator Seeks Legal Counsel

This fall, students in Butler University’s College of Communication could see the return of centralized internship coordination, but they will have to say goodbye to the current coordinator this summer.

The current internship coordinator position ends May 31, said President Jim Danko in an email to The Collegian.

Ed Kanis, who also instructs strategic communication courses and advises PRSSA, currently holds that position and has overseen internship coordination since 2010.

Future decisions about funding an internship coordinator will be left to the college’s first permanent dean, Gary Edgerton, who Danko said will “determine how best to continue our support of student internships in CCOM programs.”

Danko said that if a permanent internship coordinator position was developed and funded, there would be an open search to fill that position.

In “CCOM position cut” (April 11), The Collegian reported that CCOM Interim Dean Bill Neher said the internship coordinator position would be cut because the college lacks funding for it.

Danko said he is comfortable stating that the funding will continue in the future.

He also said he cautioned against relating personnel matters to position funding.

When asked if there was a personnel matter that would preclude Kanis from retaining the position, Danko said he could only comment on the nature of the position, not a specific person who occupies the position.

“It is inappropriate for me as president to disclose facts on any confidential HR and personnel matter as it pertains to one of our employees, especially as there could be legal issues involved,” Danko said.

CCOM Interim Dean Bill Neher refused to comment yesterday on whether the position ended this year because of funding issues or because of personnel matters.

As of press time, The Collegian could not reach Ed Kanis to comment further.
Danko said he is supportive of providing all Butler students internships.

“During my presidency, preparing students for career success will be a high priority,” he said.

Butler University now is looking to partner with an outside developer to build an on-campus parking garage in an attempt to mitigate concerns about its current parking capacity.
Butler issued to developers a request for interest and qualifications that states a desire to build a structure near Lake Road that could accommodate 600-900 parking spaces along with mixed-use retail.
“We have parking issues that we need to address,” said Ben Hunter, chief of staff.
Butler issued the RFQ because various entities, including the city of Indianapolis, had concerns about Butler building new structures unless it adds parking capacity, Hunter said.
Butler is not committed to award a contract from this request.
The school’s current parking capacity also doesn’t allow it to pursue future projects such as potentially adding beautification streetscapes, he said, which would eliminate some current street parking, or developing a hub to attract public transportation.
“In terms of future development, we merely don’t have the capacity to do that,” Hunter said.
Hunter said the RFQ states that breaking ground on a potential parking structure could take place as early as fall of 2013, but the process will go through several vetting stages and that there is no official timeline.
“With big decisions like this you have to take your time to make sure you’re doing the right thing,” Hunter said.
The ultimate decision will come from Butler University’s Board of Trustees, he said.
Evaluating existing and new funding sources is a reality that will have to be factored into a future decision, Hunter said.
A principal at Walker Parking Consultants Engineers who asked not to be named said structured parking traditionally costs anywhere from $11,000-$13,000 per space.
Using that estimate, the garage could cost upwards of $9 million to build if it achieves the university’s desired capacity.
But the decision to add mixed-use retail to a potential parking garage could alleviate some of the costs associated with building the garage.
One possibility is that revenue from retail tenants’ rent could offset the university’s financial burden.
The desire to add retail to the mix of the new project isn’t just to offset costs. It is to improve student life, Hunter said.
Hunter presented the RFQ to the Council on Presidential Affairs yesterday morning.
One idea that came out of that meeting was toattract a community pharmacy to the retail portion of the project in order to support pharmacy students.
Another idea was to attract a brewery or pub for students to socialize, said CPA Chair Mike Tirman.
“A lot of the ideas we brought up, the administration was already on, which was cool,” Tirman said.
The location of the garage would be in 3-acre area near Lake Road behind Clowes Memorial Hall and the Howard L. Schrott Center for the Performing Arts.
Hunter said he has no idea what the garage would look like because he’s leaving it up to the experts to come up with ideas.
“There are a lot of creative ideas that have been brought to us,” Hunter said.
Tirman said building a parking garage is necessary to address student concerns and provides creative solutions to other issues.
“It’s a necessary step,” said Tirman, who mentioned that the most frequent complaint his organization receives is about parking capacity. “This needs to happen so that Butler can expand and improve its current facilities.”
The university will accept sealed expressions of interest and qualifications from developers until May 7.

Butler Blue II and Trip are not the only related top dogs that work in the same office—several of Butler’s top administrators have spouses or domestic partners on the university payroll.

Butler’s practice of hiring its employees’ partners—including those of the university’s president, former provost, two associate provosts and a dean—is consistent with trends in higher education, Marcia Dowell, director of university relations, said.

At Butler, following the trend—36 percent of U.S. academics are couples­—meant the hiring of a university relations associate, a political science instructor, visiting professor, an associate director of pre-professional studies and a multimedia coordinator.

Dowell said these positions needed to be filled at Butler in order to serve students.

The Board of Trustees approved hiring First Lady Bethanie Danko as the university relations associate, which she said is a big role with a modest salary.

“It is indeed a demanding professional position with a schedule nearly as busy as that of the leading spouse,” Bethanie Danko said.

Her schedule includes fundraising, advancement, communication and event planning, along with appearance requests, including recently helping with Blue II’s birthday party.

Former First Lady Suzanne Fong was not on the university payroll.

Bethanie Danko also worked with Jim Danko at Villanova University before their 2010 marriage.

At the Villanova School of Business, Jim Danko was the dean, and Bethanie Danko was the assistant dean for marketing and strategy.

In order to preserve continuity in a trailing spouse’s career, it also is good practice to hire loved ones as long as all university employees follow human resources policies, Elaine Johnson, director of compensation and organizational development, said.

“It’s within the best interest of the institution to help a trailing spouse find employment,” Johnson said. “I certainly can’t say it’s a bad idea.”

Is the payroll bloated with unnecessary positions in order to satisfy the desire to support partners?

“Whether they are created for anyone specifically, there’s no way anyone can say,” Johnson said.

The university is required to publicly advertise its full-time position openings, Johnson said, which it does on Career Builder.

But if positions are contract or adjunct positions, Butler does not ordinarily post job openings, Dowell said.

The university denied The Collegian’s requests for the once-public position advertisements.

The policies that Butler has in place that relate to inter-institution couples include a conflicts of interest policy and consensual relationships policy.

The conflicts of interest policy states that conflicts could arise when an employee evaluates or has direct or indirect control over the work or performance of his or her romantic partner.

Johnson said the human resources office currently is in the process of reviewing its policies in order to make sure they are updated and being followed.

Despite the high number of spouses and domestic partners who are on the payroll, Johnson said she is not aware of any complaints from the rest of the university about this practice.

The human resources management office is open to hearing from all individuals about complaints, she said.

“We’re not here to police the university,” Johnson said. “We have to depend on other individuals to make us aware when there might be things happening in the university that are against policy.”

Bethanie Danko said she hasn’t noticed any conflicts of interest while working with her husband at Butler.

“It’s been a non-issue,” she said. “Although we often discuss issues with each other and voice our opinions on the pros and cons, I wouldn’t characterize this kind of dialogue as presenting any divergent or conflicting interests.”

Q&A  with Paul Sandin

Paul Sandin will be remembered for what he didn’t say.

A fiercely active listener—Sandin’s eyes sparkled as he nodded his head thoughtfully during a conversation—the Butler University Speaker’s Lab director and senior lecturer taught his students that the key to leadership isn’t delivering fancy speeches, but treating everyone with grace and dignity.

“He taught you hard things about emotional subjects, really just lessons about growing up,” said alumnus Todd Bolster, a former Speaker’s Lab employee took 11 classes with Sandin. “He handled it with so much grace.”

Sandin died at St. Vincent’s Hospital on Friday night from acute renal failure, or a sudden dysfunction of the kidneys. He is survived by Laura, his wife, and Erin, his daughter. He will be remembered at a memorial service in the Reilly Room at 4 p.m. on Sunday.

Senior Nick Faris said he realized Sandin wasn’t an average professor when he brought a box of what seemed to be useless, dated compasses to his leadership class and then directed students to spin around, stop and then look at which way they were pointing.

As expected, everyone was facing different directions, Faris said.

“It was then that Professor Sandin said everyone in life has a different purpose, and as a result their lives go in different directions,” Faris said. “The compasses we were holding were a symbol for us to realize that we all have a true north, and we were to use the compass to guide us straight on our path once we figure out our purpose.”

College of Communication Interim Dean Bill Neher, who ate lunch with Sandin most days, said there was not a dry eye in the classroom on Monday when Neher visited Sandin’s Communication Ethics course.

“The students are truly shattered by the loss,” Neher said. “He meant so much to them as a mentor.”

Senior Maria Mayer said that Sandin’s gentle and calm presence forged an easy friendship between them.

“I will miss waving to him every time I walk down the Fairbanks Center stairs,” Mayer said. “He genuinely was interested not only in a student’s learning process but their lives.”

After starting at Butler in 1996, Sandin cultivated the Speakers Lab from a program that served 18 students in its first semester to a program that now registers about 2,200 students each academic year.

Lauren McNulty, a senior Speakers Lab tutor, said working with him at the Speakers Lab made her realize Sandin’s own leadership style.

“I really think that he was a transformational leader,” said McNulty, who took 12 classes with Sandin. “He inspired his students to do great things, to please him and better themselves.”

Frankfort Mayor Chris McBarnes, a 2011 Butler graduate, said Sandin’s transformational leadership qualities came from the fact that he saw more in people than they saw in themselves.

Photo courtesy of David Waite

“He had a way of pulling out the best in me,” McBarnes said. “I owe everything to him.”

Before he died, Sandin was in the process of implementing an additional leadership component to Butler’s organizational communication program—a subject that he taught several classes about and a trait that he worked tirelessly to develop in his students.

Jim Gilkey, a 2010 graduate, said Sandin gave him the ability to practice discernment in his professional and personal relationships.

“Being able to see beyond the façade changed the dynamic of a lot of my relationships,” Gilkey said. “It was more than just coursework. It was our lives.”

In class, Sandin engaged students by supplementing traditional teaching methods with non-traditional material to keep his lectures lively.

In his transformational leadership course, he examined side by side the traits of contentious rebel Che Guevara with peace activist Mahatma Gandhi, because he saw lessons everywhere.

“He almost made it seem like a journey,” said junior Andrew Wray, who took three classes with Sandin, including an independent study this semester. “He empowered his students to come to their own conclusions but helped us along the way.”

Sandin is the author of a widely used communication ethics textbook, which he co-wrote with Neher, but Wray said he was just as interested in hearing from students as he was in sharing his vast industry knowledge.

“It was always framed as, ‘Let’s have a conversation about this,’ or ‘What do you think about that?’” Wray said.

Class participation was extremely high in his classes, said student Alexandra Pierce, who took four classes with Sandin.

Katy Schrage, Sandin’s academic advisee, said his teaching style was unique.

“He taught me how to think critically, question the unquestionable,” Schrage said.

Nick Perry, who graduated in 2009 and managed the Speaker’s Lab, said Sandin made students accountable for their own learning because he wanted to prepare them for life after Butler.

“He was much more concerned with how his students would be successful in the real world rather than their ability to regurgitate information from a textbook,” Perry said. “He really wanted to cultivate strong leaders. That was refreshing.”

Sandin also was an advocate for students outside of class in good times and bad, especially in matters of confidence.

“[He] gave me hope when I felt incapable of my abilities as a student,” said senior Maureen Bamiro, who took her first class with Sandin this year.

Students often would line up after classes to tell Sandin about their lives.

“I knew he would truly listen to me,” said William Alexander, who took six classes with Sandin.

McBarnes said Sandin’s influence went beyond Butler students. In February, McBarnes invited Sandin to lead a leadership summit for 50 elected and appointed officials in Frankfort. Sandin gave a three-hour presentation about leadership and communication, which McBarnes said transformed the culture of politics in his county.

“We’re getting things done because of the wisdom he shared,” McBarnes said. “This cooperation is something we’ve never had before.”

As McNulty nears graduation, she said she’s keeping the true-north lesson close to her.

“He taught me what my fixed point is,” McNulty said. “We’re leaving Butler not only as smarter students but as better people because of him.”

When the fire alarm went off in the basement of Jordan Hall on March 15, Kevin Weingartner couldn’t scurry up the stairs with the rest of his Butler University classmates who smirked at the buzzing drone, and were thankful to leave class a few minutes early.

For Weingartner, a junior accounting major, getting up the stairs is not that simple.

Weingartner was born with spina bifida, a birth condition where a person’s backbone and spinal canal do not close before birth. He has been in a wheelchair since early childhood and relies heavily on the Jordan Hall elevator to get to his classes on time.

As the stairways clogged with students, Weingartner waited alone in front of the Jordan Hall elevator, which takes nearly a minute and a half to get from the basement to the first floor of Jordan Hall.

“Since it’s a fire alarm, we’re not even supposed to use the elevators,” Weingartner said.

But since he has to—and he’s not the only Butler student who does—the administration should make repairing the elevators a priority.

Weingartner said he’s used to waiting for campus elevators, which usually add anywhere from five to 10 minutes to his daily class commute.

Most times, Butler’s slow elevator speeds aren’t a huge inconvenience for Weingartner. But during a fire alarm, it gets a little scary waiting for the elevator to arrive.

The March 15 fire alarm turned out to be a non-starter, but if it had been a real emergency, it is scary to think about the extra risk for all wheelchair-bound students.

The slow speed of the Jordan elevator is not the only issue. Earlier in the academic year, the same Jordan elevator was inoperable off and on for several weeks.

And two weeks ago, the Gallahue Hall elevator was broken.

But Weingartner will not see this problem solved during his time at Butler.

“The Jordan Hall elevators work fine,” said Gerald Carlson, Butler’s director of maintenance services. “The middle one is slow, but it works.”

Carlson said repairing the Jordan Hall elevators isn’t a top priority because there are other needs that currently trump it, including the Gallahue Hall elevator, which would be first on the list if funding was approved for elevator repairs.

Since repairs don’t look promising in the long run, maybe the next step should be to increase handicapped accessibility. Administrators, take note.

Butler University is $400,000 short of funding next year’s core curriculum, the 30-hour set of required classes for all Butler students.

Administrators said they are trying to find creative solutions to fix the problem—such as rewarding students credit for high AP test scores—but the funding shortage could signal future tweaks to the current core, which was instituted fall of 2010.

“It is an open question about whether we can afford the core as it’s currently constituted,” said College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Dean Jay Howard. “You could make an argument that we can’t afford this one. All of that hasn’t been fully fleshed out.”

Associate Provost Laura Behling, who also serves as the senior core administrator, said it is always a challenge to allocate money.

“Sometimes we have resources in the places we need to have them, and sometimes we don’t,” she said.

Howard said part of the challenge with directing the core is that the authority over the curriculum should come from the bottom up, but administrators control the purse strings.

“Faculty need to control and own the curriculum,” Howard said. “I’m a little cautious as an administrator to start telling the faculty what to do, but there are resource constraints on what can be done.”

Behling said the university is still offering “a robust selection of courses in all of the areas” and is able to staff the number of seats needed, but that it has made them reevaluate staffing.

“I think we’re able to do some interesting things given the way we’re able to staff,” Behling said. “On that level, students are seeing positives in the way we’re able to staff the core curriculum.”

Interim Provost Kathryn Morris said the core looks “pretty good” for the fall, although the university is in the process of hiring four more instructors and adjuncts as needed.

Biology professor Tom Dolan, who serves on the university’s core curriculum committee, said the core requires additional resources even though the university tries to staff it internally.

Staffing decisions are made by individual departments and colleges, but the committee can ask them to “step up and embrace the core,” Dolan said.

“We are in our resource constricted environment, but I think we deliver a fine and unique core,” Dolan said. “We can be vigilant and cover what we offer.”

One change that was approved in Faculty Senate on March 27 was to allow AP credits from high school to fulfill relevant core requirements for incoming freshmen. This would start next spring.

The AP credit policy also would be applied retroactively to all current students.

Sophomore Tako Iwai said that since he achieved at least a four on two AP tests in high school, the new policy would help him and other incoming freshmen.

“It would give me more time to take on a minor now,” Iwai said.

Freshman Carly Messinger said it would have been helpful to know this in high school because she took four AP classes but decided not to take the tests because Butler didn’t recognize them.

“Knowing that now, I would’ve taken the tests,” Messinger said.

Howard said that tweaks like this could begin to solve the core deficit.

“If you accept AP courses as equivalent then you reduce demand,” he said. “With a number of tweaks, we may be able to solve this problem. There’s no single magic bullet that solves everything.”

Dolan said that while accepting AP credit will reduce staff and student numbers in certain areas of the core, that was not its initial intention.

“It’s an evolutionary move that looks at what students are bringing into the core while taking into account that it existed in the old core,” Dolan said.

Also, since Indiana’s public universities must accept AP credit, Butler would be following the state norm.

Morris said that this motion is part of a “fine-tuning process” that attempts to make the core as effective as possible.

It’s not realistic to go back to the old core, Howard said, but he put the authority on the faculty.

“I think it would be a mistake for administrators to top-down say, ‘here’s what’s going to happen,’” Howard said.

Behling said the curriculum should be part of an ongoing conversation, and that it is an important concern.

“Our commitment,” she said, “Is that students get the courses they need over the years they are here in order to graduate.”