Studying abroad can be a great opportunity for Butler students. I highly suggest that every student try to take a semester to study in a foreign country.

There are countless positive academic, cultural and personal advantages to studying abroad.

Academically, students can immerse themselves in a foreign language.  Students studying abroad have the opportunity to study at universities that offer programs Butler might not, said Sarah Robinson, study abroad adviser.

Robinson also said an experience abroad can be a great way to boost a résumé.

“That kind of experience shows employers and graduate schools that you can step outside of your comfort zone and do something that not many people can do,”  Robinson said.
Culturally, Butler students studying in foreign lands will experience ways of life far different from what they have in the Butler Bubble.

Senior Kevin Wolf said he met a  new type of people while spending a semester in France.

“You’ll be forced to interact with other people and learn from them,” Wolf said. “You’ll learn and grow as a person.”

Learning and growing as a person is perhaps the most important thing a student can take out of a study abroad experience.

“College is a time in students’ lives where they’re trying to figure out where they’re going with their lives and what they’re interested in and what their passions are,” Robinson said. “Sometimes I think studying abroad helps students figure that out.  Going and seeing how other people live, it helps them learn things about themselves.”

So Butler students, make use of study abroad opportunities and learn something about yourselves and about the world outside the United States.

Indianapolis is the 12th largest city in the United States.

However, looking at how often Butler students take time to explore the city, one would never know.

Students should embrace the many cultural opportunities set before them, courtesy of the city of Indianapolis.

Instead, students seem to have isolated themselves to campus and Broad Ripple.

There is so much more to Indianapolis, and this decision to cloister themselves away from the city works as a detriment.

College is supposed to be a time where students enrich their lives by learning about and exploring the perspectives of others.

And while students often venture downtown to volunteer for various non-profits and shelters, they rarely travel there to patronize small businesses and connect with the local community.

Eating at hole-in-the-wall restaurants, viewing various art galleries, attending local music and theater performances and participating in cultural festivals are all potential activities students can participate in to have fun and see different sides of life.

There are cultural hotbeds aside from Broad Ripple.

Fountain Square hosts multiple art gallery openings on the first Friday of every month, and Massachusetts Avenue is home to dozens of local shops and restaurants.

This past weekend alone, two festivals occurred—Fiesta Indianapolis and Indy’s Irish Festival.

Several unique restaurants can also be found outside the Butler Bubble, including the Ethiopian restaurant Abyssinia off 38th Street and the downtown Spanish restaurant Barcelona Tapas.

Suffice it to say, there is a world of opportunities waiting beyond the Butler threshold.

While some might blame Indy’s lackluster promotional ability or the Butler administration for not bringing attention to more of these events and locations, students are ultimately responsible for whether or not they take the initiative to hit the streets of Indianapolis.

Whatever prevents students from delving into the city—from laziness to fear of the outside world—it must be shaken off.

We as a student body owe it to the city that welcomed us here to become more active participants in its culture and life.

About 51 percent of students disagree that Butler University is diverse,  according to results from a new survey by  Student Affairs.

About 37 percent somewhat disagreed that Butler is diverse, and 14 percent strongly disagreed with that statement.

The survey gauged Butler’s diversity and students’ perspective on campus atmosphere.

There were 527 students who participated in the poll. Seventy percent were women and 29 percent were men.

A fifth to a quarter of each class was represented, according to the study.

Student Government Association President-Elect Mike Keller said this is because people only think of diversity as involving race.

“Diversity is a broad definition,” Keller said. “It was intended for broader areas other than race.”

Dean of Student Life Irene Stevens oversees the committee responsible for assessing the data. She said there are a number of things the campus can improve upon.

“We need to diversify campus more through admissions, and then help individuals take advantage of cultural-related activities,” Stevens said. “When students get into the real world it’s a lot more diverse than Butler.”

Stevens said everyone has the ability to act as an ambassador for the university, which will help diversify campus.

“Students, faculty and staff are all involved in encouraging diversity,” Stevens said.

Keller said there are two areas responsible for addressing these issues: admissions and organizations on campus.

“Admissions can target more people from diverse backgrounds,” Keller said. “R.E.A.C.H. and SGA are responsible for highlighting different cultures, which comes from programming.”

Twenty-eight percent of respondents participated in diversity-related activities, which were labeled a main point in the survey’s conclusion.

Freshman pharmacy major Eric Chen said as a minority student he has not attended a “diversity-related” activity because he said it brings attention to students’ minority status.

“I think these activities make minorities feel uncomfortable,” Chen said. “The best way to make a minority student feel comfortable is to treat them as any other person.

“Minorities don’t need any preferential treatment.”

Stevens said the administration is meeting with SGA over the summer to address the findings. Focus groups will also be formed to further explore students’ perspectives, Stevens said.

Keller said the low participation in diversity-related activities is due to the target audience of R.E.A.C.H.’s programming.

“People assume diversity programming is only for minorities,” Keller said. “Next year we will try to market it to a broader audience.”

One of the areas of greatest improvement was the number of respondents who described the university as “welcoming.”

Eighty percent of respondents said Butler is “very welcoming,” which is a 6 percent improvement from 2009.

Stevens said this is due to what she described as the university’s “culture of respect.”

“We want to create a university that’s welcoming,” Stevens said. “We expect that from all of Butler University.”

Politically, the survey found most students to be moderates, followed by conservatives and liberals, with 43 percent, 30 percent and 23 percent, respectively.

Keller said it is SGA’s responsibility to encourage political discussion on campus.

“Campus is stronger when people are talking,” Keller said. “We need political discussion.”

Photo by Maria Porter

This year, Butler University is looking to planet Earth to stimulate academic conversations throughout its colleges.

The Earth Project, run by a committee of faculty and staff through the provost’s office, is designed to support cross-campus collaborative activities and promote collegiality among the faculty, staff, and students.

“I think it’s interesting that although the themes have all been planet-related, there has been a wide diversity of interpretations of these themes, some of which are explicitly environmental and some of which are not,” said Timothy Carter, director of the Earth Project and director of the Center for Urban Ecology.

Events this semester have included an author’s presentation, a local food convention, an alternative cooking demonstration and lectures on biodiversity conservation and environmental justice.

Titled “Yin Yang Ruminations: Mahler’s Song of the Earth,” the next event in line celebrates the centenary of the death of composer Gustav Mahler by investigating his song cycle “Das Lied von der Erde” (“The Song of the Earth”).

Xiaoqing Liu, an assistant professor in the department of modern languages, is presenting this event with professors from the Jordan College of Fine Arts.

“Yin Yang Ruminations,” according to the proposal submitted by Liu and others will delve into the song cycle to illuminate the relationships between Mahler’s German lyrics and the classical Chinese poems that inspired them.

The proposal says that the translations of these poems from Chinese to French, and then to German, and their adaptation by Mahler have transformed the poems into a complicated picture of Chinese aesthetic.

This cultural mixture will be expounded upon in the event, which will include both lecture and performance elements.  The implications of such a mixture are also an important element of the event, according to Liu.

“Artists communicate with one another across time and space,” she said. “That’s one thing that I especially want the Butler students to be aware of. They should open their minds to a much larger world, rather than their immediate lives and environment.”

Another Earth Project event, open through Friday, is a student photo gallery exhibition throughout Jordan Hall, featuring photographs by Butler students of the land in and around Rome.

Over the summer and throughout this semester, the committee members have been accepting proposals from faculty, staff and students for events related to an investigation of the Earth.  The committee chooses events to sponsor and offers grants to help offset the costs.

Carter said next semester’s events so far include a lecture by Wes Jackson on the relationship between land and one’s sense of place, an exploration on the history and practice of brewing cider and a presentation on literary and film genres relating to eco-horror and eco-fantasy.  The committee is still accepting proposals.

Specific information regarding these events is forthcoming on the Earth Project’s Facebook page, “The Butler University Earth Project,” and on Butler’s website through the provost’s office.

The next Earth Project event takes place today at 7:30 p.m. in Eidson-Duckwall Recital Hall.