Plans for a residence hall and parking garage have come to light.

Vice President of Student Affairs Levester Johnson unveiled a few residence hall floor plans at the Student Government Association meeting on Oct. 24 for representatives to discuss.

Administrators and SGA have a huge opportunity to connect to students by involving them in the planning process.

This change can bring the community together by incorporating everyone’s voice while developing the building.

To allow this public forum to happen, administrators, SGA officials and anyone involved in the development process need to market the events.

If and when administrators publicly present blueprints for this project, they should inform the entire student body so everyone can voice an opinion.

Students have a deep and undeniable stake in this project.

Students invest in university projects with tuition dollars.

Finances aside, students have several other reasons to be involved in this process.

If students feel they have a direct impact on aspects of the building, they will likely feel much better about the future state of the university.

The idea of leaving a visible legacy is especially appealing for students.

It would be incredible to return to Butler as an alumnus and point out a building that you helped create.

Perhaps most importantly, the student body’s college  experience would bring a needed perspective in how the building is constructed.

Students may have a different opinion than administrators and trustees about how the project should develop.

Due to the high stakes students have in this plan, the administration must ensure that students have many opportunities to voice their ideas.

Butler University’s small size and connectedness make it simple to gather student input.

Administrators could send out a survey over BUmail to get ideas from students.

They should also use BUmail to publicize future meetings and events about the developing projects.

More public forum events, similar to President Jim Danko’s discussion about the Student Strategic Vision last week, should be formed to discuss these changes.

If another discussion about developing building plans happens at SGA, members could let campus know through the organization’s Twitter account.

When these significant discussions happen at SGA, officers should publish the minutes through either the Butler Connection or BUmail for those who miss the meeting.

No matter how the leaders on campus decide to incorporate the student body in these decisions, they should not pass up the opportunity to do so.

Otherwise, they miss a chance to bring the Butler community together to make vital positive changes for the community.

Butler University’s Speakers Lab will continue to exist under new leadership next year, despite the death of Paul Sandin, the lab’s former director.

“There has never been someone in the back of our mind, but any of the faculty in the communications department would be awesome,” said Marci Kolb, a sophomore public relations major and the Speakers Lab tutor recruiter. “It’s a wait-and-see process for all of us right now.”

Shelby Long, a junior public relations and communications major and the Speakers Lab manager, said she and other lab managers will be meeting with College of Communication Interim Dean Bill Neher to discuss specifically who will be in charge of the lab, but no matter who is in the role she said she does not expect the lab’s presence to diminish.

“I think it’ll be kind of the same as it was, because it was established so well by Professor Sandin,” Long said.

Kolb said the lab has grown since Sandin helped create it in 1996.

“They had four tutors (in 1996), and then they had like six tutors,” Kolb said. “When they (former tutors) heard we had 26 tutors,  I thought they were going to fall over.”

Kolb said the lab had more than 2,000 appointments this semester and will use between 26 and 30 tutors to meet next semester’s demand.

Long said students from many fields of study use the lab now, and even more may use it next fall if the lab proceeds with plans to add foreign language tutors.

Kolb said all incoming tutors will take a class in the fall about how to be a tutor and shadow an experienced tutor.

Despite such plans for the future, Long said moving forward will be difficult without the presence of Sandin.

“He was kind of my everything,” Long said. “He was my first professor at Butler, he’s my adviser, he’s my boss, so it’s been hard to be professional and carry on with lab while trying to mourn, but we’re trying to do what he would do.”

The legacy of a man considered to be one of the top five most programmed composers—along with Handel, Brahms, Mendelssohn and Mozart—can be found deep within the workings of Butler University’s Lilly Hall.

This composer, teacher and faculty member is music theory and history professor James Mulholland.  Mulholland has worked as a music professor at Butler for 47 years.

Mulholland’s interest in music can be traced back to his childhood in Mississippi.  He said his mother sang and played piano constantly. His father had a love of poetry and words.

“I grew up with a great respect for music, for beautiful poetry and for beautiful prose,” Mulholland said. “I just thought it was something that everyone did.”

Growing up outside of the city, Mulholland said he was a recluse with his parents.  Support from both of his parents resulted in an early talent and aptitude for music and the arts as a whole.

“I started studying piano as early as eight, but I started singing even before I was eight in church,” Mulholland said. “When I would sing, everyone would love my soprano voice, and I loved the attention.”

Mulholland said singing is part of his identity and personality.  He said he uses music as a means of communication.

In addition to piano and vocals, Mulholland said he studied almost all instruments as a student interested in composition during his college years at Louisiana State University.  Piano still remains as his instrument of choice today.

Mulholland said he found inspiration for his musical compositions through his father’s love of poetry, especially poetry by English poets, which he considers to be his heritage.

Mulholland combines love of singing, composition and poetry in his compositions.  He said 90 percent of his compositions are vocal compositions, whether joined by piano or an ensemble.  While he mainly writes vocal compositions, he said he wants to begin writing more pieces for piano.

With commission bookings throughout the year 2014, Mulholland has become one of the most commissioned composers of his generation.  Over his career, he has commissioned more than 600 compositions.

As a full-time professor, Mulholland said it is often difficult to find time to compose. He said he has forced himself to compose at least four hours everyday.

“The one thing that a person that writes has to have is discipline,” Mulholland said. “You are your boss.  You’re your own quality control.”

His work has not gone unrecognized.

Mulholland is the recipient of the Butler University Medal of Distinction, the State of Indiana Sagamore of the Wabash award, the State of Indiana Distinguished Hoosier award, the Louisiana State University School of Music Alumnus of the Year award and the City of Indianapolis Proclamation Distinguished Citizen award.

Students and faculty also recognize the achievements of Mulholland.

Music and fine arts librarian Sheridan Stormes said Mulholland’s work has brought prospective students to Butler.  Prospective students auditioning at Butler often mention a love for his music.

Sophomore marketing and Spanish major Lauren Ezell said she appreciates Mulholland not only as a famous composer but as an outstanding teacher as well.  Ezell is in Mulholland’s music and action class.

“He is a patron of the arts, but he’s still very realistic and down-to-earth,” Ezell said. “The first class we tried to find out more about his fame as a composer, but he was really humble about it and didn’t like talking about himself.”

Even though Ezell isn’t a music major, she said she appreciates the fact that Mulholland understands that he isn’t always teaching students who have an innate passion for music.

“He teaches students by inspiring them to develop an appreciation for music,” Ezell said, “Even if they never appreciated music before.”

Students should still be active in community, even without national spotlight on Indianapolis.

The recent Super Bowl madness is giving the rest of the nation a chance to learn what the Butler University community has known since 1855: Indianapolis is a super city, and that fact has nothing to do with a visit from Jimmy Fallon or a celebrity basketball game at
Hinkle Fieldhouse.

After all, one sporting event can’t create a city’s entire legacy, and the 2012 Super Bowl isn’t the first time that Butler students got involved when the city hosted a large sporting event.

Does anyone else remember a NCAA men’s basketball Final Four and national championship that we hosted and participated in less than two years ago?

We have much more to be proud of—namely, Butler students, faculty and staff who make a difference each and every day in the Indianapolis community by volunteering, student teaching, starting businesses and creating programs that continue to make a lasting impact on our city.

Even after the larger-than-life XLVI letters are taken down and we all go back to drinking literally anything besides Bud Light, the Butler community should still continue to display its Indianapolis pride by forging and maintaining lasting partnerships with meaningful groups and organizations.

The Collegian reported today in “Despite administrative changes, partnership stands” that Butler’s relationship with Shortridge Magnet High School, an Indianapolis Public School, is growing despite the school’s recent administrative layoffs and dismissals.

This is an admirable connection for Butler and one the university should keep for years to come.

This connection does every day what the media makes a big deal of highlighting during the hype over a football game—how great it is that Butler students get involved in the city.

To be sure, there is a lesson in the Super Bowl hype. Indianapolis thrives when people get excited about its possibilities.

It is not that we shouldn’t be excited for all of the Butler students who volunteered at the NFL Player’s Party or who posted Facebook pictures of  their downtown celebrity sightings. However, I’m betting these people got more pats on the back and press in the last week than the staff or students at the Butler Volunteer Center have gotten in the last year.

Once the Super Bowl fuss is over, the fact that Butler students danced or participated in a Twitter campaign for Fallon to come back to Butler will not matter.

However to kids involved in the Shortridge partnership, Butler students’ involvement will matter.

There’s no glam or mass media appeal to regular old volunteering, but that doesn’t mean that we should care about it less.