Butler University’s College of Education has added three new minors that are available to students now.

The minors are mild intervention, English as a new language and reading teacher.

An early childhood minor is still in the works. It is waiting  for state approval after being sent through Butler’s approval process.

The reading teacher minor is for future classroom teachers who want additional classes to helpthem teach their students to become avid readers at any age.

After taking these classes,  Butler students can be qualified to take an external exam and receive an additional teaching license in the area of reading.

The English as a new language minor is in high demand because of the increase of students who speak a language other than English.

Rising expectations that young children experience a meaningful and effective early childhood have given a rise in demand for students with this minor. College of Education students already have the option to focus on  elementary education, but this specialized training can help them benefit the children.

State transitioning to a new licensure pattern requires elementary education majors have a minor. These new minors fulfill this requirement, though they are not limited to only elementary education majors.

“Even though the state has initiated this, it’s still important that we provide this for our students because it just makes them more marketable,” said Debra Lecklider, College of Education associate dean.

Lecklider said students leave Butler with so many opportunities. Many elementary education majors have two or even three minors. She said when employers see this, they are amazed.

“It’s just incredible for our (job) placement rate,” Lecklider said.

Senior Shelbi Burnett is a middle / secondary education major and also has a minor in mild intervention.

Burnett said the mild intervention minor will give her significantly more skills in planning for her classroom, working with students with those kinds of needs and being able to design assessments for them.

“That’s not a skill that everyone who graduates from a college of ed leaves with, from any college of education,” Burnett said. “But those are necessary skills that make a good teacher.”

Sue Stahl, student personnel services director, said the students she sees in the minors are passionate about teaching, education and the fact that all students can learn.

“These minors,” Stahl said, “support it and ignite it.”

The Student Athlete Advisory Committee plans to host their inaugural spring formal for athletes at the end of the month.  According to SAAC Vice President Shelbi Burnett, the Committee has been trying to find a date that allows the most possible athletes to attend.  The dance has been tentatively set for Easter Sunday.

Tickets for the event can be purchased by athletes as singles for $6 or two for $10.  Athletes attending can bring a non-student-athlete date.

“Tickets will be on sale [this] week, we’re going to be selling them in Hinkle.” said Burnett, a redshirt Junior member of the Butler cross-country and track teams.

Money that the event brings in will support athletes, faculty, or staff affected by cancer.  Especially Butler Strength Coach, Jim Peal.

“This year we would be assisting Coach Jim Peal, who was diagnosed with colon cancer this year and had a pretty serious surgery.  So the fundraising event would be for that cause.”

Coach Peal, who has been coaching at Butler for ten years, underwent surgery on February 4, and is now cancer free.  He is the strength coach for all 19 sports programs.

The Committee is going to try to have the formal in the Reilly Room.

According to Burnett, former Butler basketball player Alex Anglin will be the DJ.

At center stage of Butler athletics are the National Championship runs, the All-Americans, the conference titles and Athletes of the Week.

Behind the scenes, however, Butler’s strength and conditioning program plays a key role in making all this possible.

What people see on the outside is a major reflection of what happens behind closed doors, specifically in the varsity weight room in Hinkle Fieldhouse.

There, head strength and conditioning coach Jim Peal spends nearly 60 hours per week working with 19 different Butler athletic squads.

Peal’s main interest is in bettering every athlete in every sport, in addition to promoting a healthy breakfast each morning and telling his athletes to “Be safe, be smart” every weekend.

Now in his 10th year at Butler, Peal has spent the last eight in his current position, coordinating and overseeing the strength, flexibility and conditioning programs with the help of his two current assistants, Joey Guzzo and Damien Black.

“The most important part is getting athletes ready for play,” Guzzo said. “What we do in here is a complement to what they’re doing in practices, so we’re just another phase to get them prepared to win.”

Shelbi Burnett, a senior on the women’s cross country team who captured the Horizon League individual championship last season, was advised to do strength work, after multiple injuries.

She’s worked with Peal since last year and said he is always in the weight room, going over each lift with her if she needs it and answering any questions she has.

“He’s very understanding that lifting is a supplement and not the sole focus,” Burnett said.

Peal is so personable that it makes it easy to get caught up in the weight room, Burnett said.

“He’s got a million stories to tell, but he’s so understanding and very concerned about our personal well-being,” she said. “That’s something that I really appreciate.

“When you get into athletics, sometimes coaches can forget you’re just a person. Coach Peal never forgets that. He always asks me how I’m doing, how I’m eating. Those things are critical in terms of how well you’re going to perform.”

Peal said he wishes he could get to know all of his athletes better.

“I spend more time with them over the course of the year than any of their coaches,” he said. “I have to be concerned about their welfare.”

For all 19 Butler teams, as well as individuals needing extra attention, Peal puts together each program himself, including sport-specific exercises and more common ones.

He oversees each sport’s main workout lineup, in addition to directly overseesing football, volleyball, men’s basketball and both soccer teams.

His assistants control most aspects of the other sports teams’ routines.

“My assistants help out a lot with all my sports,” said Peal.

He said he’s aware of the basic programs that teams are doing, making sure certain things are being done in workouts, and  said that he’ll pay a little more attention to certain teams at certain times.

He wants Guzzo and Black to be capable of taking over at some point, though.

The entire system is a combination of the three strength and conditioning coaches, all for the purpose of helping Butler’s students-athletes reach their highest potential.

“(Men’s basketball) coach (Brad) Stevens said one of the best things I’ve ever heard: ‘Strength and conditioning isn’t about getting stronger or getting in shape. It’s about getting better,’” Peal said. “We’re here to get better. Everything we do has a purpose.

“Getting stronger is part of it—but it’s not just, ‘Oh, I’m going to lift weights,’ or ‘Oh, I’m going to do sprints.’ We’re trying to do things the way it relates to sports all the time.”

The Butler track and field team was once again led by the distance squad—this time at Indiana State’s Pacesetter Invitational in Terre Haute last weekend.

The team posted nearly a dozen top-five finishes in various distance events at the four-team meet, including four first-place showings.

Freshman Tom Curr won the men’s 800-meter run, completing the race in a time of 1:50.57 and breaking the event’s nine-year-old meet record.

Also setting a meet record was sophomore Craig Jordan, whose time of 8:58.84 in the steeplechase was good for a victory and broke a one-year-old best time.

The Bulldogs’ other two first-place finishes came from senior Rebecca Howarth in the women’s 5000-meter run (17:23.72) and junior Shelbi Burnett in the women’s steeplechase (10:47.92).

Burnett followed her steeplechase performance with a third-place finish in the 1500-meter run and was also named the Horizon League Women’s Track Athlete of the Week for April 9 through April 15.

Junior Alyson Fosnot took fifth place in the women’s 5-kilometer run with a time of 17:54.52, and Kevin Oblinger finished third in the men’s steeplechase in 9:19.54.

In the women’s 800-meter run, junior Kirsty Legg took second place, and fellow junior Kaitlyn Love nabbed fifth place.

Redshirt freshman Harry Ellis was the fifth-place finisher in the men’s 1500-meter run with a time of 3:57.73.

In the sprints, freshman Nicole Hudec took fifth place in the 100-meter dash, recording a time of 12.83.

The team will compete next at the Mt. Sac relays in Walnut, Calif., and at the Polytan Invitational in Bloomington this weekend.

A tradition that started in the British Isles in the 1800s is now one of the more unique events in collegiate track and field meets.

The steeplechase is a 3000-meter race that involves jumping over 35 obstacles—one every 100 meters.

Barriers similar to hurdles make up 28 of these obstacles, and the other seven obstacles are water jumps.

“It’s different than any other event,” junior Shelbi Burnett, who has competed in the event for three years, said. “It’s definitely fun and keeps me engaged.”

The steeplechase event in track and field is a human version of the steeplechase horse race.

In the original version of the event, competitors would race horses between the steeples of churches in different towns.

Churches were used as markers because they were easily seen from a distance by the participants.

It first became a sport for human runners at Oxford University in 1860.

At that time, it was a two-mile cross country race.

In 1965, it was turned into the flat race with barriers that it is today.

“I really like the novelty of the race,” Burnett said.

In Indiana, the steeplechase is not a track and field event at the high- school level but is standard in collegiate competition.

For this reason, it takes a special kind of person to race the event.

Burnett said competitors need to have the endurance of distance runners and the strength and ability of hurdlers to get over barriers.

Freshman Kodi Mullins said the most important thing, however, is to be mentally tough.

“It’s all in your mind,” Mullins said. “If you think you can do it, then you can do it. You have to have the confidence.”

Mullins said the race is extremely demanding physically and is tough on the bodies of competitors.

The barriers are 36 inches high for men and 30 inches high for women, but unlike traditional hurdles, these barriers do not move.

“If you hit the barriers you’re going down,” redshirt sophomore Craig Jordan said. “There was a professional runner who had to get plastic surgery on his face.

“It’s fun, but if you mess up, you can get hurt.”

Not only are the barriers dangerous, but the race in general takes a toll on the body.

“It’s longer than any other hurdle event,” Burnett said. “It’s jarring and tough, so you don’t race it that often.”

One of the most unique parts of the race is the water jump.

Athletes have to jump over a barrier, but there is water on the other side.

The farther the participant  jumps, the shallower the water is.

“It’s nerve-racking going into it, but I love it when I can just clear it with ease,” Mullins said.

Jordan said he received a crash course in jumping water pits in his inaugural steeplechase competition.

“My first race, the whole team was at the corner by the water pit,” Jordan said. “I didn’t want to clip it and fall, so, out of nervousness, I over-jumped it and landed right in the water.”

This is one of the reasons that Jordan said he now considers the water pit one of his favorite parts of the race—but only when he is a spectator.

“Honestly, my favorite part is sitting down watching it,” Jordan said.  “If you go to the water pit area, you’re watching people fall down, and it’s pretty funny.”

Burnett agrees that the event is fun as a spectator but said that her favorite part is simply competing.

“You can’t race the steeple,” Burnett said. “There are always barriers in front of you to trip you up, but I just like the challenge.”

The Butler track and field team sent competitors to the Miami Invitational and Stanford Invitational over the weekend.

At the Miami Invitational, which was hosted by Miami of Ohio in Oxford, Ohio, Butler grabbed three individual titles, as well as a handful of top-10 finishes.

On the women’s side, junior Kirsty Legg won the 1500-meter run in a time of 4:27.63.

Legg defeated Miami of Ohio redshirt senior Kelley Miller by six-hundredths of a second. Juniors Kaitlyn Love and Shelbi Burnett finished in sixth and seventh place, respectively, in the same event for the Bulldogs.

Legg also took fifth place in the women’s 800-meter run with a time of 2:12.85.

Rounding out the distance events for the women, senior Rebecca Howarth grabbed third place in the women’s 5000-meter run, posting a time of 17:27.26.

For the sprinters, Butler’s 4×100-meter relay team of sophomore Maddie Cassidy and freshmen Nicole Hudec, Kelly Davidson and Bria Booker came in ninth place with a time of 50.03.

Hudec also finished in fifth place in the triple jump with a leap of 35-5 3/4, breaking her own school record yet again.

Led by freshman Tom Curr and senior Madison Roeder, Butler’s men also came home with a few top-10 finishes.

Curr won the men’s 1500-meter run in a time of 3:47.46 and was followed closely by Butler alumnus Kris Gauson (second in 3:49.02) and Butler assistant coach Andrew Sherman (third in 3:50.65). Redshirt sophomore Craig Jordan took fifth place in the event.

Roeder recorded a first-place finish in the men’s 5000-meter run, topping a field of 34 other athletes and clocking a time of 14:34.92.

Sophomore Mick Wang took 10^th place in the 110-meter high hurdles and sixth place in the high jump.

The men’s squad finished sixth of 14 teams and the women took eighth place out of 18 teams.

Sophomore Ross Clarke and freshman Mara Olson traveled to California for the Stanford Invitational Friday.

Olson finished in 14^th place in the 1500-meter run, clocking a time of 4:40.94.

Clarke competed in the 5000-meteer run, but he was unable to finish the event.

Butler will visit Terre Haute for the Pacesetter Invitational Saturday.

The Butler track and field team had another strong showing, this time at the Mike Poehlein Invitational last weekend.

Despite most of the team staying in Indianapolis, some Bulldogs were able to record strong performances.

Freshman Nicole Hudec surpassed Jen Connor’s 14-year old triple jump record of 34-5 1/2 with a leap of 35-0 ¼. The leap gave her a fifth-place finish.

In the distance events, junior Kaitlyn Love placed fourth in the 800-meter run (2:13.24) and third in the 1500-meter run (4:41.04).

Junior Shelbi Burnett made her way to a third-place finish in the women’s steeplechase with a time of 11:08.71. Freshman Mara Olson finished one place behind Burnett with a time of 11:22.66.

Junior Craig Jordan led the men in the steeplechase, posting a race-winning time of 9:20.94. Freshmen Codi Mullins and junior Kevin Oblinger finished third (9:30.45) and fifth (9:35.85) in the race, respectively.

Sophomore Mick Wang and freshman Kelly Davidson just missed top-five finishes in sprint events.

Wang took sixth place in the 110-meter hurdles with a time of 15.28, and Davidson nabbed sixth place in the 100-meter dash, clocking a time of 12.85.

Butler will send Olson and sophomore Ross Clarke out to California for the two-day Stanford Invitational this weekend.

The majority of the Bulldogs will be in Oxford, Ohio, for the Miami of Ohio Invitational Saturday.

Sophomore Callum Hawkins ended his cross country season with an All-American finish at the NCAA Division I Men’s Cross Country Championship in Terre Haute on Nov. 21.

Hawkins finished the 10-kilometer race in 26th place with a time of 29:56.4. Arizona freshman Lawi Lalang held the fastest time of 28:44.1.

Butler sophomore Ross Clarke also competed in the national meet and finished 136th with a time of 31:05.6

The top 40 finishers were awarded All-American honors.

Photo from Butler Sports Information Department

Hawkins was the first Butler runner to earn All-American status since Andy Baker in 2008.

The All-American honor was one of several awards Hawkins earned this season.

He recorded first-place finishes at the Horizon League Championship and the Great Lakes Region Championship.

Overall, Hawkins had five top 10 finishes this season.

Hawkins was the first Bulldog to win the regional meet since 1998.

He was also named 2011 Men’s Athlete of the Year in the Great Lakes Region and, most recently, was recognized as the men’s 2011 Horizon League Cross Country Athlete of the Year.

Sophomore Shelbi Burnett was named the women’s 2011 Horizon League Cross Country Athlete of the Year following her victory in the Horizon League Championship meet.

Two runners from the Butler men’s cross country team earned the right to continue their season last Saturday.

Sophomores Callum Hawkins and Ross Clarke qualified for the NCAA National Championships thanks to strong finishes in the NCAA Great Lakes Regional.

Hawkins followed up his victory in the Horizon League Championship meet by capturing the individual title in the regional race.

“[Hawkins] is racing at a high level,” coach Matt Roe said. “He has come a long way, and he allows the program to be successful.”

Hawkins, who has recorded a top 10 finish in all five of his races this season, finished the 10-kilometer race nearly eight seconds ahead of last year’s regional champion, Cincinnati senior Eric Finan.

“I feel the race really played into my hands,” Hawkins said. “I grabbed the race by the scruff of the neck.”

Clarke, who finished second in the conference championship race, grabbed 13th in the regional meet, allowing him to move on to nationals as well.

Hawkins said that Clarke joining him will make the trip to Terre Haute for nationals a lot better.

The Butler men finished in sixth as a team after coming in ranked seventh.

The Bulldogs were unable to send anyone to nationals in the women’s race.

Sophomore Shelbi Burnett, coming off a first-place finish in the league championship meet, was the top finisher for Butler in 58th place.

Hawkins and Clarke will travel to Terre  Haute for the national meet on Sunday. It will be the first race at this level for the pair.

“My top goal is finishing top five, which would make me an All-American,” Hawkins said.

Butler University is nationally known for its consecutive runs in the NCAA Men’s Division I Basketball Championship, but this fall there is a new champion on campus.

Actually, there are two of them—sophomore cross country runners Callum Hawkins and Shelbi Burnett.

The duo grabbed top honors in the men’s and women’s races in the Horizon League Championship on Oct. 29.

Hawkins, who was also named Horizon League Male Runner of the Week for the week of Sept. 19, finished his 8-kilometer race with a winning time of 25:34. Burnett crossed the finish line for her 5-kilometer race at 18:40.

For Burnett, who was redshirted with a stress fracture in her heel last season, the win has even more significance.

Burnett

“[The win] was exciting, and it was something that I didn’t think was necessarily possible this season, just because the championship itself was up for grabs,” Burnett said.

Burnett also gave credit to the positive team atmosphere for her success, as well as the success of her Bulldog teammates.

“This season we’ve had a great atmosphere of cohesion and teamwork,” Burnett said. “I know when I line up, I’m not just running for myself, which is how I think a lot of people view running in general.

“For me, it’s about running as Butler and being a part of something special, and that’s what we have on our team right now.”

Hawkins was also happy to grab an individual championship for Butler.

“I kind of expected it from the way I was running, but it was still good to get it in the bag,” Hawkins said. “We expected to get the team prize too, so it was a good day for all.”

Hawkins credited his success this season to intense training, saying he trained over the summer and has been more focused this year on running and not getting caught up in “the college lifestyle.”

The women’s squad has been running strong this season but is missing a few key seniors to injuries, leaving the team’s younger runners with big shoes to fill at the NCAA Great Lakes Regional.

“It will be an interesting experience for us because it’s a mixed group of girls running,” Burnett said. “We’re kind of young and don’t have our strongest front runners, but I think we can be a competitive group and hopefully have a couple girls place high and move on to nationals.”

Hawkins

Hawkins believes the Butler men have a good chance of succeeding at the regional level of competition.

“I feel like if we all run 100 percent, we have a good chance of making nationals,” Hawkins said. “We’re mainly focused on going in and doing the best we can.”

The Bulldogs will compete in the Great Lakes Regional in Toledo, OH, on Nov. 12 and will be looking to qualify for the NCAA National Championships in Terre Haute on Nov. 21.