Comments Off on Celebration of Scholarship, Research and Creativity Pictures

By hahoward, March 24, 2015 12:00 pm

Butler Libraries and the Butler Institute for Research and Scholarship’s Celebration event was held Wednesday, March 18, 2015. With wine, appetizers, live music, and brief remarks by the Provost, faculty and staff gathered to view each other’s scholarship, creative work, and grant funding over the past year and meet up with colleagues.  It was a welcome break to appreciate and learn of colleague’s professional achievements.

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Comments Off on Remembering Patty Lyons

By hahoward, March 18, 2015 10:42 am

All at Butler Libraries are saddened by the death of our former coworker, Patty Lyons, on Wednesday, March 4, 2015. Patty worked as a Cataloging Assistant in Technical Services in the Irwin Library for 33 years and retired in February of 2014. During her time with the library, she processed every new item that entered the collection. Prior to her tenure at Butler, she worked at the Hesburgh Library at the University of Notre Dame. The Lyons’ are tied to Butler University’s history, with Patty’s husband Edwin also working for the university for several years, serving as the Director of the Physical Plant from 1981-1988, and the family residing in the Carter House prior to it becoming the president’s residence.

Her obituary can be found here. Patty made a lasting impact on the Butler Libraries and will be greatly missed.

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Comments Off on Founder’s Week – Catharine Merrill

By hahoward, February 5, 2015 9:57 am

Founder’s Week – Catharine Merrill

Yesterday we told you about the Ovid Butler‘s daughter Demia, for whom the Demia Butler Chair of English Literature is named. Today we’d like to tell you about the first holder of that chair, Catharine Merrill (1824-1900). Merrill came from a prominent Indiana family, served as a volunteer nurse during the Civil War, was friends with conservationist John Muir, and was an innovator in the classroom, being the first to use the lecture method for courses other than science.  Remembered as providing a model in scholarship and character, she retired from Butler in 1883, but continued teaching privately until shortly before her death. This obituary, published in the June 9, 1900 edition of the national publication The School Journal, shows how influential she was on the community:

Catharine Merrill’s portrait, by Indiana artist T.C. Steele, hangs in Robertson Hall.

Catharine Merrill (1824-1900)

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By hahoward, February 4, 2015 9:13 am

University Founder Demia Butler

How much do you know about Founder’s Day at Butler? Demia Butler, the daughter of Ovid Butler, was the first woman to graduate from the full four-year classical studies program in 1862. There were women in the school’s first graduating class in 1856, but prior to 1862 women had graduated from a three-year program. After Demia graduated, the three-year woman’s program was abolished, and all students took the same curriculum.

Demia married in 1866, only to die in 1867 at the age of 25. To honor her memory, her father founded the Demia Butler Chair of English Literature in 1869, the first endowed chair in the U.S. specifically created for a female professor. In establishing the chair, Ovid Butler requested it was “to be filled always and only by a good and competent female professor” for courses “as may be most appropriately taught by female professors”; although smart drugs guide in the chair’s 146-year history it has been held – against Ovid Butler’s wishes – twice by male professors. Today the chair is held by English professor Susan Neville.

Demia Butler

Abolitionist and Feminist Beginnings

In 1847, abolitionist Disciples of Christ members in Indiana proposed founding a university on free soil. The closest Disciples school, Bethany College, was in Virginia, a slave-holding state. The importance of founding a school with abolitionist values was a primary motivator, as stated by Ovid Butler,

The institution originated in the desire of its founders and early patrons for an institution of learning of the highest class upon free soil, in which their children and the youth of the Northwest might receive a liberal and Christian education, removed, as far as practicable, from the pernicious influences of slavery.

When North Western Christian University opened its doors on November 1, 1855, women and students who had been expelled from Bethany College for their abolitionist beliefs were in the first class. Significantly, from its beginning, NWCU admitted women and students of color, as well as those from all religious backgrounds or none, being nonsectarian from its founding. NWCU was the first college in Indiana and the second in the US to admit women on an equal basis with men.

North Western Christian University at College Ave and 13th Street

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Comments Off on Book Signing Feb 5 – Chasing Freedom

By hahoward, February 3, 2015 10:57 am

As part of our Founder’s Week celebrations, Butler Libraries will be hosting a book signing with award-winning book illustrator Michele Wood!

What: Book signing with illustrator Michele Wood
Where: Irwin Library
When: Wed, Feb 5 – 4:00 – 6:00pm

The bookstore will be on hand selling copies of Michele’s new book, co-authored with Nikki Grimes, Chasing Freedom: The Life Journeys of Harriet Tubman and Susan B. Anthony.

Imagine if Harriet Tubman and Susan B. Anthony reminisced about their extraordinary lives
CHASING FREEDOM
The Life Journeys of Harriet Tubman & Susan B. Anthony
By Nikki Grimes
Illustrated by Michele Wood

“A tremendous opportunity for children to understand what these women worked so hard to accomplish—one succeeding and one coming close.”
— Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“Audiences willing to embrace the unusual concept, though, may view this as a vanguard piece in an engaging new form that mixes nonfiction with historical fiction.”
— School Library Journal, starred review

Chasing Freedom, written by award-winning poet and author Nikki Grimes and illustrated by award-winning illustrator Michele Wood, invites curious young readers to further explore two of nineteenth century’s most powerful, and inspiring American women; Susan B. Anthony and Harriet Tubman through an engaging work of historical fiction.

Chasing Freedom richly imagines the experiences of Harriet Tubman and Susan B. Anthony, illuminating historical events like the Underground Railroad, the Civil War, and the Women’s Suffrage Movement. Young readers will have fun discovering this historical fiction adventure complete with breathtaking illustrations that highlight some of the most influential events, leaders, and the legislation, of that time period.

Nikki Grimes won a 2014 Coretta Scott King Honor for Words with Wings, she is the author of four other Coretta Scott King Honor books: Talkin’ About Bessie, Jazmin’s Notebook, The Road to Paris, and Dark Sons. She also won the Coretta Scott King Award for Bronx Masquerade and is the recipient of the 2006 National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Award for Excellence in Poetry for Children. Her acclaimed body of work for children includes the Orchard books Welcome, and Precious. Nikki Grimes lives in Corona, California. Please visit her online at www.NikkiGrimes.com.

Michele Wood is a painter, illustrator and designer. She won the American Book Award for Going Back Home and the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award for I See the Rhythm. Wood lives in Indianapolis, Indiana. Please visit her online at www.MicheleWood.com.

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