{"id":10652,"date":"2016-04-28T17:20:23","date_gmt":"2016-04-28T23:20:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/?p=10652"},"modified":"2016-04-29T13:26:51","modified_gmt":"2016-04-29T19:26:51","slug":"from-good-to-great-two-years-in-the-butler-center-works-as-a-campus-catalyst","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/2016\/04\/from-good-to-great-two-years-in-the-butler-center-works-as-a-campus-catalyst\/","title":{"rendered":"From Good to Great"},"content":{"rendered":"

Assistant Vice President and Director of The Butler Center Paul Buckley is very clear about his office\u2019s goals.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want every student who graduates from this place to graduate with their human dignity intact, and with a greater understanding of themselves, the other \u2014 whoever the other is \u2014 and the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

A complex task, for sure, but that\u2019s just the nature of the business when your primary business is acting as a hub of diversity, inclusion, intercultural exchange, equity, and empowerment for the Colorado College community.<\/p>\n

Established in 2014 and named for one of CC\u2019s earliest African American alumni, Ellis Ulysses Butler Jr. \u201940, <\/strong>The Butler Center is a paradigm shift from its precursor office, the Office of Minority and International Students (OMIS).<\/p>\n

As Mohammad Mia \u201916<\/strong>, who serves as a Butler Center \u201cHeads of State\u201d representative to student government, explains, \u201cI think OMIS was inclusive for minority and international students, but it was mainly focused on, \u2018OK, the minority and international students aren\u2019t as happy here as they could be. … Let\u2019s make sure they feel included.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Butler Center is more about creating and fostering an inclusive campus,\u201d he says. \u201cDefinitely far more strategic in creating more comprehensive approaches that are focused on a lot of things \u2014 from housing, to food options, to mentoring services, to many different layered approaches to understanding the needs of students of color and students on campus \u2014 to ensure that it\u2019s not just a Band-Aid solution, but a comprehensive one.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere there\u2019s tension, we move toward it,\u201d Buckley says. \u201cWe see that as where the work is.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\u201cWhere<\/a>

\u201cWhere there\u2019s tension, we move toward it. We see that as where the work is.\u201d \u2013 Paul Buckley, Assistant Vice President and Director of The Butler Center<\/p><\/div>\n

It\u2019s the type of work that Buckley has been doing for two decades. Before CC hired him in June 2014 as the first director, the higher-ed professional had held a variety of leadership positions in academic, student, and multi-cultural affairs, most recently as assistant dean of undergraduates at Dartmouth College. Buckley earned his doctor of philosophy degree from Syracuse University\u2019s School of Education, where his emphasis was on cultural foundations of education<\/p>\n

\u201cThe sweet spot for me is doing diversity work,\u201d Buckley says. \u201cBeing our best selves always involves being our best to others, giving our best to others.\u201d<\/p>\n

The process of it, he adds, is a journey \u2014 a word he likes to use a lot because he thinks it\u2019s important for individuals and institutions to have a sense that this is challenging work.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt cuts across the grain of what America is, right? When we talk about diversity and inclusion, it\u2019s futuristic work so we\u2019re working toward some kind of an aspiration, which means change,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd change, though we may want it, it\u2019s hard. People want change, but people do not want\u00a0to be\u00a0changed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Change, as he continues, always involves some level of discomfort, but it\u2019s necessary and opens avenues to self-reflection.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things we learn from a process of change is that we are incomplete. And that can be challenging because we thought that we were complete.\u00a0We learn we\u2019re not perfect. We learn that we can improve. And we get clarity about our identity. We realize our identity is shifting.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a place the campus has found itself after an incident that occurred last fall involving racist posts by CC students on the popular social media app Yik Yak. As Buckley explains, while what happened on Yik Yak was certainly in and of itself hurtful to some members of the CC community, and created a lot of confusion for the entire community, that event is not singular \u2014 instead it\u2019s a reflection of many other things happening on campus.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt reflects some ideologies within our community that we had not faced,\u201d Buckley says. \u201cIt reflects how well people felt they had to mask in face-to-face interactions. And how anonymity allowed for some freer expression without thinking about consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Butler Center found itself in a unique role, he explains: responding to those who were hurt, and also engaging the campus to better understand itself and to understand that there are some issues to work through. They did this primarily through open dialogue sessions to help model healthy communication and offer opportunities for reflection and healing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen there are moments of tension on campus,\u201d Buckley says, \u201cit is our role to facilitate an understanding of that tension to help educate around the dynamics and the issues that created that tension, as well as to help us work through it. We do not seek to mask it or to cover it up or to sweep it under a rug.\u201d<\/p>\n

Buckley\u2019s day-to-day activities include everything from meeting one-on-one with students, faculty, and staff, to brainstorming with the other three Butler Center staff on how to engage the campus, to mentoring and advising one of 15 cultural, political, and artistic student \u201cButler Groups.\u201d<\/p>\n

The newest group, AMUN, is named for the ancient Egyptian god of creation; the acronym stands for Artists and Makers of Undying Nobility. Co-founder Tia Phillip \u201918 <\/strong>explains that it was the Yik Yak incident that pushed her and four friends to organize this group specifically for those who identify as people of color and creatives or artists.<\/p>\n

\u201cI and one of the co-founders, we looked at each other and said, \u2018I don\u2019t know how to talk about what it is that I\u2019m feeling.\u2019 And so she wrote a song about it. I made a short film about it. And we didn\u2019t share it with anybody but each other. But it was nice to be able to express in a way that was expressible,\u201d Phillip says. \u201cWe wanted this space to be able to be creative and expressive in a way that might not be easily understood or easily communicated using our words.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Butler Center\u2019s work also involves facilitating institutional-level change. Take, for instance, inclusive language on campus. Recently a collaboration with Human Resources allowed students, faculty, staff,and alumni to make changes in their identity categories in CC\u2019s main database Banner, particularly around race and gender. One example is the switch from a male\/ female-only selection to the option for an individual to identify as male, female, nonbinary, or transgender.<\/p>\n

Buckley smiles when asked what the best part of his job is.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is work that is about relationship and community building. So it\u2019s work that is not only for the present, but it\u2019s also for the future.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two years in, The Butler Center works as a campus catalyst.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":10654,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-10652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-april-2016","tag-features"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/files\/2016\/04\/CC-BUL-APRIL2016-16-ButlerCenter.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10652"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10741,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10652\/revisions\/10741"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}