Social Justice & Diversity
Requirement Structure
Butler University was founded on the principles of diversity, equality, and inclusivity. The Social Justice and Diversity requirement reaffirms these founding principles. Students must take one course in any part of the University that exposes them to critical scholarship on the root causes of marginalization and inequity and how to counter it.
Learning Objectives
- To recognize multiple and intersecting dimensions of identity and inequity through the study of critical scholarship on the historical, cultural, political, and/or social experiences of marginalized communities.
- To identify and explain the causes and impact of privilege, power, and oppression and cultivate tools for overcoming conflict and promoting equality.
- To recognize and critique local, national, or global conditions that enable, perpetuate and/or challenge social injustice and inequity.
Learning Outcome used for Assessment
Students will become more aware of the presence and sources of injustices and will produce graduates better prepared to actively counter them.
Exemptions
No exemption.
SJD Policies and Procedures
For more information about the mission of the SJD requirement, SJD policies, and how to propose SJD courses, see this document.
SJD Courses
The following list of courses is not meant to be exhaustive. Further, not all classes are offered every semester. Students should discuss options with their academic advisor.
Faculty Director, Social Justice & Diversity
Department of History, Anthropology and Classics
Lynne A. Kvapil, known by her students as Dr. K, is an archaeologist specializing in ancient Greece and Aegean Prehistory. Her research focuses on the Mycenaean Greeks, particularly farming, warfare, the manufacture of ceramics, and labor organization and management. As an active field archaeologist, Dr. K travels to Greece every summer, where she is the Assistant Director of the Nemea Center of Archaeology Excavations at the Mycenaean cemetery at Aidonia and the Petsas House Excavations at Mycenae. Dr. K has been awarded research funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Mediterranean Archaeological Trust to support her ongoing research on the Mycenaean Greeks, and she has been a part of a successful grant-writing team that has been awarded funding from the Archaeological Institute of America and the Loeb Foundation to support the excavations at Aidonia.
At Butler University, Dr. K teaches in all aspects of the ancient Mediterranean world, but most often she teaches about Ancient Greece, including Ancient Greek language courses, Ancient Greek Art and Myth, Ancient Greek Perspectives. She also teaches upper level courses in Ancient Greek and Roman Art and Architecture and Women in Antiquity. Dr. K is also a co-director of the Ancient Mediterranean Archaeology and Classics (AMCA) lab, which won a 2015 Butler University Innovation Grant and which aims to help put the material culture of the ancient world into the modern classroom.