Would you say that diversity is part of our university’s core curriculum? Twelve Butler professors will be addressing this issue and more when they present a panel at the sixth annual meeting of the Cultural Studies Association (CSA).

The conference will take place May 22-24 on the campus of New York University in Greenwich Village. This is an opportunity for scholars, students and others interested in Cultural Studies to exchange their work and ideas with one another.

Butler’s panelists will address the efforts that have been made on campus to promote diversity, and how they have tried to incorporate this change into the university's new core curriculum.

Dr. Ann Savage, a media arts professor, said she and the rest of the faculty members attending the conference are doing so as a result of their panel being accepted by the CSA.

“A group of faculty with academic interest in diversity embraced the vision of the new core, in which diversity and interdisciplinarity are considered important components,” she said.

Savage said a group of about 25 faculty members representing all five colleges created the "Cultural Studies and Institutional Change: The Story of the Collaborative for Inquiry into Gender, Race and Sexuality" that will be presented at the conference.

Savage will be accompanied by professors Terri Carney (modern languages), Chad Bauman (religion), Vivian Deno (history), Katharina Dulckeit (philosophy), Elise Edwards (anthropology), Grace Farrell (English), Lee Garver (English), Allison Harthcock (media arts), Terri Jett (political science), David Moscowitz (communication studies) and Ageeth Sluis (history).

“As a part of continuing our efforts in terms of diversity and interdisciplinarity, we have found attendance to the Cultural Studies Association conference as critical,” Savage said.

“We are able to meet and engage with faculty from across the globe, and the conference provides an opportunity to enrich both our teaching and our research,” she added.

A group of Butler professors also attended the Cultural Studies Association conference last spring in Portland, Ore. The trip was funded by a grant from the provost’s office for developing pilot courses for the new core curriculum.

“The conference last year was invaluable,” Savage said. “To meet so many people that share the interest and goals of Butler, and in particular of ‘The Collaborative,’ has a profound impact on the work that we do as teacher-scholars.”

In Portland, they met with numerous members of the Indiana University Gender Studies doctoral program, one of the first of its kind in the country. The two university groups established a relationship to help Butler expand its Gender Studies minor to a Gender and Ethnic Studies major.

This year's conference in New York will present sessions on "New York and Culture," "Gender and Sexuality" and "Law and Minorities." The conference invites people from all areas that relate to Cultural Studies.

“Attending the conference helps to keep us focused on the university and the Collaborative's goals of an interdisciplinary core and a core reflective of the diversity of the globe,” Savage concluded.