Butler University

Butler University, private, coeducational institution of higher learning in Indianapolis, Ind., U.S. It comprises the Jordan College of Fine Arts and colleges of liberal arts and sciences, education, business administration, and pharmacy and health sciences. The university offers a range of bachelor’s degree programs and master’s degrees in business administration, education, arts and sciences, history, and English and a wide range of professional and doctoral programs. The Institute for Study Abroad provides students from Butler and dozens of other institutions with opportunities to study in Latin America, the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, China, Spain, and Australia. Total enrollment at Butler exceeds 4,400.

The university was founded in 1855 by members of the Disciples of Christ church as North Western Christian University. It was the third university in the country to admit women on an equal basis with men and the first to endow a chair for a female professorship. In 1877, after the school moved from downtown Indianapolis to the then-suburb of Irvington, its name was changed to Butler University in honour of Ovid Butler, a local abolitionist, attorney, and friend of the university. In 1928 the school moved to a new campus in north Indianapolis, and through the 1930s and ’40s the university opened colleges of education, business, and pharmacy. The Jordan College of Music opened in 1951. Butler’s Hinkle Fieldhouse (1928) and Arthur Jordan Memorial Hall (1927) are both listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Clowes Memorial Hall (1963) is a performing arts centre noted for its acoustics.