Mike Eikenberry
Liberal Arts Statement
As a small town kid from Northern Indiana, I arrived at Butler
looking for my escape from the label of being the "Principal's
Kid". I envisioned my time at college would be exploring and
finding myself in the big city of Indianapolis while having a
safety net in Butler and its small community. Little did I
know that my safety net would end up being my proving ground.
I found that after a less than stellar start as a business student
that my passions were being stirred through instructors in the
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Classes such as Biology
110 provided great life lessons about perseverance and when to
realize that through adversity one can find success in different
pursuits. William Watts challenged me to craft and
communicate my opinions effectively in Composition and Critical
Thinking and Hilene Flanzbaum exposed me to Jane Austen and her
writings. John Beversluis brought Gustav Mahler to me through
his philosophy class, and my Sociology department allowed me to
examine deviance, criminality, and travel to East St. Louis to
experience and critique the subject of educational disparity that
Jonathon Kozol wrote about in Savage Inequalities.
Butler University provided this small town boy exposure to the arts
and ideas that have whetted my appetite for knowledge and fueled my
desire to constantly expose myself to new points of view. My
liberal arts education provided critical thinking skills and the
ability to communicate in an effective manner with ones
audience.
I have not only been enriched through the classroom, but also as a
member of a Greek organization and the life lessons learned through
managing a 70 man chapter. These lessons have provided an
ability to approach all challenges with the goal to provide the
best outcomes for all involved.
Our household is doubly thankful for all we gained from the
Butler College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. I think that it
is crucial in the education of tomorrow's workforce that employees
are able to balance technical expertise with a well rounded
background of the principles and lessons that have shaped the
current society today. In summation Albert Einstein stated it
best when he said "it is not so very important for a person to
learn facts. For that he does not really need a
college. He can learn them from books. The value of an
education is a liberal arts college is not learning of many facts
but the training of the mind to think something that cannot be
learned from textbooks."