Spanish

Widely used around the world, Spanish has become the second-most-spoken language in the United States, touching all facets of our culture from media to education to business.

The Department of Modern Languages, Literatures, and Cultures offers you a hands-on Spanish major and minor that include immersive study abroad programs, our nationally-recognized Service Learning course, and internships both in the U.S. and abroad. You’ll obtain the experiences necessary to improve language fluency while expanding your understanding of cultures different from your own.

Join us and take advantage of:

  • Access to Central Indiana’s rich Latino community, in which students interact in social and service learning capacities
  • Opportunities for students to serve as Spanish-speaking teacher aides in Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS) classrooms
  • Immersive study abroad, including faculty-led programs to Alcalá de Henares, Spain (one semester, offered every fall) and Costa Rica (three-week summer intensive)
  • Internships both in the U.S. and abroad
  • Our active, on-campus Latinos Unidos student group
  • Classes led by internationally recognized and published faculty hailing from countries around the world, including Argentina, Belgium, Colombia, Italy, Panama, El Salvador, Senegal, Serbia, and Spain
  • Use of Butler’s student Modern Language Center (MLC) and its wealth of technology, tutoring, and lounge areas
  • The option to complete the degree in three years

Browse our course offerings.

Financial Support

Please read through these lists of numerous Prestigious Scholarship Opportunities (scroll down to “language study”), as well as study abroad scholarships (CIEE and IFSA-Butler) and travel grants.

Check out the annual Liberal Arts and Sciences $1,000 essay contest (typically due by January), the annual John Weidner Endowed Scholarship for Altruism (typically due by March), and the annual Corrine Welling Scholarship (typically due by April).

For international students, here’s some advice and information on Scholarships and Grants set aside specifically for you.

If you encounter a short-term, unforeseen financial hardship or immediate expense that’s impacting your academic success, please read about the Butler Emergency Assistance Fund.

Go Beyond Learning Basic Skills

As other universities do, we offer courses to develop your communication skills and improve proficiencies.

However we take it much further, offering you intensive studies in Culture, Literature, and Linguistics—both stateside and abroad, utilizing media of all kinds on both our end and yours.

View our YouTube series on Linguistics—dozens of videos providing you deep insight into the underpinnings of the Spanish language and its usage around the world.

Not only will your pronunciation improve, but your confidence will grow in speaking and writing about your Cultural and Literary areas of inquiry.

And Spanish coursework complements your studies from across the University.

Watch a College of Communication student movie on the subjunctive tense that incorporates computer generated dinosaurs roaming Butler’s campus.

Enjoy a Jordan College of the Arts student stop animation movie documenting a faculty member’s secret life as a spy.

For questions about our Spanish program, contact our faculty members anytime.

Service Learning Opportunities

Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS)

Spanish major teaching at IPS schools

Our SP390 Service Learning course has been continuously taught for roughly two decades now by its founder, Professor of Spanish Dr. Terri Carney, and Senior Lecturer of Spanish Liliana Goens. The course received one of five, national Global Engagement Initiative Recognition Awards from the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL), and has been profiled in various regional publications.

In this course, you’ll immerse yourself in Indianapolis Public School classrooms every week, aiding underserved, Spanish-speaking students.

Your supervised, on-site hours are supported by weekly, Butler class meetings for discussion and reflection, in Spanish, on topics including language acquisition and immigration. An individualized schedule is constructed by you, your course instructor, and the partner school.

This course not only fulfills the Skills requirement for the Spanish major, but it also fulfills your University Indianapolis Community Requirement (ICR) and as a course toward the Peace and Conflict Studies program.

Words from Alumni

I’ve had such good experiences learning languages at Butler, and it’s something I’m so passionate about. I think getting to teach that to other people will be such a great opportunity. —Léa Levy ’15

“I studied abroad in Spain and absolutely loved it. I love traveling, so I want to keep doing that. , going to a Spanish-speaking country helps me. I’ll obviously be speaking Spanish and improving my skills in that area, but I’ll also be teaching English to non-native speakers. So it combines my passions.” —Amber Zimay ’15

What Bulldogs Dream, We Do

Michael Hole ’08

Michael Hole

A Boston Medical Center pediatrician, Spanish and Biology double major Michael Hole was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list of America’s most important young entrepreneurs, creative leaders, and brightest stars.

While at Butler, he founded Ambassadors for Children and Timmy Global Health, and was active in Student Government Association and Delta Tau Delta.

After graduation, Hole went on to Stanford University, where he earned his MBA and Doctor of Medicine (MD).

Hole is the cofounder of StreetCred, an organization that works to reduce child poverty in America by improving access to money and services available to low-income families and individuals raising children.

The organization provides free tax preparation and financial literacy services in pediatric hospitals and clinics targeting families eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit. StreetCred plans to expand services into one-stop shops that help families apply for community resources and public benefits like health insurance, food assistance, public housing, electricity, FAFSA, and savings plans—all before they leave the doctor’s office.

“We look at thousands of candidates from 20 different categories and consider their game-changing quotient along various dimensions, such as impact, use of cutting edge technology or creativity, scalability or adaptability, number of people reached and dollars raised/generated.” —Forbes Magazine