The University Series is a yearly collection of events, lectures, and activities that explore a theme and one or more of the university’s learning goals as means to encourage lively and thoughtful discussion and engagement of diverse and versatile topics. It is the series’ intention to create opportunities for students, staff, and community to come together and learn from leaders, scholars, and one another enhancing the intellectual life and community spirit of campus, the city, and beyond.

This Year’s Theme & Goals

“MAKING OUR WAY HOME”
In 2020-2022, we will be exploring the intersection of two of the university’s goals —
social responsibility and critical thinking.

In “Making Our Way Home”, we are engaging in a dialogue about social responsibility. We are thinking critically, asking questions related to identity, acceptance, responsibility, establishment, and more. In this process, we are fostering microcosms of health and crafting ecologies of engagement between peoples. We are displaying our capacity for social responsibility, encountering, and negotiating new intersections along paths that may feel strangely familiar. As we consider and engage the realities of the world today, please join us in “Making Our Way Home,” contemplating who we are, where we are going, and how each of us defines “home.”

What:
The series is open to meaningful and exciting formats in which to engage the yearly theme/goals. While many past events have taken the form of a lecture or performance the format can take many forms.

Who:
Anyone from the UIndy community can propose and plan an event that relates to the current theme and goals. Please note: If you are a student you will need a faculty, staff, or administrator co-sponsor.

When:
Events typically take place during the Academic Year, August – May.

Why/Benefits:
The University Series and University Series Committee can….

• Assist with the planning of the event
• Possibly assist with funding by providing an opportunity to apply for funding through one of the four endowed lectureships
  (See Funding Sources)
• Provide a campus-wide platform for your event, speaker, scholarship, etc.
• Widen marketing strategy & audience by being part of the series marketing
• Expand capacity for department activities for a short period of time
• Provide special opportunities for student engagement with guest speakers
• Bring a speaker to campus around which you plan to build a symposium

Examples of Types of Past Events/Speakers:

• Twyla Tharp
• Paul Farmer
• Neal DeGrasse Tyson
• The Guerilla Girls

The Four Goals

Each year, for its University Series of lectures and performances, UIndy focuses on one (or more) of its four learning goals:

Critical Thinking: Students will make judgments through the application of intellectual criteria. The core components of critical thinking include evaluation, self-regulation, interpretation, analysis, inference, and explanation.

Creativity: Students will use their imagination and inventiveness in modifying or generating results.

Performance: Students will be able to demonstrate their mastery of subject content through their execution and communication of educational objectives.

Social Responsibility: Students will be able to make connections between the academic disciplines and the social environment of the local and broad community. The dimensions of social responsibility are identified by the Association of American Colleges and Universities as striving for excellence; cultivating personal and academic integrity; contributing to a larger community; taking seriously the perspective of others, and developing competence in ethical and moral reasoning

Funding Sources

There is no operating budget for the University Series. The committee works with departments, schools, and programmatic units to create collaborations that make it possible for us to leverage the maximum benefit for the greater good of the campus and community.

We also encourage units to propose activities that can be funded through the following four endowments.