Senior and community health major Alexis Burr works closely with a multitude of campus unity initiatives at Indiana University and is currently interning with the IU bicentennial celebration project.
“The Office of the Bicentennial wants its interns to focus on different topics that are connected to IU, and then find a way to share that information with other students,” Burr said.
Each intern is provided the opportunity to research a topic of their choosing. Although Burr studies Community Health, she wanted to employ skills and interests not directly associated with her major.
“I thought about how my experience at IU has been shaped by things [the university has] dared to do in times and spaces that weren’t conducive to that,” Burr said.
University Historian James Capshew saw that Burr was interested in art and told her about a man named T.C. Steele.
Burr now spends most of her days in the archives at the Herman B Wells Library, researching T.C. Steele, the American Impressionist painter who dedicated much of his time and work to Indiana University. Though her specific program has yet to take shape, Burr aims to use her research to prepare an interactive program for IU students to engage with T.C. Steele’s work. She hopes that students will recognize his impact on IU during bicentennial celebration in 2020.