2015 Library Science Student and Alumni Forum
Saturday, July 25, 2015, 2409 Joyner Library
11:00am-3:00pm
Students and Alumni: Sharon Carpenter, Tammy McCarn, Lisa Duke, April deBerry, Erin Gathercole, Kevin Vickers, Debbie Schmitzer, Janis Duncan, James Hodges, and Darren Brady (via GoToMeeting)
Faculty: Al Jones, Elaine Yontz, John Harer, Gail Munde (Emerita)
Introductory Remarks
Dr. Harer welcomed the participants and asked group members to introduce themselves around the table. He reminded the group that the library science program had been awarded accreditation by the American Library Association in January 2015. Programs are accredited for seven years, and the ECU program’s next visit and program review will be in 2022. In addition to these full program reviews, all accredited programs must submit a biennial report every two years. The biennial report documents and provides evidence of continuous quality improvement. Student and alumni involvement in program evaluation activities, such as attendance at today’s meeting, contribute to continuing success in maintaining the program’s accreditation status.
The priorities today will be gathering input on curriculum expansion to better accommodate the development of public and academic librarians, and to strengthen student organizations (ALA Student Chapter and emerging Beta Phi Mu chapter). We look forward to your advice, suggestions and input on the public and academic library concentrations, as well as the school library concentration, and any other topics of interest to the group.
2015 Structural and Personnel Changes
As the result of a national search, the College of Education has a new dean, Dr. Grant Hayes. Dr. Hayes comes to ECU from the University of Central Florida and his disciplinary background is in counseling and counselor education. He replaces Dean Linda Patriarca, who will step down in August.
In 2014-2015 the MLS program participated in a program merger within the College of Education, joining other major graduate programs affiliated with education (Adult Education, Counselor Education, and Information Technology) to form a new department, the Department of Interdisciplinary Professions. When the merger was administratively complete, an internal search was conducted for a full-time chair. Dr. Scott Glass has been appointed chair of the new department, and comes from the counselor education program. MLS faculty supported his selection and look forward to working closely with him. The former interim chair, Dr. Vivian Mott, has returned to her full-time job as Associate Dean of the College of Education.
Dr. Gail Munde retired in May 2015, and Dr. Barbara Marson announced her intention to retire in May 2016. The College of Education has requested to fill the vacancy created by Dr. Munde’s retirement, and expects to hear a response to the request sometime early in the fall semester.
Break for Lunch
Enrollment Outlook
Harer distributed charts illustrating five-year head count enrollment trends in spring enrollments, spring graduations and fall admissions. Fall admissions have increased each of the past two years, and as projected, 2015 may surpass 2014 if the 30 NCEDDS fellows who entered in fall 2014 with full financial support are backed out of the total. Spring graduations have dropped every year for the past five years. He explained that although these are important figures for the program, as far as UNC general administration and ECU administrators are concerned; the only relevant figure is student credit hour production. The MLS program has a distinct disadvantage in producing a satisfactory number of student credit hours. Forty percent of students in the MLS program take only one course per semester, largely because they work full-time and have full-time family responsibilities and/or because they can only afford to take one class per semester. Because many students are working in K-12 schools, the optimum period for taking courses is during the 11-week summer term, and these students often enroll in two or three courses during the summers. Because student credit hour production drives the funding formula, and summer school enrollment does not count in the formula, this presents a dilemma for the MLS program. Rather than not offering any courses during the summer term, as some graduate programs do, the MLS program has continued to offer a full slate of courses during the summer to accommodate student enrollment patterns and needs.
Student Organizations
Dr. Yontz presented information on establishing an ECU chapter of Beta Phi Mu, the international library and information studies honor society. Membership is by invitation after election by program faculty, and limited to no more than 25% of a program’s graduating class. “Graduating class” is determined by the program, and can include students expected to graduate in a particular calendar or academic year, or a particular semester and year. The only requirement is that a proposed member be a current student. Invitations are extended to students with a GPA of 3.75 and who have demonstrated professional association activities and service to the field.
In order to establish a chapter, a library science program must present signatures from 25 current Beta Phi Mu members who support the program’s inclusion. Dr. Yontz, a former board member of Beta Phi Mu, noted that previously, these member signatories must have lived within 50 miles of the program site. During her tenure, she argued successfully to have this requirement dropped, as so many library science programs now offer distance and/or online education options for students.
When asked about the advantages of establishing a chapter, Dr. Yontz noted that membership in this honor society distinguishes students and alumni from other job candidates, provides both academic and professional development scholarships, provides extended networking and leadership opportunities, and confers the privilege of wearing a special honor cord with academic regalia.
Forum participants expressed an interest in the program establishing a Beta Phi Mu chapter.
Dr. Harer announced that Mr. Hugh Davis, a current student, would serve as ECU’s ALA Student Chapter President for 2015-2016. Mr. Davis follows Ms. Barbara Raley-Flor as President 2014-2015. He intends to continue the chapter’s virtual meetings held twice a semester in fall and spring.
Dr. Harer asked what sorts of events or activities students would enjoy next year, in addition to the four virtual meetings and the annual Holiday Book Drive. Participants suggested:
· Social gatherings, but not at the beginning of the academic year. Optimal times might be late September/early October, and perhaps February (depending on the weather of course).
· Online presentations by popular children’s or young adult authors and illustrators. An interesting combination would be to host both the author and the illustrator of a children’s book.
· Trip to UNC-CH Hunt Library in Raleigh.
· Potential topics of interest included grantwriting, or one shot presentations on “quick” sources of small grants, such as foundations or charitable organizations.
Dr. Harer asked that additional ideas be emailed to either him or Dr. Jami Jones, who is the faculty sponsor of the ALA Student Chapter.
Curriculum Improvement and Options for Expansion
Dr. Harer noted that the program wanted to drop the designation “pathways” and use the term “concentrations.” Identifying career pathways using the word “concentration” would have several advantages, the primary one being that concentrations would be identified on student transcripts, while pathways are not. If they wished, students could select and complete more than one concentration. He reported that concentrations currently under consideration included:
· Archival studies. The ECU history program currently offers a graduate concentration in Public History, and regularly offers three relevant courses that could serve as MLS program electives or requirements for this concentration. However, the three public history courses are face-to-face only and meet on campus. Harer is in conversation with Joyner Library’s University Archivist regarding the possibility of developing an online course for the program.
· Music librarianship. This would not be an optimal idea, as employers in this specialty often require a Master of Music degree in addition to an MLS.
· Cyber librarianship. Although the interpretation of the term is unclear, this would involve coursework in cyber security, and the ECU Criminal Justice program offers coursework in this specialty. The Information Technology program in the College of Education also offers coursework in data security.
Harer asked the group what other concentrations might be useful, and suggestions from the group were:
· If not a dual DPI 076 Library Media Specialist and 077 Technology Facilitator certificate program, then a concentration that would focus on technology in K-12 schools. School library students and alumni expressed high interest in a concentration that would make them more marketable to principals who wanted to assign dual duties to school librarians.
· Health librarianship, health informatics and telemedicine. The program could take advantage of resources at the Medical School and Laupus Library.
Other general suggestions included:
· Munde noted that the program had future plans to drop LIBS 6031 Library Administration and Management as a requirement for all students because the expanded concentrations would each include a specialized course on library management. No participants objected to this, and one noted that much of what she learned in LIBS 6031 was duplicated later in LIBS 6142 and 6144.
· Participants were split on the status of LIBS 6042 Technology for Librarians. Some appreciated that the course started at “ground zero” and was very useful to students with no background in using technology; others found the course interesting, but would rather have spent the time on more advanced topics, e.g., web site construction, coding, server management, etc. These students could be permitted to test out of LIBS 6042 and take an advanced class instead, which would also support the development of a technology concentration within the program.
· For public libraries, a current concern is acquiring the social media skills necessary to develop and maintain teen audiences, and a specialized course in this could be useful. Local history collections and archives are also important to this group.
· A student in the academic pathway suggested that the ADED course, Effective College Teaching, should be a required course for academic pathway students. Her experience in this course was excellent, and the information would be very useful for all academic librarians.
In response to a general question about the efficacy of the tier structure and course sequencing, students reported that the structure and sequence were easy to follow, well-structured and made advising easier for them.
Dr. Harer asked students who had comments about the quality of advising or their advising experiences to contact him directly via email.
He thanked participants for giving up a beautiful summer Saturday afternoon to spend it with the faculty and their student and alumni colleagues, and the meeting adjourned at 3:00pm.