I have been extraordinarily fortunate to find myself surrounded by top caliber students during my stint at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS) at the University of Illinois. Students regularly have provided solid suggestions on how to improve my classes, both directly and through the end-of-semester Instructional Course Evaluation Survey comments. I… Continue reading My Intellectual Genealogy: Part 4
It is impossible to understand my philosophy and scholarship without understanding my faith-based teachers and mentors. I once had on a t-shirt that said “Jesus is the Answer”. A wonderful mentor of my youth approached me and asked “what’s the question?”. I thought she was joking at first, but I came to realize during our… Continue reading My Intellectual Genealogy: Part 3
In reflecting on my many teachers and mentors, I’ve naturally been considering the profound influence my parents and immediate family have had on who I am. My dad was born at the same hospital I would be some 35 years later. He was born to immigrant parents, spent most of his life in the same… Continue reading My Intellectual Genealogy: Part 2
I recently found out that I am the recipient of the Library Journal’s Teacher of the Year Award. This has me reflecting once again on the great fortune I had to have so many teachers and mentors over the course of my academic journey. Here’s an email I sent to Anderson University, my alma mater,… Continue reading My Intellectual Genealogy: Part 1
Prior to the introduction of a service learning final project within the course “Introduction to Networked Systems”, students completed a final project in which they were asked to be consultants for a fictional public library. Students were assigned to one of several teams, each of which were to provide recommendations to the library board (their… Continue reading Service-learning and community relationships
