On February 15, the Research and Doctoral (R&D) committee met to plan a “visit day” for five of the new admits to the SILS doctoral program. We developed a full-day schedule to introduce these potential students to the school, the UNC campus, current doctoral students, and their potential advisors. Prof. Gotz organized an afternoon session of “lightning talks” in which faculty and students were asked to describe their current research in three minutes. The visit day took place on February 24, and we were blessed with beautiful spring weather. Around a dozen speakers participated in the afternoon talks.

Reviewing applications and facilitating the doctoral admissions process has been the overwhelming focus of the R&D committee for the past several months. The bulk of that work is now mostly finished, and we await hearing back from those who were accepted into the program. In future meetings, the committee will reflect on the current cycle of admissions and discuss potential changes for next fall. For example, one item subject to change is the list of “Research Topics” in the doctoral application form. This list will be updated to better reflect the genres of research currently undertaken by SILS faculty.

Starting after the spring general election, student government will separate into two separate governing bodies. Graduate and professional students having their own representative body for the first time in Carolina history, so this is a big deal! Here are the things that you need to know about this new government:

1. Student Government will be separated into two independent governing bodies for undergraduate and graduate/professional students. Each will have advocacy and legislative powers over a prescribed set of issues. There will also be proportional authority for appointments to the Student Supreme Court and the Board of Elections.
2. A joint council will be created to bring both groups (grads and undergrads) together to identify, discuss, and resolve issues of equal interest to all students.
3. Student Congress’ jurisdiction will be amended to fit the new student government format and graduate and professional students will be guaranteed fair representation on independent agencies such as the Student Fee Audit Committee, Student Safety & Security Committee, and the Hardship Parking Committee.
4. The GPSF President will continue to have the ability to speak to the Board of Trustees (BOT) and support graduate students on BOT committees. The BOT may consider having a designated Trustee from the University Affairs Committee assigned to graduate and professional student issues.
5. The student fee structure will be apportioned by population, meaning that GPSF’s operation budget should increase by $200,000, increasing our ability to fund initiatives and provide graduate focused programming.

Don’t forget to vote in the spring election, which will be held March 2nd!

We reviewed the new SILS course evaluation form and discussed ideas for possible improvements of it. Revisions included adding more multiple-choice questions, and condensing current open-ended questions for students about their experience with the class and instructor with the goal of increasing response rate. We also reviewed each undergraduate concentration advertised on the SILS website and updated, combined, or eliminated them to more accurately reflect current course offerings. One change was to eliminate INLS 560 from many of the concentrations due to its similarity with COMP 110, a prerequisite for BSIS students. Concentrations that will no longer be listed include Networks, Programmer/Analyst, Web Development, and IS Generalist.

At the February 7^th meeting of the Diversity Committee, a number of different topics were discussed. An important issue was planning for the implementation of the SILS Diversity Advocate Certificate, whose requirements had been rewritten earlier in the year. Students who wish to earn it submit documentation of their work through a Sakai page; the Diversity Committee will review the submissions before graduation and award the certificate to those who completed the requirements. Also planned were ways to promote the certificate and how to acknowledge those who earn it at graduation.

Another topic of the meeting concerned how to promote equity and inclusion at SILS through the new website. Committee members had previously met with the company in charge of designing it to discuss how best to incorporate these issues. The committee also talked about encouraging SILS to add more perspectives to its faculty through targeted hires.

Members of the SILS community are always welcome to bring their thoughts and concerns about diversity in the program to the attention of the Diversity Committee.

The SILS faculty meeting provided updates on a variety of topics. Most notably, SILS is currently interviewing candidates for two faculty positions available and has scheduled visits for them to interview throughout the month of March. Each candidate visit will consist of a public presentation and a student meet-and-greet that SILS students are encouraged to come to, so be on the lookout for information about specific candidate visits.

Other topics discussed:

1. CWS (Community Workshop Series): Meggie Lasher (MSLS ’17) provided an update on the impact that CWS has on the wider community and gave recommendations and ideas on how the program can continue to grow in the future.
2. SILS Website Update: Recently, SILS has added new alumni profiles for 25 people, from all different programs. Check them out here and see what cool things people have done since they graduated! https://sils.unc.edu/people/alumni-profiles
3. Course Name Change: SILS faculty voted to change the course name for INLS 745. Formerly known as “Curriculum Issues and the School Librarian”, the faculty voted in favor to change the course name to “Instruction for Youth in School in Public Libraries” to better reflect the new scope of the class. This class will be available in Fall 2017 for those interested in taking it.
4. ILSSA Survey Update: Tripp Tuttle, ILSSA’s Secretary and Webmaster, gave a short presentation about general trends and observations from the Student Survey that ILSSA administered in February. Tripp focused particularly on scheduling availability and provided analyzed data to faculty so that they might be able to better schedule events and lectures when more people are free.

All-staff meetings for SILS are held every three weeks on Wednesdays in Manning 01. If you have any questions about anything mentioned in this summary, or about all-staff meetings in general, please contact Amelea Kim at ameleak@email.unc.edu

Donation box locations include Davis Library, the Undergraduate Library, Wilson Library, the Sloane Art Library, and two locations in Manning Hall (Manning Lobby and the SILS Library). More donation boxes will be going up around campus as we hear back from other departments.

Also, SCALA will be looking for volunteers for the book sale in the next few weeks. The book sale is scheduled for April 4-6 from 9 am-5 pm each day!

Have any questions?

Email SCALA vice-president Mary Oliva at olivam@live.unc.edu