Under The School of Information and Library Science, the Odum Institute for Research in Social Science, and University Libraries, CRADLE sought to establish a comprehensive continuing learning program for librarians, archivists, SILS students, and data creators that focused on issues of data management, preservation, and archiving. In the recent past, CRADLE talks have evolved to encompass a host of different topics spanning the entire information field.

Talks are organized by Kaitlyn Murphy, SILS International Programs Coordinator: kmurphy@unc.edu, 919.966.5042. We welcome suggestions for speakers or topics.

Where:

The Baxter Bar & Arcade

N. Graham St.

Chapel Hill

When:

Thursday, September 7th

5:30 – 7:30 PM

As everything is winding down at the end of the semester, there were a few orders of business at April’s GPSF meeting that I wanted to share with fellow SILS students. First of all, the referendum to separate student government into two governing bodies passed, so as of next fall, graduate students will have their own representative governing body! This also means that all fees paid to the university by graduate students will go to graduate student services, instead of being pooled and divided among undergrads and graduate students as they were in the past. Also, at the April meeting we confirmed Madelyn Percy as the next GPSF President. She’s an incredible leader, and I know she’ll be an excellent representative for graduate students to university administrators and members of the North Carolina government. If you have any questions about GPSF, feel free to contact me at aspoonts@live.unc.edu.

The last all-staff meeting of spring semester happened on Wednesday, April 26th, and a few major announcements were made:

1. Congratulations are in order many faculty members!  First, Amelia Gibson and Cal Lee were awarded IMLS grants. Amelia Gibson was awarded an IMLS Career Award, and Cal Lee was awarded an IMLS grant. Zeynep Tufecki published a book, Rob Capra and Jaime Arguello won the Best Paper Award at the ECIR conference, and Amelia Gibson had a paper published in LISR. Additionally, Rob Capra was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure. Congratulations to them all!

2. There have been a few updates with International Programs. Three summer seminar sessions are fast approaching with the first session starting on May 20th. Students will be able to visit a variety of companies while abroad, including tours from some UNC alums. Kaitlyn Murphy is working on developing more international opportunities and internships for students and she is also working on the CRADLE seminars for the fall.

3. SILS will continue to search for new faculty in the coming year, so be on the lookout for ways to participate! Students will invited to attend presentations and more casual meetings with faculty members, so make sure to come and be involved in the hiring process!

Please fill out the 2017 SILS Peer Mentoring Program Survey to express interest in being a Peer Mentor! As a Peer Mentor, you will be matched up with an incoming SILS student so that you can help answer any questions they might have, or share your own experiences with them. Please note that being a Peer Mentor requires some time and effort. While ILSSA will help to provide some guidance on how to peer mentor successfully, this program will be largely self-determined by you and your mentee. So please keep thatin mind as you sign up!

Note: Filling out the survey is NOT a hard commitment – you are more than welcome to change your mind later on should your priorities change. This is more a way for us to gauge interest for planning purposes!

Please fill out this survey by June 6th, 2017! If you have any questions, please contact Amelea Kim (ameleak@email.unc.edu) or Alyssa Spoonts (aspoonts@live.unc.edu).

Join the SILS summer Facebook group to keep in touch with all the SILS peeps in town, and for fun hangouts 🙂 Trivia nights, picnics, and other adventurous roamings in the works!

On April 11, the Diversity Committee met to sum up the work of this year. A number of issues were discussed regarding the SILS Diversity Advocate Certificate program, including updates on the status of applicants, reviewing and grading their work and progress, and details of the lapel pin design for the awardees. This year, three SILSters have completed the requirements for the SILS Diversity Advocate Certificate. The Diversity Committee will work together to produce a year-end summary.

In terms of future work, various issues were brought up by the committee members. One important issue is to further promote diversity perspectives to SILS faculty and students, through SILS classes and events, faculty development, as well as cross-campus events offered by Diversity and Multicultural Affairs (DMA), LGBTQ Center, and International Student and Scholar Services (ISSS). This committee meeting also covered the preparation and logistics of the video of community members reading the diversity statement.

Stephen Krueger, the facilitator for SILS CheckedOut, earned the 2017 University Diversity Graduate/Professional Student Award.

Due to recent changes in the university’s policy on department’s student learning outcome assessments, the committee discussed our current methods for assessment and if changes need to be made for upcoming semesters. Our current assessment tool is a multiple choice exam administered in INLS 201 classes that is then retaken by the same students in INLS 697. The initial test serves as baseline to get an understanding of what knowledge and skill sets students possess coming into the BSIS major. This baseline of each student is then compared to their results on the second taking of the test to see where they have effectively grown while in the major, and to see if there are any major concepts that may need to be more heavily emphasized in the future. Another method used in the past has been to randomly sample student work from different classes throughout the BSIS program in order to evaluate how well students are understanding core concepts of the major. Moving forward the committee plans to research assessment methods used by other academic departments and then decide if a new assessment plan is necessary for the future. The committee also briefly addressed the reteaching of the same material in multiple BSIS courses, a common concern brought up at the town hall meeting. We agreed to conduct more research on this issue by trying to get more specific feedback from students on which courses may be teaching the same material, and if this reteaching is excessive or necessary review.