Author: rdlankes

The new year has been filled with sadness, joy, and outrage. It was a pivotal month for SLIS and the country, and demonstrated in the most profound way how connected SLIS is as a community.

The Passing of Robert Williams

The month began with the sad news of the passing of “Dr. Bob” Williams. It was clear from the outpouring of remembrances from faculty, alumni, and staff that Dr. Bob’s legacy will be long lived and celebrated. You can read more about this outstanding gentleman scholar here: http://www.sc.edu/study/colleges_schools/cic/library_and_information_science/news/2017/in_memoriam_dr._robert_v_williams.php#.WJDOjrGZMUE

ALISE and Awards

It is perhaps fitting as we were remembering Bob and mourning his loss that we celebrated the school we have become with his help. SLIS had an outstanding presence at this year’s ALISE conference. We had panels and presentations from faculty and doctoral students including Karen Miller, Cantrell Johnson, Heather Moorefield-Lang, Amir Karami, Feili Tu-Keefner, Clayton Copeland, Hassan Zamir, Susan Rathbun-Grubb, Margaret (Sullivan) Zimmerman, and Darin Freeburg. The highlight of the event was Margaret Zimmerman winning the doctoral poster award, and April Dawkins finishing in the top ten posters.

After ALISE we resumed the task of expanding the faculty ranks for our instructor and two tenure-track positions. There is an air of excitement as we see the folks who want to join the work here at SLIS.

Instructional Quality

We have also continued the work of the school. We have re-tasked our committee on Distributed Learning to the Instructional Quality Committee. This committee will review student evaluations and ongoing data to ensure we are constantly working on doing better instruction and do so in an open and transparent way. The committee will also work to ensure any new adjunct faculty have adequate preparation and support to teach online.

SLIS and the Executive Order

And then January held another surprise. With an Executive Order, the federal government began turning away immigrants and legal aliens from several middle eastern countries from our borders. This action has direct impact on current SLIS students, faculty, and alumni. While the University has been responsive in working with affected community members, it is still an area of grave concern.

I am including here a message I shared with our faculty and students last Saturday night and the information sent out by the university for those who have additional questions or concern:

This evening it has become clear that we all have reason to be concerned for those who are at the University, and frankly, in the country legally from abroad. Our classmates, our faculty, our alumni, our staff have seen families divided and immigrants turned away from our borders or held in our airports. Like many of you, I have followed growing legal protests across the country, and welcomed a judicial stay of an executive order whose very legality has been called into question.

Below you will see that University officials have provided some guidance and means of expressing concern. Please, however, do not hesitate to contact me directly. The well-being of our community members is my foremost concern and highest priority. I know that concern is shared by the Dean and all the staff and faculty.

I am saddened beyond belief that any university official has to advise those with legal standing to “not leave the country.” The heart of academia is the free flow of ideas. Ideas know no borders. A search for truth, and a quest to improve society through knowledge should never be threatened by executive order, or legislation. The freedom to teach and learn without the fear of deportation or xenophobia is not a partisan issue; it is not about being liberal or conservative; it is about human rights.

Every day in our classes people of all faiths and religions -Muslim, Jew, Christian, Atheist- learn side by side. Americans, Iranians, Brazilians, Chinese, Indians, Germans, Ugandans have shaped the prosperity of this school, university, and nation. Our graduates build communities in libraries and institutions across the world. We teach all of our students the core values of intellectual honesty, equity, and respect for diversity. We must now demonstrate these values. We have long called libraries havens and must now put truth to these words.

So let me end by asking again to those of you affected by these actions to let me, the faculty, and the staff know how we can help you. You are members of our community, and we are all richer for it.

-David Lankes, Director of the University of South Carolina School of Library and Information Science

Good Evening,

Below you will find the message sent on behalf of Vice Provost Miller to all students from the affected countries in the recent executive order. Further messaging will be sent when we have more information in the upcoming week.

Thank you so much for your commitment to our students at the University.

Jody

Jody Pritt

Director | [email protected]

International Student Services | University of South Carolina

Close Hipp 650 | 803-777-7461 | www.sc.edu/internationalservices

From: PRITT, JODY

Sent: Saturday, January 28, 2017 7:41 PM

Subject: Sent on Behalf of Vice Provost and Director of Global Carolina, Dr. Allen Miller

Dear Students,

As you may know, yesterday President Trump signed an executive order titled “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States.” The order suspends entry into the United States by most visa holders from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen. We understand that for many of you this executive order may be unsettling and that you may be worried about your future at USC. As the Vice Provost for Global Carolina, I would personally like to assure you that the University of South Carolina remains committed to your safety, security and success regardless of your religion, ethnicity or national origin.

The executive order is aimed at new entries into the United States, those not yet in the country, and we believe nothing in this executive order will compel you to leave before the expiration of your status. However, we would advise you to not leave the country in the short term in case the executive order creates issues with re-entry. We will provide additional information and guidance soon.

In the meantime, if you have specific questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact Jody Pritt, Director of International Student Services at [email protected] .

Sincerely,

Paul Allen Miller

Vice Provost and Director of Global Carolina

Carolina Distinguished Professor of Classics and Comparative Literature

University of South Carolina

In Conclusion

So there was a taste of January. As always, we are looking for your thoughts, feedback, and ideas. Our quest to improve society continues.

Today is a sad day for the University of South Carolina with the passing Bob Williams.

Dr. Robert V. Williams, or Dr. Bob as so many of us called him with affection, passed Saturday night, January 14, 2017.

Dr. Bob created the archival studies program, was an architect of the library school/history joint degree, and designed the undergraduate program in Information Science for the School of Library and Information Science and was most proud when our first students matriculated. He supported the program with funds for research awards and scholarships. He was always available for students and faculty. He received the prestigious Watson Davis award from the Association of Information Science and Technology and was the primary supporter for the History of Information Science project. His students adored him. His friends and colleagues called him true blue and all of us will miss this one of a kind “Gentleman Scholar.”

The details of any memorial service plans have not yet been released by the family, but we will post them as soon as we know.

Dr. S.K. Hastings, and Dr. R. David Lankes

[The following a copy of my welcome for the SLIS Hooding Ceremony]

Welcome all. Graduation represents a moment in time. It is a moment of gratitude. Graduates, I ask you to take a moment to recognize those who helped you get to this point, be they in the audience or on this stage.

One person I know I am grateful is my predecessor Dr. Sam Hastings who has sent the following message:

Dear Graduates,

I am so sorry to miss this great event but wanted you to know that I am thinking about you and sending buckets of congratulations!  We are very proud of you and know that you will do great things in your lives.  Of course, we expect you to protect everyone’s right to read and get the information they need to be free and productive.  Your degree puts you in the elite group of Americans with master’s degrees.  16 % of our population.  So go forth, remember that you will always have a home with us and as our alumni, you have earned the right to be a little “Cocky!” I hope you and your families enjoy today.

All the best,

Dr. Sam

This is also a moment for us to express our gratitude for you. You are entering professions with skills that span from storytime and the preservation of our history to the support of mankind’s exploration of the universe. What’s more you do this at a time of great change and great need. And for that we are grateful, for indeed at this time our society needs you more than ever.

I know many will wake up this morning after an election with strong feelings about the result. While some may embrace the results many will be disappointed or scared. This message is neither to console or celebrate. Rather this message is about the unique obligations of a knowledge school in light of this national election.

Over the past months, and certainly in the months ahead, there will be many of our information school colleagues that will study and write about the information angle of the election. Good scholarship will be done in looking through data, understanding the role of social media, and seeking to predict changes in the information policy landscape under a populist president.

Our colleagues in library schools will parse apart the results of local bond issues and document the role librarians played in political literacy. There will be those in libraries that will see the results of the election as a need to reinforce the classic role of libraries as objective dispensers of truth.

All of these works will be useful and will help us to better understand a new reality where polls and predictive models failed spectacularly. However, while we may do some of this kind of work, our role as a knowledge school is different. Our role is not simply to document the campaign. Our role is not simply to analyze the data generated by the candidates. Our role is to act.

Democracy is not about voting. Voting is a periodic decision: democracy is sustained conversation, oversight, and advocacy. The work of a citizen did not end yesterday; it began. For those who chose or opposed a candidate, there is now the vital work of holding those chosen to account. An election doesn’t change a constitution. An election doesn’t change demographics.

The role of a knowledge school, the role of you and me, is to reinforce the values and principles we hold dear and support the communities that make up our nation and the world. We cannot simply explore the racial makeup of the electorate without providing opportunity for all races. Our values of diversity in decision making and ensuring equity of opportunity for all religions, classes, and ideology must be put into action, not theses.

If this election has shown us anything it is not that our communities are facing too little information, it is that information alone is insufficient for informed action. The problems our communities face is not one of access to resources, but access to the right resources provided to the ready learner. The problems are about creating a culture of literacy, open civic conversation, and knowledge. We must not mistake describing people’s opinions with facilitating learning.

These days after the election our work becomes more crucial than ever. From working with incarcerated youth, to illiteracy in our rural communities, to preparing libraries to be beacons in the face of natural disaster, to improving peoples use of health information, to transforming people from consumers to makers, to ensuring access to our history, to ensuring that people of faith understand their neighbors, to transforming libraries into places of enlightenment as well as places of escape, to ensuring universal design lifts the opportunities of all citizens, our work is more important today than yesterday. This school, our knowledge school, was not elected last night, but it was mandated.

So let us take the day to mourn or celebrate, or simply explore how we see the world, but tomorrow we have work to do. Tomorrow we have a region that needs better education. We have a state that needs more inclusive institutions. Tomorrow we have a new administration that needs oversight and a direct link to the best scholarship we can provide. We have a country that is increasing living in echo chambers built in walls of selective data that needs action to push them to greater insight. Tomorrow, in essence, needs us: scholars, librarians, information professionals, staff, faculty, alumni, and students focused on making a better world.