Aspirations into action : navigating structures for community engagement at the University of Louisville.

This dissertation analyzes the affordances of university structures based on how they value and support community engagement, focusing on common issues for community-engaged scholars. In this case study of the University of Louisville as an institution developing stronger structures for community engagement, I show that current efforts represent important starting points for how institutions support engagement, but I argue that they, and scholarly discussion about them, need to be deepened to meet the needs of engaged scholars. Toward that end, utilizing an institutional critique methodology informed by scholarship in institutional ethnography, I combine analysis of university policies and documents with stakeholder interviews in order to explore the lived realities of these policies. My findings detail how the complexities of three oft-cited challenges faced by engaged scholars—promotion and tenure, learning opportunities, and transdisciplinary projects—are often elided in scholarship, doing scholars and administrators a disservice by misrepresenting how to develop what institutional structures for engagement at a university. Through this study, I add dimension to the relatively flattened suggestions for solving the complicated problems of institutional structures for engagement by making visible a deep professionalization structure beyond just promotion and tenure policy that devalues engaged research over the course of a scholar\u27s career (Chapter 2); showing how individual scholars gain greater understanding of engaged research through community projects that combine meta and tacit learning (Chapter 3); and exploring how organizational infrastructure for transdisciplinary research can both sponsor individual projects and build institution-wide buy-in for community engagement (Chapter 4). Altogether, I argue that making the complications of institutional structures more visible will ease their navigability for emerging scholars interested in pursuing engaged research and help established scholars locate institutional changes that can be made to better support engaged scholarship

Process Mapping as Organizational Assessment in Academic Libraries

Purpose: This paper seeks to describe the value of process mapping to libraries as a first step in promoting a culture of organizational assessment. In addition, this paper offers a case study of the University of Michigan Library’s experience in building up a process mapping skill set and the workflow improvements resulting from these efforts. Design/methodology/approach: This case study is a description and assessment of a program to train library employees on process mapping. Findings: Process mapping in library settings empowers librarians and staff to identify and implement elements for improvements in routine work. When given the tools to assess processes, employees at the University of Michigan made several such improvements. Practical Implications: While library staff tend not to be familiar with process mapping, these skills are critical for retaining institutional knowledge, training staff, and identifying areas for improvement in common and rarely used workflows alike. Originality/value: Process improvements were identified and implemented at the University of Michigan Library when our staff mapped the processes of their daily work

Review: Brokering Tareas: Mexican Immigrant Families Translanguaging Homework Literacies and Community Literacies en Confianza: Learning from Bilingual After- School Programs by Steven Alvarez

Steven Alvarez’s commitment to understanding the complex challenges faced by emerging bilingual (or multilingual) students and their families is easily seen through his two recently published books, Brokering Tareas: Mexican Immigrant Families Translanguaging Homework Literacies (2017a) and Community Literacies en Confianza: Learning from Bilingual After-School Programs (2017b). Alvarez’s dual studies of after-school programs in New York City and Lexington, Kentucky provide deep insight into the educational challenges emerging bilingual students face in and out of the classroom, as well as how to form relationships between students, parents, teachers, and other mentors that can help students succeed

Building Infrastructures for Community Engagement at the University of Louisville: Graduate Models for Cultivating Stewardship

From our perspectives at the University of Louisville, we address the need to provide structures for graduate student participation in community-engaged scholarship. Architectures of participation such as the ones we describe in this piece—the Community Engagement Academy and the Digital Media Academy—offer graduate students the opportunity to practice designing and implementing community engagement projects within interdisciplinary and disciplinary sites. The models we provide were designed to make the invisible work of community engagement visible and to create low barriers of entry for graduate students to become stewards of their disciplines as well as stewards of their communities. Such opportunities, we argue, help promote a more capacious view of stewardship, and thus encourage emerging engaged scholars to learn how to act responsibly and wisely in conducting communityengaged research

Beyond the One Shot: Planning Multi-Day Tech Workshops

Anyone who has delivered a one-shot instruction session knows the learning outcomes in a single workshop are best kept bite-sized. Designing a longer tech training will leave your library learners with a deeper understanding of the tech topic - but multi-day sessions require more planning. This session will cover the nuts and bolts of how to plan engaging and effective tech training series for any age. Whether teaching coding or social media, multi-day sessions will encourage your attendees to build relationships with one another and explore how the tech topic can be applied in their own lives

StaffShare: creating cross-departmental connection in the library

Employees of large academic libraries are usually segmented into discrete departments. Without intentional initiatives to foster cross-departmental communication, staff may not connect with colleagues in different roles. To overcome this issue, the University of Michigan Library created a staff engagement program focused on fostering personal connections, a more holistic view of the organization and encouraging career development. This program consists of three programs with different formats, SkillShare, SpeedShare and SpaceShare.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/110798/1/StaffShare creating cross-departmental connection in the library.pdfDescription of StaffShare creating cross-departmental connection in the library.pdf : Articl