Last week, I attended my first National First Year Experience Conference in San Antonio, Texas.  I came home with tons of ideas and little time to implement them, of course.  What I enjoyed most about the conference was hearing the perspectives of academic advisors, student affairs experts, First Year Experience staff, faculty and administrators.  We librarians were represented fairly well, too.  All of us came together with common goals:  student success and meaningful student learning.

The quarter is drawing to a close so quickly, and we still have a lot of work left to do for Project READ.

UH 202-203, Environmental and Social Sustainability in Appalachia, students will come to the library for a research workshop next week.  This week, I created a libguide to point them to some resources that can help them think of topics (in addition to class material and the novel they are reading, Strange as this Weather Has Been by Ann Pancake).  I showed them the libguide at the beginning of class yesterday and told them the more they think about their topics before they come, the more time they will save during the workshop.

Another article highlighting an example of integrating service-learning and information literacy found me this morning, Combining academic service-learning and information literacy: A new framework for an introductory women's studies course by Solange Simoes and Suzanna Gray can be found in the Eastern Michigan University Digital Commons at http://commons.emich.edu/sotl/vol2/iss1/8/

This article by Fran Smith did my heart some good!  Although quite a few service-learning projects were highlighted, the one that stands out to me involved some high school students who did far more than was asked of them.  When they discovered that their community partner school didn't have a library, they took matters into their own hands and built one! My favorite paragraph is this one: "Teachers encouraged the kids to think modestly -- collect old books, raise a few dollars to buy wood and brackets, and recruit parents to build shelves.

A few weeks ago, I attended the Ohio Teaching and Learning Conference on High Impact practices in higher education (co-sponsored by Southwestern Ohio Council for Higher Education, Northeast Ohio Council on Higher Education, Ohio Board of Regents and Greater Cincinnati Consortium of Colleges and Universities).  I was thrilled to see George Kuh, the keynote speaker.  I always think it's pretty cool to be in the same room with the people you cite all the time!  Talk about the social nature of research!

I'm thrilled that I have yet another opportunity to work with a service-learning class next week.  SRV 200:  Citizenship in our Democracy is the introductory course for our Citizen Scholar certificate program.

A few weeks ago, I attended a lecture on campus given by Hunt Brown, Director of Sustainability and Senior Lecturer, Earth & Environmental Sciences, about a fascinating service-learning course he taught here at WSU.   The course, UH 203, took place during intersession 2007 (that's the break between fall and winter quarters), and included a one-week service trip to New Orleans, about two years after Hurrican Katrina hit.  The students researched economic, social and environmental aspects of sustainability in New Orleans.  If you're wondering

My co-teacher and I will teach our Information Literacy course, EDT 110, again beginning in January.  One of the questions I get most frequently about my class is about timing.  How long/far in advance should I start planning a service-learning partnership or course?

For those of you stopping by to see more about my Information Literacy Course, the list of posts about the course can be found here.  Or, you can click on "Information Literacy Course (EDT 110)" under Categories in the right menu.