As the liaison to the Undergraduate Education Program, I try
to reach students during their upper level education classes which
require a research component. Because I
just started my position in June, my biggest goal has been to build relationships
with and garner support from faculty members. I'm hoping to reach more students by first investing their professors in the value of information literacy training, and by getting to know the professors I gain a deeper understanding of their courses and teaching styles.
I’ve been lucky to be able to attend the department's monthly curriculum meetings where I give
a 5 minute talk and a handout featuring a library database. I've chosen databases that have instructional videos that can be used in their courses, lesson plans that their students can use, and databases that can help them with their own research. I got the idea of having a database of the month handout from Salena Coller, a librarian at the Sanford-Brown Institute in Ft. Lauderdale, who presented a poster at the Florida ACRL Conference.
The professors have seemed
excited about the information and have followed up with me about using the
resources, so I believe it’s been going well.
As professors have gotten to know me better, they have agreed to have me
teach a session in their classes, and hopefully their positive feedback at the
curriculum meetings will encourage more professors to include library training
sessions in their classes as well. I hope to eventually move away from giving one shot sessions to becoming embedded
within the department.
Has anyone else been trying to build relationships with faculty or with key stakeholders where they work?
