President's Program

Best Practices for Incorporating Community Engagement and Outreach in Curricula

Friday, January 20, 10:30 am - 12:00 pm

This session will explore how LIS curricula can align learning goals and community engagement goals to ensure a rich student learning experience. Content should inform students about various dimensions of their community project and, likewise, community engagement should allow opportunities to learn course content at deeper levels. How do we encourage and support community involvement in such activities as project planning, student orientation, presentations, and so forth? Julia Gaines and Jennifer Frum, from the University of Georgia, will start the session with a discussion of their experiences with community engagement. Facilitated group discussions will follow to explore opportunities for community engagement in LIS curricula.

Presenters: Kendra Albright, Kent State University; Nicole Cooke, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Jennifer Frum, University of Georgia; Julie Gaines, Augusta University/University of Georgia; Bharat Mehra, University of Tennessee

Kendra Albright, Ph.D., is Professor and Director of the School of Library and Information Science at Kent State University. Previously, she taught at the University of South Carolina, where she also served as director of the African Studies Program. She also taught at the University of Sheffield, where she was Deputy Director of the Centre for Health Information Management Research. She began her academic career at the University of Tennessee. She was visiting professor at the Georgian Institute of Public Affairs in Tbilisi, Georgia, in 2014.

Albright's primary research focuses on the use of information and communication to solve human problems, particularly in the areas of HIV/AIDS and domestic violence. She is co-editor of the 2014 graphic novel AIDS in the End Zone, and Literacy Behind Bars, forthcoming in 2017. She currently serves as Editor-in-Chief for Libri: International Journal of Libraries and Information Studies.

Paul Brooks serves as associate vice president for Public Service & Outreach (PSO) at the University of Georgia (UGA). Brooks works to connect UGA's schools and colleges with PSO's extensive network of expertise in leadership, government, business, service, and nonprofits to enrich UGA's education and research missions. He promotes UGA's capacity to address societal and workforce needs locally and globally through technical assistance, service learning, continuing education, and applied research. He also oversees several PSO programs, such as Faculty Promotion, Faculty Fellowship, and Graduate Student Assistantships.

Previously, Brooks was assistant dean of Nontraditional Education & Outreach, and graduate coordinator for Pharmaceutical & Biomedical Regulatory Affairs at UGA's College of Pharmacy. Prior to his positions at UGA, Brooks worked for the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists in Bethesda, MD in the area of national accreditation and assessment. Earlier, he was clinical faculty at the University of North Carolina School of Pharmacy and Duke University College of Medicine's Family Medicine Residency Program.

Brooks is a registered pharmacist, receiving the Doctor of Pharmacy from Mercer University and he holds the Doctor of Education from UGA's Institute of Higher Education.

Nicole A. Cooke is an Assistant Professor at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She was named a "Mover & Shaker" by Library Journal in 2007 and was the 2016 recipient of the ALA's Equality Award. Her research and teaching interests include human information behavior (particularly in the online context), critical cultural information studies, and diversity and social justice in librarianship (with an emphasis on infusing them into LIS education and pedagogy).  Her new book Information Services to Diverse Populations (Libraries Unlimited) will be published in early 2017.

Jennifer Frum became UGA's fourth Vice President for Public Service and Outreach in 2012, and the first woman to serve in the role. She oversees eight units including the Carl Vinson Institute, J.W. Fanning Institute for Leadership Development, Small Business Development Centers, Archway Partnership, Botanical Garden, Marine Extension and Sea Grant, Service Learning, and the Georgia Center for Continuing Education.

Frum has strengthened Public Service and Outreach's (PSO) economic development partnerships across the state and implemented three strategic priorities for the University's outreach programs: helping create jobs and prosperity, developing the state's leaders, and addressing critical state issues. UGA's economic development activities were also strengthened and consolidated to report jointly to Frum and the Vice President for Research. The economic impact of the University's Outreach programs on the state of Georgia is $587 million.

Frum joined UGA in 1995 as a research professional in the Office of International Development. She joined UGA's Carl Vinson Institute of Government in September 2006. She served as deputy director and interim director of the Vinson Institute and interim Vice President for Public Service and Outreach from July 1, 2011, to January 31, 2012.

Prior to her time at UGA, she worked in Washington for U.S. Representative Bob Wise. Frum serves on the boards of the Georgia Academy for Economic Development, the Athens Area Community Foundation, and Georgia Women of Achievement. She has a Ph.D. from the University of Georgia, an M.A. from George Washington University, and a B.A. from West Virginia University. She was named one of Georgia Trend's 2012 "Power Women" in Georgia, was among Georgia Trend's 100 Most Influential Georgians in 2016 and 2017.

Julie K. Gaines is an Associate Professor and the Head of the Augusta University/University of Georgia Medical Partnership Campus Library in Athens, Georgia. As one of the core educators for the medical students, she is fully integrated in the curriculum by teaching Evidence-Based Medicine topics, and as a small group faculty facilitator in the community health service-learning component of the curriculum. Introduction to PubMed and other databases are classes that she teaches frequently on the Health Sciences campus and the main University of Georgia campus. Julie also assists the faculty and students with their technology needs including social media and mobile technologies.

Before joining the faculty at the Partnership, Julie was the Community and Technology Liaison Librarian at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, Texas. While at the UT Health Science Center, she coordinated and managed the Libraries' Outreach programs, which included managing several subcontracts provided by the National Network of Libraries of Medicine. Before moving to Texas, she was a National Library of Medicine Associate Fellow after her graduate work where she spent a year in Bethesda, Maryland at the National Library of Medicine on the NIH campus.

Julie received her Master of Library and Information Science from the University of South Carolina in Columbia and is a member of Beta Phi Mu, the library and information science honor society. She is currently a Service-Learning Fellow at the University of Georgia where she is piloting a new method of critical reflection with the medical students, developing an assessment tool for measuring the impact of partnerships, and investigating the role of health sciences librarians in service-learning initiatives. Her research interests include mobile technology in medical education, embedded librarians, community outreach, and service-learning.

Bharat Mehra, Associate Professor in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Tennessee, focuses his research on diversity and intercultural communication, social justice in library and information science, critical and cross-cultural studies, and community informatics or the use of information and communication technologies to empower minority and underserved populations to make meaningful changes in their everyday lives. He has conducted action research with racial/ethnic groups; international communities in the diaspora; lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender populations; low-income families; rural librarians and small businesses; amongst others, to shape the design and development of various community-based information systems and services.