Librarians and Faculty Partner to Teach

The SU Libraries’ Course Enhancement Grants support faculty in taking better advantage of our terrific librarians and resources for their courses. First awarded for the 2018-19 academic year, the grants have spurred faculty across campus to work with librarians in creative ways, enriching students’ use of library resources and their understanding of how to find, evaluate, and use information. An unexpected benefit has been that faculty and librarians have also partnered to share their pedagogical innovations at conferences and in publications.

Below is a list of the awards made for the 2023-24 academic year:

• Krispen Laird for BIOL 101: Fundamentals of Biology. Krispen worked with librarian Erin Weber to enhance the course’s “library week” sessions by integrating information scaffolding in the printed lab manual, creating a new self-paced tutorial for students to learn how to efficiently search for reliable resources through the SU Libraries website and developing a scavenger hunt that will allow students to recognize the resources available to them in the Guerrieri Academic Commons.
• Kim Quillin for BIOL 201 Introduction to Biology: Molecular and Cellular Biology and BIOL 202 Introduction to Biology: Evolution and Ecology. She is working with Erin Weber to revise how research literacy, one of the essential outcomes in both BIOL 201 and 202, is taught. They are revising the course’s LibGuide, incorporating a tutorial, and brainstorming other strategies to support students in mastering research literacy.
• Melissa Bugdal for ENGL 495/595: Topics in Writing and Rhetoric. She is working with Jennifer Pulsney and Ian Post to create a course studying historical artifacts and moments through the lens of rhetoric. Using the University Archives found in the Nabb Center, students will explore topics from the archives through a rhetorical framework and create materials that could be presented at SU centennial celebrations.
• Viktoria Basham for HONR 211: Campus Legends and Mysteries. She is working with Ian Post, Jennifer Pulsney, and Angeline Prichard. The students will learn about folklore and ghost scholarship, then read about Eastern Shore lore. The students will become familiar with the archival sources available in the Nabb Center and then pick topics about the SU campus to research and use as a base for inventing their own SU-inspired campus legend. Individualized research consultations will help guide the students on their research journeys. The class’s final project will be a ghost tour of the SU campus designed and led by the students.
• Mary Gunther for IDIS 399 Global Seminar: Biodiversity, Ecotourism and Culture. She is working with Erin Weber to improve student research capabilities and the use of library resources by embedding the librarian in the course, flipping the classroom to have students watch some research-related videos ahead of time, and having librarian-student meetings relating to specific class research.

Congratulations to our faculty and librarians!