LISSA Award

April 20th, 2009 by admin

Starting with the Summer semester of 2009, we are establishing the LISSA Award for the “Most Dedicated Student”.

Every year (from the Summer semester, through the Fall and Spring semesters), a call for nominations for this prize will be put out. Any student can nominate any other student from GSLIS for this award, and the voting will be ongoing throughout the year. Each student can nominate one other student, and each student can vote only once. At the Commencement, the winner will be announced and will be presented with a cash prize of $500 and unlimited bragging rights.

What does “Dedicated” mean? It is a pretty flexible definition:
* someone dedicated to the field of librarianship / archival studies / school media;
* someone dedicated to their fellow students – through students’ groups activities;
* someone dedicated to scholarship / academic achievement;
* someone dedicated to the patrons of their library / archive / school media.

As you can see, the best way to find someone like this is to talk left/right/front/back to your fellow students, and I’m pretty sure you will find someone fascinating.

Adrian

The Accreditation comes a-knockin’

April 6th, 2009 by admin

GSLIS will go through the re-accreditation process in 2009-2010, and the students will play a crucial role in making sure that we continue to be sanctioned by ALA.

This is your chance to get involved with an process that will affect not only the current students, but the alumni and future grads of GSLIS as well (just think of all those jobs that require an “ALA-accredited degree”).

ALA has formulated 6 Standards for Accreditation of Master’s Programs that concern different components of the LIS education:

1. Mission, goals and objectives
2. Curriculum
3. Faculty
4. Students
5. Administration and Financial Support
6. Physical Resources and Facilities

The detailed standards are available here: http://www.ala.org/ala/educationcareers/education/accreditedprograms/standards/standards_2008.pdf

GSLIS has formed a committee for each of these standards that will prepare a report on how the GSLIS is meeting and exceeding these standards.

Each of these committees needs 2 (TWO) students. The committees will be assembled over the summer and they will start meeting in the Fall’09 semester, once a week (usually on Fridays). The report from each committee should be finished by the end of December ‘09.

If you are interested, or if you’d like more information, drop me a line.
Adrian Mitescu
LISSA President

LISSA Elections are a GO!

April 6th, 2009 by admin

The nomination period for the LISSA candidates is now officially open!
Check out the Elections page (at http://gslis.simmons.edu/wikis/lissa/LISSA_Elections) and nominate yourself (or someone else) to one of the open positions.

Here’s a descriptions of each of the LISSA officers duties:

The VEEP (lissavp@simmons.edu) – puts in about 3 hours a week (on average) and is in charge of 2 biiiig things: the End of Semester party and the Evaluations – which eat up more time at the end of the semester – when the blank evaluations need to be distributed and the completed ones need to be filed.

El Presidente (lissapres@simmons.edu)- usually puts in about 3-4 hours per week on LISSA stuff – I usually do more, but just because I like going to faculty meetings, even if I don’t have to; yes, I’m weird that way :) . There’s an weekly email to be sent, a monthly meeting with the Alumni Board and another with all teh student groups, one Advising Day per semester, and various other activities – which can easily be dealt with via email. A period of some increased activity is the end of the semester, when all the evaluations are collected/filed.

The MoneyMaker (lissatreasurer@simmons.edu) – or, better said, the MoneyGuardian - deals almost exclusively via email, but the commitment is very much geared towards keeping the professional development on track, and the budgets of the other student groups (and LISSA) in check. I’m estimating about 4 hours a week, on average.

The Keepers -works on average about 2 hours a week. We have 2 of them (the keeper of the records, and the keeper of the Lounge) – the tasks are not strictly delimited, so usually there is a certain amount of job sharing: ordering supplies for the Lounge and keeping it neat, evicting the orphaned mugs/dishes and looking after LISSA’s records and meeting minutes. We have one position of LISSA Secretary open.

The Megaphones - the 2 Faculty-Students Reps – they voice the students opinion to the faculty, and viceversa. The commitment varies, but on average is about 2 hours a week.

On top of these, there are the LISSA officers’ meetings – we’ve had it in the past twice per semester.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact any of the LISSA officers.

Adrian

So, what does a LISSA Secretary do?

March 29th, 2009 by admin

As promised, I will begin this week the exciting list of descriptions for the LISSA positions that will be available at the end of this semester. Today, we hear from Hannah Sears, one of the current LISSA secretaries:

“I understand being a LISSA secretary as worthwhile, because I can find out about school news, student group news, and facility updates. Being able to maintain the LISSA GSLIS Lounge has worked for me, because I have a daily and weekly supply job that involves maintaining, on a daily and weekly basis, a space dedicated to us students. The routine has been helpful during 2007-2009 as the economic and political shifts have been great, and as the online, all the time, digital world takes us up into the “clouds”. Feeling grounded for a short while, while standing in the lounge, sitting in a couch or chair, reading or chatting, drinking water, hot tea or cafe, is sometimes a necessary action while in library school this year.

If you are interested in knowing more about the Secretary position for summer 2009, please email me at sears@simmons.edu.”

For a list of responsibilities as a LISSA secretary, check out this page: http://gslis.simmons.edu/wikis/lissa/Description_and_Duties_of_all_LISSA_Officers

Cheers,
Adrian

SCAC

February 15th, 2009 by admin

Hello GSLIS students,

We are looking for four to five students to join the Student Curriculum Advisory Committee (SCAC) to fill openings left by graduating students. This advisory committee provides a student perspective on long-term curriculum related issues, working with the Associate Dean, Pat Oyler, to provide input to the faculty on existing course offerings, proposed developments to the GSLIS curriculum, and the advising process. Past and current SCAC members have noted that participating in the SCAC helped them better understand (and encourage) connections between what
we learn in the GSLIS program and what we are expected to know as we enter (or re-enter) the LIS job market. For students contemplating a career in academia, SCAC involvement has provided a better understanding of, and appreciation for, the real-life challenges of keeping course offerings in line with the changing needs of inbound
students and the changing demands of the marketplace.

The SCAC meets monthly at a mutually convenient time in the GSLIS lounge. For those who are unavailable for a meeting we discuss the agenda and post minutes on our Simmons wiki
(http://gslis.simmons.edu/mw/curriculumcommittee/Main_Page) and request that absent members contribute to these discussions. You’ll find more information about the group on the above page.

The only criterion for joining is to have completed a minimum of three GSLIS courses OR two semesters. Because the committee seeks to be representative of all professional interests, preference will be given to students whose concentration or primary focus is not currently represented on the committee. Students who do not already hold
leadership positions in other GSLIS organizations are especially encouraged to join.

If you are interested in joining the committee, please e-mail Denise Anderson at
denise.anderson@simmons.edu. Please include:

*When you began the program
*Your expected date of graduation (if known)
*Number of courses you will have completed by May 2009
*Your academic interests and professional goals
*What you hope the SCAC will achieve
*What you will bring to the committee

If you have questions, please feel free to contact any member listed on the wiki. The deadline for the e-mail is Friday, February 27.

Denise Anderson
Simmons College
Graduate School of Library and Information Science
857-472-2528
andersd@simmons.edu

State of GSLIS

November 30th, 2008 by admin

I promised that I will post the details of the conversation with Dean Cloonan regarding the current economic environment and how GSLIS and its students are affected in the short term.

Regarding GSLIS

GSLIS is in a good condition to weather the storm; it seems that interest in Library School is still going strong. This past semester has seen the highest number of students at GSLIS (although this hasn’t translated into the highest number of credit hours), it is still a significant milestone. There are no plans to increase enrollment – as the acceptance rate is already high (check here for some interesting numbers and comparisons with other LIS schools). The recent cuts announced by the College will not affect the students directly – outside of the occasional request from your professor to print your own materials for class.

Dean Cloonan believes that the accreditation process will not bring any surprises. GSLIS still has some areas of improvement (most notably, in her opinion, is improving the advising process for the incoming students), but there are plans in place to address these shortcomings (implementing new formats for the Advising Day, the opening of the Student Services office, etc.).

Regarding the students

Without trying to sound too gloomy-and-doomy, you may have noticed that the economy is not doing too spectacularly (an euphemism, if I ever used one). It seems like the things will get worse before they will get better; most of the universities around Boston have announced hiring freezes or budget cuts and it seems like some of these are preemptive measures, in anticipation of even harder times.
The key word for the students seems to be “flexibility” – which means choosing a second area of concentration (in order to expand the types the jobs that one could apply for), willingness to invest in finding an internship/ volunteering/ part-time library job way before graduating from the program, willingness to relocate, networking- networking- networking, etc.

State of Simmons

November 9th, 2008 by admin

As you may have seen from the emails from the College President, Helen Drinan, Simmons is have some financial troubles. At the last faculty meeting, President Drinan answered the faculty members’ questions about the financial situation of Simmons and some of measures taken to cut the costs and increase revenues. Among the cost-cutting measures: implementing a hiring freeze, reorganizing some departments, and asking the Schools to cut their expenditures.

What about GSLIS?

The advantage that GSLIS has is that it has to go through an accreditation process before 2010, so the cuts will be minimal. As the budget of the school is spent to the tune of 93% on salaries (and there are no plans to lay off anybody), the most of the cuts will be made in the remaining 7% (apparently the biggest expenditure on the Boston campus is the photocopying budget), to he tune of approximately 50,000.
The main point of concern for GSLIS – as far as the accreditation process is concerned – is the percentage of classes being taught by adjunct faculty. GSLIS had a plan of hiring 4 new faculty members, but the budget for these positions has also been cut – although not completely.

The following are the notes from the faculty meeting on November 4:

Address to GSLIS Faculty & Staff by President Helen Drinan

* The President went over the primary area of the Board’s current focus, she then answered questions from the faculty and staff. Highlights were:

* The Board is working to address the financial challenges Simmons College is facing given the state of the macro-economy. There is a credit crunch and short-term cash shortages all across higher education in the country.

* The President is waiting to make her recommendation about raises for faculty until the February Board meeting.

* There is currently a hiring freeze at the College (i.e. the standard is to not hire, the exception is to fill positions.)

* The College has already made reductions (in things, not people) and will continue to reductions wherever possible and evaluate effectiveness.

* GSLIS has an accreditation visit coming up (Fall 2010) and the question was raised that more full-time faculty may be needed before that time.

* Simmons will continue to invest in GSLIS due in part to the school’s national ranking and captive market, and will try to continue to grow programs like CE, non-residency on-line programs, and blended learning.

Budget

* There are College-wide budged cuts being asked of all the schools, including GSLIS. Some line-items have already been trimmed, at this point photocopying is the largest line item of the non-salary budget (at over $20,000 a year) and that is the current item GSLIS is going to cut down on in order to meet the demands of the College-wide cuts.

New Business

* Adrian on behalf of LISSA asked professors to distribute evaluations the second to last class of the semester, just in case the final class of the semester is canceled due to weather. Dean Cloonan is going to check if that is already in the implementation guidelines and email a reminder to faculty.

* The title of LIS 492 is now Management Theory for Leading and Working Effectively in Organizations.

* The proposed and revised mission statement was passed.

Advising Day — November 12

October 26th, 2008 by admin

Agenda
9:30 – 10:00 a.m. — Registration — Paresky Register and pick up your Advising Day materials.
10:00 a.m — Overview of Program & Advising — Paresky
12:00 p.m. — Lunch with current students — Paresky
Pick up a bagged lunch at the back of the room.
1:00 – 5:00 p.m. — Individual Advising Appointments — Advisor Office
Register for your appointment at http://gslis.simmons.edu/signup
1:00 – 3:00 p.m. — Activity & Information Exhibits — Paresky
Check-in with representatives from various Simmons offices and GSLIS student groups. See below for a full list of exhibitors.

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InfoTech Course Area group

October 26th, 2008 by admin

Prof. Benoit is looking for students interested in participating in a review group that will work towards determining the Tech core area classes. Most of the communications will take place over email. We are looking for students with an interest in Tech issues and willing to provide comments. Please let me know today if you’re interested.

Advising Day Spring 09

September 29th, 2008 by admin

The fortunate GSLIS students that are starting in Spring 2009 will benefit from a new format for Advising Day. First off, it will be scheduled *before* they have to register for classes; secondly, there will be tables set up in the Paresky center and groups of new students will have their lunch together with a super-duper experienced GSLIS student – um, that is, you – if you choose to volunteer :)

So, save the date (Wednesday, November 12) and keep an eye out (although I recommend 2, lest you want it to pop right out) for updates.

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