Category Archives: Student News

November 5, 2020 By Hillary Tune

SIS D&I Badge Encourages Students to Incorporate Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Into Their Work

From left: SIS Assistant Professor Carolyn Hank with the 2019 Diversity & Inclusion Badge recipients, Kelsey Collins, Elaine Posanka and Joseph Winberry.

The School of Information Sciences faculty weaves diversity, equity, and inclusion into its curriculum and scholarship, and the SIS community as a whole strives to incorporate it in all other aspects of its operation, such as scholarships, research initiatives, hiring, and training.

“Society continues to confront prejudice, bias, inequities and lack of respect and appreciation. As information professionals committed to integrity, inclusion, accuracy and authenticity, it is imperative we continue to evolve and adopt a critical role at … Read more “SIS D&I Badge Encourages Students to Incorporate Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Into Their Work”

October 30, 2020 By Hillary Tune

Undergrad Holland Parkins First Ever SIS Student to be a CCI Land Ambassador

Junior Holland Parkins recently became the first ever College of Communications and Information Land Ambassador for the School of Information Sciences (SIS), a position in which she will represent the college and assist CCI with student recruitment, student retention, alumni relations, community outreach, and college events.

What is a CCI Land Ambassador?

The CCI Land Ambassador program was established in 2012 through funding from Stephen Land, a 1978 graduate of the School of Journalism and Electronic Media. Land has served on the CCI Board of Visitors, and is CEO of Jupiter Entertainment, a television production company based out of … Read more “Undergrad Holland Parkins First Ever SIS Student to be a CCI Land Ambassador”

October 22, 2020 By Hillary Tune

MSIS Student Spotlight: Adam Hembree Pursues Interest in Public Librarianship and Archives Pathways

Featured student: Adam Hembree

Location: Knoxville, TN

Education: Bachelor’s in Spanish and interdisciplinary studies, Christopher Newport University, Newport News, Virginia; Master’s degree in applied linguistics from Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia.

Career/Background: After I did my undergrad, I worked my way up at Rosetta Stone to being an area manager in Hampton Roads, Virginia,where I’m from, and it got me really interested in linguistics and language learning – I was already interested in that, but that solidified it. I went back to school for linguistics and I ended up doing a concentration in TESOL (teaching English to speakers of other … Read more “MSIS Student Spotlight: Adam Hembree Pursues Interest in Public Librarianship and Archives Pathways”

October 9, 2020 By Hillary Tune

SIS Faculty & Students Contribute at Fall Conferences, Including ALISE & ASIS&T

There are several fall conferences coming up soon, and SIS has faculty and graduate students participating in presentations, panels, and more. All of these conferences are virtual this year. Here is a round-up of their contributions.

Professor Dania Bilal has several roles in the upcoming Association for Information Science & Technology Annual Meeting Oct. 22-Nov. 1, which are:

Presenting a paper at the ASIS&T SIG USE Symposium, “ Theory use in youth information behavior and interaction research, 1999-2019”
Chairing the paper session on Health and Technology.
Acting as an invited mentor for the Doctoral Colloquium.

Associate Professor Wade Bishop… Read more “SIS Faculty & Students Contribute at Fall Conferences, Including ALISE & ASIS&T”

October 1, 2020 By Hillary Tune

Student Kathleen Smith Awarded Tennessee School Library Association Scholarship

Being an educator has been an amazing and fulfilling career for Kathleen Smith, who currently works at Bearden Middle School in Knoxville teaching eighth grade English. But she’s known for a while there was going to be a next step in her career, and that was to become a school librarian.

“When I was first teaching, I had a colleague and good friend who was taking information science classes at UT in the evenings, and she told me about the program. She made her move into the library and we kept in touch and she told me, ‘You would love … Read more “Student Kathleen Smith Awarded Tennessee School Library Association Scholarship”

August 13, 2020 By Hillary Tune

Four MSIS Students Receive John C. Winslow Memorial Scholarships

The John C. Winslow Memorial Scholarship was established in 2019 for both current and prospective MSIS students. Students who are already working in public libraries and who are graduates of the University of Tennessee and/or Vanderbilt University are given special consideration for this scholarship. This year, four students were awarded the scholarship; here’s a little more information about each one of those students:

Sally Austin

Sally Austin first became interested in librarianship after doing a summer work study at the Quillen College of Medicine Medical Library at East Tennessee State University, under the supervision of the associate director of the … Read more “Four MSIS Students Receive John C. Winslow Memorial Scholarships”

August 6, 2020 By Hillary Tune

New Students Join Science Liaison CALL Project

Eight new MSIS master’s students are joining the second cohort of the Collaborative Analysis Liaison Librarians (CALL) instructional project this fall semester, bringing the number of CALL participants to 12. The program was created with funding awarded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services’ (IMLS) Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian grant program. SIS Associate Professor Wade Bishop is principal investigator, with SIS and Chancellor’s Professor Suzie Allard as co-investigator.

“The first cohort laid a great foundation of research in liaison librarianship through an expanded review of the literature and job analyses to prepare future science liaison librarians. In the … Read more “New Students Join Science Liaison CALL Project”

July 23, 2020 By Hillary Tune

MSIS Student Kay P Maye Awarded ALA Spectrum Scholarship

After a year in the MSIS program, student Kay P Maye is seeing information in a new light, through what he says is a critical lens that he’s learned to use.

“I got into [information sciences] because I wanted to do something different, but still related to the social sciences, and now I feel like I’m getting a lot of personal stuff out of it,” he said.

He entered the program after two years of teaching high school English, with a desire to enhance his understanding of English and perhaps to become a public or school librarian after graduation. But … Read more “MSIS Student Kay P Maye Awarded ALA Spectrum Scholarship”

June 10, 2020 By Hillary Tune

SIS Students Help LGBTQ+ History to be Heard Through ‘Voices Out Loud’ Projects

Director of Voices Out Loud and Research Librarian Donna Braquet

Voices Out Loud is an archives and oral history project started by UT Research Librarian Donna Braquet, who felt like there needed to be a resource chronicling the history of LGBTQ+ people in East Tennessee. Various pieces make up the collection, including three projects SIS students have worked on over the past year.