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Engaging Today's Students with the Liberal Arts |
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Information Literacy and Writing Across the Curriculum: Synergies for Student Learning Carleton College |
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We are delighted to have just completed one of the ACM/Mellon-funded events in the series titles "Engaging Today's Students with the Liberal Arts." Our conference brought together library staff, faculty, writing program/writing center staff, and administrators to talk about the connections between information literacy and writing across the curriculum, two popular initiatives on ACM campuses. The conference web site contains the call for proposals, the program, a list of attendees, and the beginnings of proceedings. The latter will develop as participants submit electronic copies of talks, assignments, course materials, guidelines, and the like. When we proposed this conference at the urging of Associate Dean Elizabeth Ciner, we were mindful of the useful relationships built on our own campus through interactions among librarians and WAC faculty. We theorized that other ACM schools were likely places for similar activities to be underway, and if such collaborations did not yet exist on some campuses, first-hand information about successful projects would inspire those who were ready to experiment. The response to our CFP exceeded our expectations. In fact, we received so many good, thoughtful proposals that we were able to schedule three rounds of concurrent sessions with three presentations at each. Nearly every panel included faculty and librarians. With the addition of two plenary sessions, one given by a WAC expert and the other by a librarians with research interests in information literacy, the conference turned out to be more comprehensive than we dared hope. Session discussions and conference evaluation forms bore out the casual impression that faculty, librarians, and writing folks were having a ball talking with and learning from each other. One faculty member made the point that the classroom is no longer the exclusive domain of faculty; librarians, writing professionals, and IT folks are essential collaborators. The primary recommendation on the evaluation forms was a plea for ACM to support more such conferences, ideally annually, and with a broader base that might include more faculty plus technology experts. Kim Tunnicliff deftly turned that last suggestion back on the group, inviting proposals for future meetings that could build on this one (and the "immersion" conference at Coe two years ago) to offer more faculty, librarians, and others to present their work and explore new directions. Perhaps some new proposals will materialize in due course. Assuming that they do, we have a couple of recommendations. First, we invited posters, but only two people brought them, and their posters basically illustrated talks they gave in concurrent sessions. We would recommend specific instructions to poster presenters and maybe some formatting guidelines. Second, a few people found that having to choose among three concurrent panels was frustrating-they worried about missing good things. Perhaps two panels per session would be better, but that would depend on the number and quality of proposals submitted. As noted above, we were blessed with nine good proposals. Finally, although our plenary speakers were well received, we probably should also have used them as discussion leaders or facilitators in some other role. They were great sports and they hung out happily with the attendees. They would have been willing to do more, if we had planned differently. As you know, faculty and librarians love to be in the presence of experts; we could have enlarged that experience somewhat. Overall, the conference was a success, and we credit ACM with the wisdom and generosity in supporting our initial proposal. Carol Rutz,
Director of the Writing Center
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