Student Employment in Academic Libraries (SEAL) Symposium 2024

Permanent URI for this collection

https://hdl.handle.net/1805/43450

The Student Employment in Academic Libraries Virtual Symposium seeks to showcase educationally purposeful student employment. We're providing a space for colleagues who care deeply for the growth and success of students to share ideas about student employment, and connect with and learn from other practitioners. Our focus is on approaches to student employment that are compassionate, strive to be inclusive and equitable, and center learners and learning.

Contribute to the SEAL community conversation by joining our listserv. Send a blank email to:

seal-community-l-subscribe@list.iupui.edu

SEAL website

Browse

Now showing 1 - 10 of 22

Mentoring Student Employees
(2024-10-24) Garcia, Julieta
At California State University, Northridge (CSUN), 70% of the total population of full-time students are first generation higher education students. As one of a few Archivists at CSUN, I process archival collections, however, most of my time is spent managing student employees in Special Collections and Archives (SC/A). Many colleagues believe that I solely hire history majors; to their surprise, I do not. Since becoming the Student Employee supervisor for the unit, I have used my own experience and campus resources to manage student employees. This includes, focusing on the individual and showing them how this temporary position can translate into their own careers by teaching them about being resourceful, applying to new positions and internships, and graduating or pursuing other careers that are better suited for them, even if it means transferring to another university.
Panel: Community Building Among Library Student Employees
(2024-10-24) Geiling, Clark; Vorobeva-Sears, Ekaterina; Forbes, Christine
This panel presentation will focus on community building strategies and projects to establish greater connection among library student employees. Library professionals at two different academic libraries will answer questions about their recent work in this arena. They’ll discuss their motivation, the benefits of undertaking this work for both library employees and student employees, as well as considerations to remember in order to establish an engaged, connected, and supportive community environment for library student employees.
Student Ownership of Library Spaces
(2024-10-24) Boothby Rice, Andrea
As a small academic library, we heavily rely on students to keep our doors open. However, in the past, this reliance has essentially amounted to paid study time and threats to hold students accountable. Over the past two years, the Public Services team has worked towards creating a collaborative space that prepares students for their post-undergraduate careers. We achieve this by centering them in our practices and policies, offering student led training, creating a mentoring cohort, and involving students in projects that align with their interests. Our goal is for student employees to feel a sense of ownership, not only as students but also as stewards of the library services. This 20-minute presentation will examine key points in our development and address ongoing questions we continue to explore.
The Value of Floor Time: Evaluating Where Students Are & Where They Want to Go
(2024-10-24) Rupinski, Leigh
“Floor time” encourages people to take 10-15 minutes lying on the floor to decompress and ground yourself. In a therapy setting, floortime can also refer to a technique of engaging with a child’s interests and then creating challenges to promote development. Both uses of the word get at my approach to student employee evaluations. In evaluation conversations, the initial skills rating serves a “floor” from which we can build on the student’s individual strengths, discover growth areas, and most importantly, introduce praise and safety. After the first evaluation, we progress into more collaborative conversational models that help students identify and understand their own strengths in the workplace and identify what directions they want to take in the future to get the most out of their experience.
I'm Not Crying, You're Crying, or, Student Exit Interviews as a High Impact Practice
(2024-10-24) Anderson, Robin
Graduating college can be a source of significant stress for students. To help students identify how they have grown personally and professionally from their college experiences, library staff conduct exit interviews with graduating student workers. The exit interviews give students space to reflect on challenges they have overcome and transferable skills they have gained, celebrating their achievements and preparing them for similar questions in job interviews. The exit interviews also benefit library staff by sharing student perceptions of work tasks and environment, areas for library improvement, and the positive impact that library work has had on students. Formally invited to reciprocate the care they have received as library employees, students leave their job empowered for the broader world.
Senior Information and Borrowing: The Positive Impact of Recognition and Promotion
(2024-10-24) Calo, Mary; Aldwinckle-Povey, Joshua
In January 2023, the Brandeis Library Public Services Department launched a new student staff position; Senior Information and Borrowing Assistant. Prior to this position, Public Services offered one sole position resulting in a stagnant experience for those who worked over several years. The vision was born from the Department’s commitment to an “ethic of care” approach towards student supervision. Library staff sought to o er student staff the opportunity to develop professional skills, while acknowledging their exceptional. The position allowed for Library staff to recognize those students who demonstrated skills like leadership, knowledge, empathy, and critical thinking through a promotional opportunity. This presentation by the Manager of Public Services, Mary Calo, and former Senior Information and Borrowing Assistant, Joshua Aldwinckle-Povey, will explore the motivation for and development of this role, success of the program, impact to student staff, and o er testimonials from current Senior Information and Borrowing Assistants.
Checking In: Slowing Down and Doing Less to Empower Students
(2024-10-24) Gingerich, Monica
Penn State's President Bendapudi has said, "We can do anything, but we can't do everything." Taking this sentiment and a culture of care for our student employees in mind, I threw out my carefully curated training guide for the year in lieu of slowing down and checking in with my student employees to assess their capacity. This poster explores the power of developing training around “check-ins” with student employees at bi-weekly training meetings, and empowering students to choose future projects and training topics based on their interests and mental load availability. The results of this simple practice of “check-ins” helped build relationships and foster a supportive environment for library student employees to grow in their roles as Peer Research Consultants. How to build “check-ins” into your training, build a program based on student need and input, and reflections on the process will be discussed.
Cura Personalis: Caring for the Whole Student Employee
(2024-10-24) Vande Walle, Abby
College is stressful. And in addition to all the traditional pressures of higher education, student employees also have to navigate a job and the workplace, often for the very first time in their lives. The User Services Unit in the Hesburgh Libraries has embodied the ethics of care in our policies and culture by adopting the mindset of Cura Personalis (Latin for Care for the Whole Person). In this context, we think of it as care for the whole student employee: mind, body, and spirit. This poster will exhibit some of the ways in which our patron-facing Unit has embodied care in our practices with student workers, including study break events, mental health training, professional development sessions, social activities, and flex shifts. Our goal is to not only lessen the students’ overall stress, but demonstrate our support and care for their wellbeing both in and out of the library workplace.
Rooted in Compassion: Learning Lab Ethics of Care
(2024-10-24) Street, Carol A.
The Learning Lab internship at the University of Kentucky Libraries Special Collections Center employs a student-centered approach that provides the basis for students discovering their true academic selves through primary source research. The cohort of approximately 10 interns form a team environment that, at turns, encourages, inspires, and motivates the team. A contributing element to this ethics of care is the application of "rose and thorn" at the beginning of every weekly meeting. This very simple exercise that asks the question of what has gone well this week (the rose) and what has not gone as well (the thorn) has clearly impacted students since its employment during the pandemic. It has been so successful that it is still used today in the internship program. This presentation will explore the genesis of this experiment and observations on why it works so well to quickly form relationships, understanding, and compassion.
The Care and Complimenting of Students
(2024-10-24) Rupinski, Leigh; Fletcher, Katelyn; Van Dyke, Andrea
We pioneered the idea of “compliment cards” to boost morale, encourage, and demonstrate caring to our student employees, faculty, and staff. Small, postcard-sized decorated cards are stocked at our service desk and available for anyone to use. Student employees have taken the lead on designing them with different themes and sayings such as “I love our chats!” or “We appreciate you!” Compliments given range from big appreciative statements to things like “Your outfit is amazing!” The cards are small ways to show we care, in a tangible form that can be looked back on (several students keep theirs pasted into books or hanging on their apartment walls). They provide opportunities for students to form bonds and appreciate one another. Faculty and staff also use them to show how we value students holistically, not only for their contributions to workplace tasks.

Browse

Browsing Student Employment in Academic Libraries (SEAL) Symposium 2024 by Issue Date

Results Per Page

Sort Options