Liberal Arts Colleges in the Northeast: sabbatical travels, fall 2002

Hugh Blackmer
30 May 2002

In the months since I made the original proposal for sabbatical activities, various developments, opportunities and suggestions have led to augmentations, including a two-year plan (January 2003), continuing experimentation and prototyping, proposals for related projects (Managing Spatial Information on ACS Campuses and an R.E. Lee Summer Project) and a late May summary of basic issues. My log of activities is updated whenever I can get to my Web space via ftp.

My concerns include: role and activities of Science Librarians, processes of constructing and integrating digital libraries, support for and teaching with GIS, defining and filling the information needs of interdisciplinary programs, building curricula for human geography, and library and classroom deployment of information technology. Greg Cooper has asked me to co-teach a University Scholars course on environmental justice in Winter 2003, so gathering materials for that will also be included in my activities.

What follows is an attempt to lay out the details of visits as I am able to foresee them, including materials on the various institutions I plan to visit and names of people to see. More will be added.

I will probably begin with Middlebury College, which hosts the Mellon-funded Center for Educational Technology [the Director is Clara Yu; Bryan Alexander (now at Centenary) will join the staff of CET as an Associate Director on June 1], a part of NITLE (National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education). Middlebury also has a Science Library (Louise Zipp is the Science Librarian)
others:
***Bill Hegman, GIS specialist at Middlebury,
***Jamie Carroll, GIS specialist at CET.
++Shel Sax, Director, Educational Technology Services
Center for International Affairs, International Studies major
Dean of Library & Information Services: Barbara Doyle-Wilch bdoylewi@middlebury.edu

** participant in Middlebury/CET GIS workshop
*** staff in Middlebury GIS workshop
++ participant in CET Instructional Technology Leaders meeting, April 2002

The order of other visits is not yet established, but the list groups the various campuses geographically:

Bates College (Science Reference librarian [**Laverne Winn], no separate Science Library)
++Andrew White, Director of Academic Technology Services

Bowdoin College (has a Science Library [Sue O'Dell, Science Librarian)
++Peter Schilling, Director, Educational Technology Center
Sara Amato, Electronic Services and Web Development Librarian

Colby College (has a Science Library [Susan Cole, Science Librarian])
++Jackie Tanner, Director of Academic Information Technology Services

Williams College (has a Science Library [Helena Warburg, Science Librarian])
**Trevor Murphy, Instructional Technology Specialist,
**David Dethier, Prof of Geosciences
++Gayle Barton, Director of Instructional Technology
Sharon Macklin, Instructional Technology Specialist
Henry Art, Henry Art, Director, Center for Environmental Studies
GIS and REMOTE SENSING
Gaudino Memorial Fund ("Gaudino required his students to confront uncomfortable differences and learn through contrasts")

Amherst College (has a Science Library [**Susan Kimball, Science Librarian])
***Phil Fitz, Director of Information Technology,
**Andy Anderson, Curricular Computing Specialist,
**Peter Crowley, Prof. of Geology
++Mary McMahon, Director, Curriculum Computing Services

Mount Holyoke College (has a Science Librarian [Sandy Ward])
Library, Information, and Technology Services (LITS) ("...one of the first undergraduate institutions to have merged its library and computing services")
**Preston Smith, Associate Professor/Politics Department and African American and African Studies Department,
**Jim Burke, Instructional Technology Consultant,
++Tamra Hjermstad, Curriculum Support & Instructional Technology Coordinator
++Aime DeGrenier, Instructional Technology Consultant
Department of Earth and Environment geography courses

Smith College (has a Science Library [Rocco Piccinino, Science Librarian])
**Dana Leibsohn, Associate Professor, Art History,
**Robert Burger, Professor of Geology,
**John Caris, GIS Specialist

I will probably add Hampshire College
**Robert Rakoff, Professor of Politics and Environmental Studies, School of Social Science
**Myrna Breithbart, Dean of Social Science/Professor of Geography & Urban Studies
++Tom Manley, Manager of Information Technology
Multiple Cultural Perspectives (A Division II Requirement: "...committed to the principle that a liberal arts education should include a serious engagement with multiple cultural perspectives")

Clark University (has a Science Library [Tatiana Netch, Science Librarian] and Map Library [Beverley Presley, Map and Geography Librarian])
Geography Department

Wellesley College (has a Science Library)
Micheline Jedrey - Vice President for Information Services and College Librarian
++Kenny Freundlich, Director of Instructional Technology
Global Education Advisory Committee (?details?)
Merged Library and Computing to Information Services in ?1995?

Wesleyan University (has a Science Library [Steve Bischof, Science Librarian])
++Michael Roy, Director of Academic Computing Services
WebTech Program ("...selects First- and Second-year undergraduates and trains them over the summer to be technology-oriented Course Assistants for courses in their major department")
Interactive Data Mapper
CuRL (Curricular Resources Library --a collaboration among Dartmouth, Connecticut College, Trinity College, and Wesleyan University)

Vassar College (has a Science Librarian [Flora Grabowska])
GIS Lab [Meg Stewart, GIS Computing Consultant]
Scientific Visualization Laboratory
Geology and Geography Department

Others with important programs, but not Oberlin Group:

Dartmouth College (Epidemiology and GIS (health GIS component), Science Library integration
Daniel Karnes, Library GIS)

Harvard University (Map Library [Bonnie Burns, Geographic Information Systems Specialist] serving maps with ArcIMS)

Brandeis University (GIS support in libraries [Sally Wyman, GIS Librarian])

School for International Training, Brattleboro VT (World Learning's accredited college, of interest to Global Stewardship)

GIS at Brown, Watson Institute for International Studies

Fairfield University Environmental Studies (partner in Brazil Consortium)

The questions posed on each campus will vary with situations and individual interests I encounter, but I can be fairly specific about some of my agenda. In essence, I want to talk with people who are actively imagining, exploring, and experimenting with the future of liberal arts education, in situations and using resources akin to those we work with. Some of what I find will be applicable to W&L, and to other ACS institutions. I want to explore the potentials for cooperation and collaborations, and prepare myself for future participation in ACS and NITLE activities.