Get to Know Your Librarian:
Faculty Partnerships Dr. Kevin Jones, Librarian In the fall of 1999, the partnership between the Honors Program and EKU Libraries began with my performing library instruction for Honors Rhetoric (HON 102) and the Honors Thesis Project and Seminar (HON 420). Dr. Bonnie Gray, the Honors Program’s inaugural director, was determined to improve the academic and research outcomes for the students. At the same time, EKU Libraries were moving rapidly into the digital information age. We take this all for granted now, but it was the brave new world back then. I began offering information literacy instruction for HON 420, the course that guides Honors students through initiating their theses projects, with the Honors Program’s second director, Dr. Linda Frost. She understood the importance of students immersing themselves in the research process, a practice she coined as “grappling.” Grappling describes the level of critical engagement that Honors Thesis students need (and when they need it) in order to be successful. This being the case, it was very helpful to me in my library instruction preparations when the Honors Program began to send me the students’ approved topic proposals. This allowed me to better tailor my instruction, as well as help the students to get started with their research—and their grappling. Dr. David Coleman became the third director of the Honors Program in late 2013. That same year, with my colleague Trenia Napier and Honors student Hannah Zimmerman, I presented, “Why EKU Honors Loves Our Library: Research Based on Collaboration with the Noel Studio for Academic Creativity” at the National Collegiate Honors Conference. This was an important learning experience because I not only learned more about how Honors Senior Thesis students use EKU Libraries and the Noel Studio, I also learned more about the range of talent that EKU Honors displays at the national level. Attending and presenting at the national conference helped me to improve as a research guide for Honors students going forward. In 2017, I revised my approach to information literacy instruction for HON 420 to give students a simple method to find subject databases and become even more sophisticated and effective searchers. Dr. Coleman noted that the assignment redesign was helping students become academically engaged earlier in the process of writing their theses, while also producing a greater quantity and quality of scholarship.
Photo: Dr. Kevin Jones Librarian and liaison to EKU Honors Program
Looking at my work over the years with the Honors Program, I am glad that I could help those in HON 420 become better researchers. More importantly, I am grateful that I have had the opportunity to work with such an exceptional and dedicated group of faculty, staff, and students. 44