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Balz scholarship established
Balz scholarship to support returning students
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By the time that Nancy Balz (BA LAS ’70, MS/LIS ’72) decided to become a public librarian, over twenty years had passed since she had received her LIS degree. She had worked in an archive, academic setting, and bookstore, serving as a word researcher for the Oxford English Dictionary andas a researcher for book authors. While she was interested in working in a public library, she wondered if she was up to the task, with so much time having passed since earning her degree, along with the increasingly online nature of library work.
“Then one day someone (whose name I can’t recall) suggested I ‘update my skills and look into it,’” Balz said. “Someone else referred to a local branch library as ‘the holy grail of public libraries,’ and suggested I ought to ‘practice what you preach.’”
With encouragement from her family and friends, Balz became a returning student, commuting from her home in Bethesda, Maryland, to the University of Maryland College Park campus for additional LIS coursework. She started working at the Montgomery County (MD) Public Libraries (MCPL) in 1994 and retired in 2010. In her retirement, Balz enjoys quilting, gardening, reading, and volunteer work. “After retiring from MCPL,the first thing I did was to volunteer at the Library of Congress (where I had worked in the 1970s), greeting visitors in the Great Hall. That was fun and brought my ‘public library’ experience full circle,” she said.
Nancy and her husband, Dan Balz (BS Media ’68, MS Media ’72), have established a scholarship in the School of Information Sciences to help make education more affordable for returning students. “I established this scholarship believing that there are students in the master’s program at the iSchool, coming back to campus or entering an online classroom, who can be helped along their path with professional, excellent teaching, like I was,” Balz said. “I believe the awards committee will find such students, and I hope they graduate and use their degree from Illinois to provide the excellent library services in the future that people will need wherever they next find themselves.”
This is the second endowment fund the couple has created at the University of Illinois. In 2013, they established their first scholarship in the College of Media, where Dan, chief correspondent for The Washington Post, received his degrees in journalism. “Our educational experiences may have been quite different, but the U of I played a similar role in both of our lives, bringing professional opportunities and personal connections of friendship and support from a remarkable group of people over many, many years,” Balz said.“Dan and I are happy we have the opportunity to join the many other alumni and friends of the School, to support a future of excellence in learning, scholarship, and information and library services.”
Scholarship an affirmation, financial boost for Kang
For MS/LIS student Eunice Kang, receiving the Carl Volkmann Scholarship from the iSchool allowed her to focus on learning and “taking advantage of all the opportunities that the University has to offer,” while also lightening her financial burden. Kang realized soon after earning her bachelor’s degree in advertising from the University of Illinois that she did not belong in that field. After spending time teaching English to lower income children in Korea, she decided to pursue a career where she could help children.
“In Korea, a lot of the learning actually happens after school in private institutions,” said Kang. “Those who can afford it attend the best schools with the best tutors. The lower income families still send their children to tutors because it is ‘necessary’ to keep up in school. This was disheartening to me and made me want to try and provide them with as much of the same resources as possible, but it was hard to achieve this.”
Since English was not her first language either, Kang understood her students’ frustration at not being understood. She would like to pursue a career as a children’s librarian and continue working with children who are learning English as a second language. “I would like to work at a public library with a mission statement that aligns with my values, so I am able to grow both personally and professionally. More importantly, I want to work somewhere where I can truly make a difference for children. Ultimately, I would like to move into a director position where I can build a solid long-term career,” she said.
In her free time, Kang enjoys crocheting. She is currently working on a sweater for her 17-year-old dog, who “has
not been very happy with me trying to measure him when he is trying to sleep!”
Kang is thankful for the Volkmann Scholarship and appreciates the donor support that made her scholarship possible. “Having lost my source of income, this scholarship has helped me in so many ways,” she said. “I had been feeling overwhelmed due to all of the changes and new responsibilities, but this award was an affirmation that I am trying my best and moving forward in the right direction. I hope one day that I will be able to help students achieve their goals, just as this scholarship has helped me.”
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DECADE: 2020s
Rebecca Graham (MS ’20) has been appointed assistant professor and instructional design and technology librarian at Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pennsylvania.
Decade: 2010s
Emily Adams (MS ’17) started her new position as librarian at Parkview Junior High in Lawrenceville, Illinois. Jeanie Austin (PhD ’17) has authored a book about library services to people who are incarcerated. The book, with the working title Library Services and Incarceration: Recognizing Barriers, Strengthening Access, will be published by ALA in 2021. Vanna Bells (MS ’10) graduated from the 2020 Carson City Chamber of Commerce Leadership Institute and celebrated her one-year anniversary as creative learning librarian at the Carson City Library. Darnetta Bolton (MS ’19), youth services reference librarian at the Orland Park (IL) Public Library, is the recipient of the Illinois Library Association’s 2020 Robert P. Doyle Conference Grant for Support Staff, which is presented by the ILA Reaching Forward Forum. Heather Campbell (MS ’19) has been named discovery and metadata librarian at the University of Wisconsin–La Crosse. She also was appointed to the editorial board of ACRL’s College & Research Libraries News and the ALA Publications Committee. Kristyn Caragher (MS ’14, CAS ’16) and Teresa Moreno (MS ’19) are serving on the new Building Cultural Proficiencies for Racial Equity Framework Task Force. The task force is a joint initiative of the Association of College & Research Libraries; Association of Research Libraries; American Library Association’s Office for Diversity, Literacy, and Outreach Services; and Public Library Association. Lindsey Ann Carpino (MS ’14) has received an Emerging Leader Award from the American Association of Law Libraries.
Katie Chamberlain Kritikos (MS ’10)
recently relocated to Burlington, Vermont, and took the Vermont bar exam. She was admitted to practice and sworn in via video conference in May 2020. Suzanna Conrad (MS ’11) began her new position as dean of libraries at Towson University on August 1. The Rare Book School has selected Dale Correa (MS ’19) to be part of an inaugural cohort of fifteen Andrew W. Mellon Fellows for Diversity, Inclusion & Cultural Heritage. Fellows will participate in a three-year program that includes an orientation, Rare Book School coursework, community symposia, and other activities relating to multicultural collections and trainings. Christine D’Arpa (PhD ’17), assistant professor of information sciences at Wayne State University, has co-authored a juried paper, “‘12pm Eastern, 11am Central, 10am Mountain’: Student Contributions to Research on Rural and Small Public Libraries,” as a result of her IMLS-funded research project, Community Health and Wellness: Small and Rural Public Library Practices, Perspectives, and Programs. Co-authors on the paper included iSchool alumni Susan Burke (MS ’88), Noah Lenstra (MS ’09, CAS ’11, PhD ’16), and Ellen Rubenstein (PhD ’11). EvaAnne Johnson (MS ’18) has started her new position as adult services librarian, specializing in Local History and Genealogy services,at Wilmette (IL)Public Library. Lacey Love (MS ’13) began her new job as library director of the Peters Township Public Library in McMurray, Pennsylvania, on October 19. Nisha Mody (MS ’17) has been named associate director of the National Network of Libraries of Medicine Pacific Southwest Region. Christy Moss (MS ’17) joined the University of Illinois Alumni Association as vice president of membership and marketing on November 2. Ryan A. Ross (MS ’10) has been named associate editor of Illinois Alumni, the U of I’s alumni magazine. He also serves as assistant director of history and traditions programs at the University of Illinois Alumni Association and curator of the Richmond Family Welcome Gallery at Alice Campbell Alumni Center. Ruth Slagle (MS ’17) started her new position as instruction librarian at Jackson State Community College in Jackson, Tennessee, in March 2020. Dena Strong (MS ’14) and Keith Wessel presented their research on accessible teleconferencing software for inclusive collaboration and presentation at the National Association for Computing Machinery’s special interest group on HPC Education. Lydia Tang (MS ’15) was awarded the Society of American Archivists’ Mark A. Greene Emerging Leader Award, and three projects to which she contributed received SAA Council Resolutions for the Archival Workers Emergency Fund, Task Force to Revise Best Practices for Accessible Archives for People With Disabilities, and the Accessibility & Disability Section. Michelle Urberg (MS ’16) received an Early Career Fellowship from the Society for Scholarly Publishing in May 2020. She left the ExLibris Business Unit of ProQuest to move into the consulting space that supports scholarly publishing and is currently doing some work with Maverick Publishing Specialists. Kayleigh Van Poolen (CAS ’18) is working with The Atlantic on The COVID Tracking Project. As a volunteer on the data entry team, she scours posts from states and territories for information for the project’s website.
A paper by Melissa Villa-Nicholas (PhD ’16) and Jeanie Austin (MS ’09, PhD ’17, “Information Provision and the Carceral State: Race and Reference beyond the Idea of the ‘Underserved,’” was published in the journal The Reference Librarian and named the winner of the Eighth Annual Library Juice Paper Contest.
DECADE: 2000s
Susanne Belovari (MS ’02), archivist for faculty papers at the University of Illinois Archives, won the 2020 Sophie Coe Prize for her work on the forgotten history of Viennese cuisine. Kathy Edwards (MS ’06) was promoted to librarian at Clemson University Libraries in July 2020. At Clemson, she has been the research and collection development librarian for architecture, art, city planning, and historic preservation since 2008 and was tenured in 2013. Jeanne Hamilton (MS ’08) was elected president-elect of the Illinois Library Association’s 2020 Executive Board. Rick Meyer (MS ’09) was elected as a director-at-large of the Illinois Library Association’s 2020 Executive Board. In December 2019, Annie (Dougherty) Miskewitch (MS ’03) was appointed by the Board of Trustees as executive director for the Schaumburg Township District Library. Schaumburg Library has three locations just outside of Chicago, Illinois. Rachel E. Scott (MS ’07) was appointed associate dean for information assets at Illinois State University.
DECADE: 1990s
Laura Barnes (MS ’93) was elected as a director-at-large of the Illinois Library Association’s 2020 Executive Board. Stephanie Davis-Kahl (MS ’98) has been appointed university librarian and copyright officer for the Ames Library at Illinois Wesleyan University. Darin Fox (MS ’94) has been named interim dean of Oklahoma University libraries. Michelle Glatt (MS ’93) was elected treasurer of the Association of Illinois School Library Educators’ Executive Board for 20202021. After many years of teaching a job hunting class, Pamela Posz (MS ’95) has published her book, Power Posz: and other Hacks for Getting the Job You Want. Jian Qin (PhD ’96) has been selected as the recipient of the 2020 Frederick G. Kilgour Award for Research in Library and Information Technology, sponsored by the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) and the Library and Information Technology Association (LITA). Mark Rogers (MS ’94) passed away on September 1. He worked as a library specialist in the Undergraduate Library at the University of Illinois.
DECADE: 1980s
Scott G. Burgh (MS ’86) has received the Robert L. Oakley Advocacy Award from the American Association of Law Libraries. Michèle Cloonan (MS ’84, PhD ’88) has co-authored a new book with Elizabeth Joffrion, Advancing Preservation for Archives and Manuscripts, which was recently published by the Society of American Archivists. Sara Tompson (MS ’87) retired at the end of January 2020. She has been keeping busy with the Special Libraries Association (she was named an SLA Fellow in 2017), chairing the Engineering Community for 2020. She is also pursuing additional aviation ratings and has a large tomato-dominated garden.
DECADE: 1970s
Margaret Bienemann (MS ’76) retired at the end of January 2020 from the University of Texas Libraries. Charles Headley (MS ’78) retired in March after thirteen years as senior executive director of development services at Southern Methodist University.
DECADE: 1960s
Lucy (Becker) Thomas (MS ’68) retired as adjunct librarian at Santa Barbara City College. Previously, she served as director of the Reeves Medical Library and as a school librarian. Her honors include Beta Phi Mu, distinguished member of Academy of Health Information Professionals, and officer of the Faculty Senate. She co-authored Making Informed Medical Decisions, a handbook for consumers of healthcare, with Nancy Oster. Margaret Thrasher (MS ’64) passed away on April 29, 2020. She was the branch manager of the New Carrollton (MD) Branch Library before retiring in 2000.
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Office of Advancement and Alumni Relations School of Information Sciences
501 East Daniel Street, Champaign, IL 61820 ischool-advancement@illinois.edu (217) 300-5746 ischool.illinois.edu/engage/alumni
New grants (funding began between July 1, 2019, and June 30, 2020)
Illinois Cyber Security Scholars Program Renewal 2019 (Masooda Bashir)—NSF, $4,000,000
BD Hubs: Collaborative Proposal: Midwest: Midwest Big Data Hub: Building Communities to Harness the Data Revolution (Catherine Blake)—
NSF, $2,883,274
Scholarly Communication Notebook (Maria Bonn)—IMLS, $32, 867
ECR Methods DCL: Advancing Computational Grounded Theory for Audiovisual Data from STEM Classrooms (Nigel Bosch, Co-PI)—NSF, $1,313,855
Extension of INDICATOR for Opioid Surveillance (Ian Brooks)—Illinois Department of Public Health, $2,750
Feasibility of Conversational Agents for Older Adult Well-Being (Jessie Chin, Co-PI)—Mather LifeWays, $89,947 Identifying False HPV-Vaccine Information and Modeling Its Impact on Risk Perceptions (Jessie Chin)—NIH, $389,810
Assessing Impact Patterns in Research Texts Applying Corpus Driven Methods (Jana Diesner)—Institute for the German Language, $164,732
Collaborative Research: Accelerating Synthetic Biology Discovery & Exploration through Knowledge Integration (J. Stephen Downie)—NSF, $211,699
Detecting, Characterizing, Tracking and Forecasting Rare Events in Multi-Sourced Networks: An Application in Analyzing Isolated Malicious Activities (Jingrui He)—U.S. Department of Homeland Security, $163,145 Harnessing Artificial Intelligence for Cartel Smuggling Study (Jingrui He)—U.S. Department of Homeland Security, $78,917 DARPA - Modeling Adversarial Activity (MAA) Program (Jingrui He, Co-PI)—U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, $560,000 Outlier Interpretation on Time Series for Model Risk Management (Jingrui He)—IBM C3SR Center, $73,000
CAREER: III: Modeling the Heterogeneity of Heterogeneity: Algorithms, Theories and Applications (Jingrui He)—NSF, $415,836
III: Small: Predictive Analysis of Diabetes Dedicated Social Networks (Jingrui He)—NSF, $448,049
Enabling Accessibility and Linking Digital Media Collections in Academic Libraries (Yun Huang)—IMLS, $186,693
I-Corps: Beacon-Enabled Smart Location-Based Service (Yun Huang)—NSF, $30,524
Data Storytelling for Community Organizations (Kate McDowell)—Center for Social & Behavioral Science, $20,000
Games @ Illinois: Playful Design for Transformative Education (Judith Pintar)—Provost Office Special Programs, $456,000 Cyber Risk Assessment for Threatened Environments (Eunice E. Santos)—U.S. Air Force, $225,000 Reducing the Inadvertent Spread of Retracted Science: Shaping a Research and Implementation Agenda (Jodi Schneider)— Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, $174,981 EAGER: Reproducibility in Computational and Data-Enabled Science - Paradigms, Practices, and Infrastructure (Victoria Stodden)—NSF, $300,000
GBMF: yt: Next Phases (Matthew Turk)—Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, $700,000
From Accurate Correlated Quantum Simulations to Mesoscopic Scales (Matthew Turk, Co-PI)—U.S. Department of Energy, $2,750,000 NRT-HDR: Data and Informatics Graduate Intern-traineeship: Materials at the Atomic Scale (Matthew Turk, Co-PI)—NSF, $3,000,000
Broadening Access to Text Analysis by Describing Uncertainty (Ted Underwood)—NEH, $73,122
CAREER: Inclusive Privacy: Effective Privacy Management for People with Visual Impairments (Yang Wang)—NSF, $255,203
iSchool researchers manage active grants from the nation’s most prestigious funders, with interdisciplinary campus partners, and in collaboration with a broad range of universities, institutions, and organizations.
Funders
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Basal Cell Carcinoma Nevus Syndrome Life Support Network Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation HathiTrust Research Center Illinois Department of Public Health Illinois Center for Social & Behavioral Science Illinois Global Institute Illinois Provost Office Special Programs: Investment for Growth Institute for the German Language Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) Mather LifeWays National Endowment for the Arts National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Library of Medicine National Science Foundation (NSF) Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation The John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation U.S. Air Force U.S. Army U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency U.S. Department of Education U.S. Department of Energy U.S. Department of Homeland Security
University Research Partners
Department of Astronomy College of Education Coordinated Science Lab Gies College of Business Information Trust Institute (ITI) Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment College of Liberal Arts & Sciences Materials Research Lab Micro and Nanotechnology Lab National Center for Supercomputing Applications Department of Natural Resources & Environmental Sciences Department of Nuclear, Plasma, & Radiological Engineering University Library
Collaborating Institutions
Arizona State University Champaign-Urbana Public Health District Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research HRL Laboratories Indiana University McGill University Norman Public Schools North Carolina State University Securboration, Inc. University of Arizona University of California-Los Angeles University of Notre Dame
More information on iSchool research projects is available at ischool.illinois.edu/research/projects
29 PROJECTS $13.8 MILLION
Our faculty and staff serve as principal investigators on 29 projects totaling $13.8million. 21 PROJECTS
$73.3 MILLION
Our faculty and staff serve as co-investigators or partners on 21 projects totaling $73.3 million.
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 501 East Daniel Street, MC-493 Champaign, IL 61820-6211 Non Profit Org. U.S. Postage PAID Permit No. 75 Champaign, IL
A crossroads for critical inquiry, professional training, and educational outreach, the iSchool’s Center for Children’s Books (CCB) will celebrate its 75th anniversary in 2021. Please join us for the following special events:
A virtual lecture series in the spring featuring iSchool youth services faculty and alumni speaking about the Center’s history and activities central to its work, with an emphasis on evaluating children’s literature, storytelling, diversity, and literacy as a public health issue. Speakers will include Associate Professor Kate McDowell; Professor Emerita Betsy Hearne; Sarah Park Dahlen (MS ’09, PhD ’09), associate professor of library and information science at St. Catherine University; and Dipesh Navsaria (MS ’04), pediatrician and medical director of Reach Out and Read Wisconsin. An online exhibit celebrating 75 years of the CCB in Chicago and Urbana-Champaign in the summer. A gala celebration and panel discussion in the fall with CCB Director Sara L. Schwebel; Professor Emerita Betsy Hearne; Deborah Stevenson, editor of The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books; and Roger Sutton, editor in chief of The Horn Book, Inc.
