University of Kentucky Considers Dissolving School Media Program
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By Debra Lau Whelan -- School Library Journal, 02/10/2010
It looks as if there could be another casualty in these tough economic times. The University of Kentucky’s School of Library and Information Science (SLIS) is thinking about dissolving its school media program in order to meet proposed budget cuts.
While Dan O’Hair, dean of the university’s college of communications and information studies, says the issue is only in the analysis stage and “no decisions of any type have been reached,” faculty, graduates, and others are up in arms over the thought that a crucial part of the state’s only American Library Association (ALA)-accredited program is being considered for the chopping block.
Already, Melissa Gardner, an instructor and the coordinator of the University of Kentucky’s (UK) school media program, was notified before Christmas that her contract won’t be renewed at the end of the academic year.
Jeffrey Huber, director of the SLIS, explains that the university is faced with another year of dwindling resources. “Last year, we had to absorb a two percent recurring budget cut. The year before, we absorbed a 1.3 percent non-recurring budget cut, [and] the university is facing another budget cut,” he wrote in an email. “The school's faculty is in the process of reviewing our options given the current budget situation and our very limited resources. It is only good management practice to operate within the constraints of a budget.”
SLIS, with 13 full-time faculty and staff along with part-time and adjunct faculty, has more than 200 students in its program from a variety of academic, geographic, and cultural backgrounds. Although the state is home to a few other school media programs at Eastern Kentucky University, Western Kentucky University, and Murray State University, UK is the only one accredited by the ALA. (Western Kentucky University offers a Master of Science in Library Media Education that's approved by the National Council of Accreditation of Teacher Education and the American Association of School Librarians.)
According to ALA’s Web site, accreditation is achieved through a review process conducted by an external review panel of practitioners and academics that verifies that the program meets the Standards for Accreditation of Master’s Programs in Library and Information Studies. “Graduating from an ALA-accredited program provides flexibility in the types of libraries and jobs you can apply for and enhances career mobility,” reads the site. “Most employers require an ALA-accredited master's degree for most professional level positions, and some states require an ALA-accredited degree to work as a professional librarian in public or school libraries.”
Becky Nelson, a media specialist at Hearn Elementary School in Frankfort, KY, a graduate of the UK program, and now a parttime faculty member there, feels strongly about the rigor and flexibility that comes with an ALA-accredited institution like UK.
“School library media specialists who graduate from ALA-accredited institutions are better prepared to set up and administer school libraries where the school librarian, after all, has to do it all—cataloging, collection development, programming, marketing, teaching—and in Kentucky, most of the school technology coordinators are librarians,” she says. “I have been a special librarian, a medical librarian, a university instructor, and a school librarian. Who knows, in retirement I might enjoy working in a public library. My ALA-accredited degree gives me these options.”
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Dan O’Hair, dean of the university’s college of communications and information studies. |
“I have to say that I am mortified,” says Goodwin, explaining that while UK has long been the flagship of the state universities, the school media program has been the flagship of school media librarians in the state. “To think that [they] would minimize the importance of school media is appalling to me. Why would you make a cut in your budget that will eliminate one quarter of our graduate students? Is the two percent really worth the loss of 53 graduate students in an outstanding program?”
Emmalee Hill Hoover, president of the Kentucky Library Association and a library media specialist at Dixie Heights High School in Edgewood, KY, has also sent letters of concern to O'Hair and Huber.
“Many school teachers want to attend [UK’s school media program], including the school media students who attend from Ohio because it is the closest ALA-accredited program,” says Hoover, a graduate of the UK SLIS program and an adjunct there, who was also instrumental in getting state legislation passed requiring a school library media center and a certified school library media specialist in every school. “Many school librarians across the state are not only devastated but appalled that the school does not consider the school media program important to the school library students of Kentucky.”
Sharon McQueen, a former assistant professor of children’s literature and youth services at UK’s SLIS, says when she taught there from 2005 to 2007, “children’s literature was a huge part of the school and university,” traditionally with two full-time youth faculty: a school media faculty member and a children's literature expert, who sometimes also had a public library orientation, as was the case with McQueen. There were, and still are, are at least four parttime faculty of children's lit, she says.
“When I was there, several programs of the College of Education required their undergrads to take a children's lit course, but none of the faculty over there taught it—so they sent all their undergrads over to SLIS to take it,” says McQueen.
McQueen also points to the importance of SLIS’s McConnell Center for the Study of Youth Literature, which supports teaching, learning, and research related to children's and teen/young adult literature by serving as a resource for UK students, its faculty, researchers, public librarians, school librarians, teachers, child care providers, parents, authors, and illustrators of youth literature, and other adults who work with children. The center was named after former educator Anne McConnell, who died in 2006 at 88.
The McConnell Center also hosts the annual McConnell Youth Literature Conference held in Lexington, KY, which draws librarians, teachers, and other professionals who work with youth to share ideas, examine materials, and meet authors, illustrators, and other leaders in the field of youth literature. This year’s conference, which will be held later this month, will include John Green and David Wiesner as speakers.
In 2007, the McConnell Center also hosted the May Hill Arbuthnot honor lecture given by Kevin Henkes, the first time the lecture had ever been held in the four-state East South Central region, which includes Kentucky,
“IF UK does close its school media program it would be a tremendous tragedy to the children of the Commonwealth of Kentucky,” McQueen says. “It cannot help but negatively affect the quality of education in the schools, something I know Jane Beshear, the first Lady of the Commonwealth, cares deeply about. It’s a reversal of what has been historically important to that program and what has traditionally been perceived to have value.”
