Consuelo Salas is the 2018 recipient of the J. Murrey Atkins Library Faculty Engagement Award. An assistant professor with the University Writing Program and the Department of English, Salas will be honored during a library social and award ceremony, scheduled for 4 p.m., Thursday, Sept. 6, in the Halton Reading Room.
The Atkins Library Faculty Engagement Award is presented to a UNC Charlotte faculty member who has engaged in innovative or exceptional work with library collections, programs and services. It comes with a $2,500 allocation for professional development.
Salas, nominated by Kim Looby, instruction and information literacy librarian, is being honored for her collaboration with the library to promote information literacy. Throughout the 2017-18 school year, Salas worked with librarians Looby, Natalie Ornat and Beth Caruso within her UWRT 1103 and LBST 2301 Critical Thinking and Communication (CTC) courses.
Looby and Salas worked to create a total of six co-facilitated class periods, which consisted of topics such as an information timeline, creating effective research questions, turning research questions into search terms and librarian consultations. Ornat joined in spring 2018 to help with a new CTC course concentrated on visual rhetoric and expanded the six sessions into 12. They pre- and post-tested students’ level of information literacy. With that data, they worked with students to turn their research questions into search terms, use their search terms to find reliable and credible sources, create a research map and finally learn about fair use and APA citation of images. They continued to work during the summer and have evaluated, modified and adjusted their lesson plans for the fall 2018 semester.
Caruso joined for an additional four class periods and provided all 35 of Salas’ CTC students with the Library’s Visualization Lab orientation and in-depth training of specific software. As a result, the students were able to create their final assignment, a visual argument, and are now certified to use the VisLab for future projects in future courses.
“Dr. Salas continues to be a voice and advocate within the University Writing Program for expanding faculty/librarian collaboration,” said Looby. “Last semester, I saw an increase in requests for different styles of workshops from other writing program faculty, which is a direct result of Consuelo’s impactful, supportive voice for increasing the level of collaboration between the University Writing Program and the library.”
Salas credits Atkins’ librarians for being an integral part of her courses and students’ learning.
”The librarians of the J. Murrey Atkins Library harbor an essential knowledge that is crucial for my continued development as a teacher and scholar,” said Salas. “It has become my goal to collaborate, learn from and incorporate their knowledge and expertise in my classrooms and research.”
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