Today, CLIR and EDUCAUSE announced the 38 individuals who have been selected to participate in the 2019 Leading Change Institute (LCI). Through the DLF fellowships program, two participants—Monika Rhue and Tina Rollins—have been awarded full-tuition scholarships for the program. Offered for the first time this year, these tuition grants will enable the recipients to fully participate in LCI, and will foster cross-pollination among a variety of institution types.
About the Leading Change Institute
Jointly sponsored by CLIR and EDUCAUSE, LCI is designed for leaders in higher education, including CIOs, librarians, information technology professionals, and administrators, who want to work collaboratively to promote and initiate change on critical issues affecting the academy. These issues include new sources of competition, use of technology to support effective teaching and learning, distance learning, changing modes of scholarly communications, and the qualities necessary for leadership.
Monika and Tina will join other participants in sessions led by deans Joanne Kossuth and Elliott Shore as well as other thought leaders from the community in discussing approaches to these challenges, including ideas for collaboration, collective creativity, and innovation within and across departments, institutions, and local or regional boundaries; the conceptualization of blended positions and organizations; and the importance of community mentorship and advocacy.
The institute will be held June 2–7 in Washington, DC.
About the recipients
Monika Rhue
Director of Library and Curation
Johnson C. Smith University
Monika Rhue is currently serving as the director of library services and curation at the James B. Duke Memorial Library, Johnson C. Smith University. Some of her work experiences include library management, grant writing, archival consulting, and museum curation. She has served on the HistoryMakers advisory board and the planning advisory team for the 2018 Harvard Radcliffe Workshop on Technology and Archival Processing and was the plenary speaker for the 2018 Rare Books and Manuscripts Section conference in New Orleans. She also serves as an archival consultant for the State Archives of North Carolina Traveling Archivist Program, and as 2017-2019 Board Chair for HBCU Library Alliance.
Monika managed Save the Music: The History of Biddleville Quintet, JCSU’s archives first digital project to transfer instantaneous discs into a digital format, and launched Digital Smith, the university’s searchable archives. She was instrumental in accessioning the James Gibson Peeler collection with more than 100,000 photographs and negatives that document the history and culture of Charlotte’s African American population. She has bridged several partnerships across campus, in the Charlotte community and throughout the Southeast with programs such as:
- Giving Back: the Soul of Philanthropy Reframed and Exhibited, a traveling exhibit throughout the Southeast paying tribute to generations of African American Philanthropy.
- Know Your Plate, an interactive game project to promote awareness of obesity among African Americans in the Northwest Corridor.
- JCSU’s Information Literacy Buddy initiative, which assisted HBCUs in transforming bibliographic instruction into an information literacy program. Monika was invited to share this initiative in South Africa as a People-to-People library delegate from October 19-29, 2009.
She is the author of Organizing and Preserving Family and Religious Records: A Step-by-Step Guide and Dress the African Way: An Activity Book for the Family, and is a contributing writer to the ACRL publication Creating Leaders: An Examination of Academic and Research Library Leadership Institutes. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in communication from Johnson C. Smith University and an MLIS degree from UNC-Greensboro. Her current projects include developing an animated plagiarism game to help students avoid plagiarism and partnering with Arts and Science Council Culture Blocks to capture and preserve the rich heritage of the Northwest Corridor neighborhoods.
Tina D. Rollins
Director of the William R. and Norma B. Harvey Library
Hampton University
Tina D. Rollins is the director of the William R. and Norma B. Harvey Library at Hampton University. She completed her bachelor’s degree in criminal justice at Old Dominion University and her MLS degree at North Carolina Central University (NCCU). While at NCCU she was a member of the Diversity Scholars Program which was an Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS)-funded program to recruit students of diverse backgrounds into the library and information sciences field. This experience led to an interest in promoting and researching diversity within librarianship. Tina also studied international librarianship in Copenhagen, Denmark, during her studies at NCCU.
At Hampton, she has created initiatives to improve information literacy, outreach services, and professional development. The initiatives have led to increases in library programming, grantsmanship, fundraising, and faculty and staff communication. The library is successfully rebuilding its brand and building cross-campus collaboration and partnerships. These opportunities create a wealth of potential resources to improve library services and research efforts throughout the university.
Rollins has committed herself to bringing awareness to the lack of diversity within all facets of the LIS field. She currently serves as principal investigator on an IMLS grant awarded to Hampton University. This award, titled The Hampton University Forum on Minority Recruitment and Retention in the LIS Field, convened a national forum in August 2018 to discuss effective strategies and action planning to address the lack of diversity within the LIS field. The grant continues to address these concerns through virtual meetings and training sessions for LIS professionals.
Tina Rollins holds various memberships in both regional and national organizations related to the field. She is a board member of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) Library Alliance. Additionally, she volunteers in literacy outreach organizations and initiatives in the region. She currently resides in Newport News, VA with her husband where she enjoys watching movies and bad reality television.
In 2019, Monika and Tina are also serving as mentors with the HBCU Library Alliance and DLF’s Authenticity Project — a program which provides support and professional development to early- to mid-career library staff from American HBCUs.
To learn more about the Leading Change Institute and to view this year’s curriculum, visit the program’s website.
