Library looks to engage with students

trevor.kenney — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 18:15:34 +0000

PechaKucha was introduced to the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge campus recently as the U of L Library's Student Engagement Team (SET) hosted a PechaKucha event as part of the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ's International Week.

Seven presenters, including faculty, staff and one international student, spoke on internationally-themed topics ranging from a winter road trip to Alaska to anthropological field work in Indonesia.

The Student Engagement Team was formed in the fall of 2010 to provide leadership within the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ Library on all services and activities that support the strategic direction of enhancing the student experience. The group is interested in finding new ways to engage students both academically and socially.

"When the International Centre for Students asked us to be a part of International Week we were eager to participate," says event organizer Heather Nicholson.

She adds that SET was particularly interested in finding an activity that would engage international students. Nicholson and SET co-chair Nicole Eva had read about PechaKucha and were looking for an opportunity to put it into practice.

PechaKucha, a term derived from the Japanese word for chit-chat, is a simple presentation format where 20 images are shown for 20 seconds each. The images forward automatically while a presenter speaks to them. The presentation style was developed by two architects in Tokyo in 2003 who wanted to provide a space and an opportunity for designers to share new ideas, but in a fast-paced and entertaining format. Since 2004, PechaKucha events have been spreading to other cities around the world. Currently there are regular PechaKucha nights running in more than 260 cities worldwide on an unlimited number of topics.

While PechaKucha is not well known around Lethbridge, all participants and attendees expressed enthusiasm about the event. One particularly moving presentation was given by ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ Librarian Glenna Westwood, who spoke about her emotional voyage to Ghana in May 2010. Westwood and her father (retired U of L professor Bill Cook) made their first return journey to the West African country after spending five years there in the 1970s.

PechaKucha Night is trademarked and run by a global foundation. For more information about PechaKucha visit www.pecha-kucha.org

For a look at the March issue of the Legend in a flipbook format, follow this link.

The power of language

trevor.kenney — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 16:25:54 +0000

For Glenna Westwood (BA '84), proclaiming the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge as a culturally diverse campus is literally, just lip service.

By initiating the establishment of foreign language conversation groups, Westwood is helping to foster relationships at the most basic of levels – communication.

"It's not just an opportunity for students to learn and to help them with their studies, it's community-building, a good social exercise as well," says Westwood, the library's Fine Arts librarian and modern languages buff.

The project invites students, staff and faculty to meet in the library on a weekly basis to simply converse in either French or Spanish. When it debuted last fall, a Japanese component was also included.

"We're here not to just support students who are writing a research paper for their professor," says Westwood about her role as a professional librarian. "They have other learning needs and goals and I've always tried to anticipate what those needs might be and then fulfill them.
"I try to ask myself, what can we do for students apart from providing these scholarly resources?"

Her interest in language is well earned and the idea for the conversation groups was born out of a study leave she took to Mexico five years ago. While there, Westwood studied Spanish by immersing herself in the language. She enrolled in a language school with a library in a small Mexican town. Journaling her experiences, she studied what kind of library resources she used to support her learning, then returned a year later to conduct a survey and compile results for a paper she then presented at a conference in Australia. Conversation groups were a part of the informal curriculum, and she facilitated an English group while also participating in a Spanish group.

"My goal that semester was language facility," she says. "I was interested in sitting in that space, seeing what kinds of resources I used and watching the other students and seeing what resources they used. As a language librarian, I was then able to share that new knowledge with the broader professional community."

It was the kind of information she could bring back to the U of L to help her create a better learning environment for the many modern language students on campus. It was more than that though; it also provided her with an opportunity to use the library as more than a research destination but also a community space.

With assistance from the International Centre for Students as well as the Faculty of Management, Westwood recruited students as volunteer hosts of the conversation groups. After that, it was a matter of opening the doors and letting the program evolve in whatever direction it took.

"I don't participate in the actual groups, I just facilitate them and whatever experiences they have, they have," she says.
"I would say it's been a success. Really, even if just one student comes it's a success, and it's something that I want to continue."

GET THE FACTS

• Westwood has worked in the U of L Library since 1992, and was the science librarian before getting back to her roots in the fine arts and languages

• She graduated from the U of L with a BASC (Dramatic Arts) degree in 1984, then earned her Masters in Library Science from ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of British Columbia in 1987

• Westwood chose French, Spanish and Japanese for the conversation groups because they are languages offered as part of the U of L's Modern Languages program

• Conversation groups are open to all students, staff and faculty. Contact Westwood at glenna.westwood@uleth.ca to participate

UNews - Glenna Westwood

Library looks to engage with students

Related Topics

The power of language

Related Topics