Something New

Hi!

I'm Bethany--I recently accepted a faculty position at at Big 10 school, am wrapping up a second Master's degree, and have been accepted in the first cohort of the Design 4 Learning project. To keep my sanity, and keep track of my professional life, I've turned to blogging to help organize my thoughts. This is the beginning!

A bit about me--I just moved to Lafayette, IN from the DC area and though I miss DC, I'm settling into Indiana quite nicely. I'm originally from South Carolina and it reminds me a lot of home. I have a Master of Library and Information Science from the University of South Carolina (2010) and a graduate Certificate in Health Sciences Librarianship from the University of Pittsburgh (2011). After graduating with my MLIS I spent the summer of 2010 as a fellow at the Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service then was hired by Howard University as the Allied Health Sciences Librarian. I spent a total of 5 years in DC, and just accepted a position as Assistant Professor of Library Science at Purdue University, where I serve as the Health Sciences Information Specialist.

My position at Purdue is tenure-track, which means I'm expected to excel in teaching, research, and community involvement. There's always room for improvement, especially when learning new resources and access policies, but I'm generally comfortable teaching and have a personal passion for community involvement--no worries. I only have the vaguest idea where I want to go with my research though.

I'm working on a MS in Interaction Design and Information Architecture, which I expect to finish in the summer of 2016. My research interests are in health literacy and user experience design. This semester, I'm taking Advanced Information Architecture, and received an override to take a doctoral level Research Methodologies class. My reading lists are about 6-inches of articles each week.

The Design4Learning project will be interesting--I accepted my place because it's a remote program that allows you to work at your own pace. I will need that flexibility and I'm hoping I can squeeze the work into my free time. I'm really hoping the teaching and learning strategies will help me manage my classroom, on and offline.

I'm pretty busy learning and teaching, but I still make time for fun. I've already joined a gym and found release in BodyPump and BodyFlow classes. Purdue has a stellar aquatics center with an olympic-sized pool, a regular pool, a jacuzzi, a sauna, etc. It's amazing. I've been church-hunting and am taking advantage of faculty-events to meet new people.

I also love traveling, good food and wine, and photography.

In past attempts, I've been terrible keeping an academic blog. I hope I'll be better at this--I'll give it my best shot!