The LIS Faculty & Staff wish to acknowledge your patience and understanding as we have all dealt with changes taking place to both our Program and University during the COVID-19 crisis. We offer the following statement to you all in hopes that we can continue working together to weather the changes while continuing to provide you the education and support necessary to become library and information science professionals.
Oʻahu is known as The Gathering Place, and for over 55 years, community and connection have been at the center of the LIS Program. While our program was not designed to be fully online, when the best thing for everyone is for us to work together at a distance, here’s what you can expect:
- We will give you the resources and support to develop professional LIS skills and perspectives that can be learned and practiced in both online and in-person information environments.
- We will create opportunities in coursework for you to use your skills to help people and communities. Even in an online environment, reference, research, cataloging, digital content management, creating quality informational content and helping people learn to access resources are all very much needed. We encourage you to actively identify people, organizations and communities you’d like to help, and work with your instructors to find ways to direct your coursework accordingly.
- We will create opportunities in coursework for you to interact with other students formally and informally, and build relationships that are an important part of the LIS experience.
- We will ask you to document how you have developed and applied your skills as professionals do: in formal papers, presentations and reports, but also in informal posts, community engagement projects, and other artifacts and reflections.
- We will communicate regularly and provide individual attention and timely feedback.
- When we return to a face-to-face or hybrid learning environment, we will reconfigure our classrooms and common areas to maximize personal space, and to maximize engagement with those working at a distance.
- We understand that we all have lives and commitments beyond the LIS Program. We prioritize mutual flexibility and understanding when situations arise that impact course content, assignments and modes of delivery. Whatever happens, we communicate, and work together to find a way.
- We encourage students, staff and faculty to put work on pause when needed to prioritize our families, our communities and ourselves, as long as we communicate those boundaries to other people, so we can all work together effectively.
Please contact your faculty advisor or the Program Coordinator (lisstaff@hawaii.edu) for questions, concerns, and/or special requests during this crisis. We will get through this together.
Update for Fall 2020: If you do not have a laptop or reliable wi-fi at home, please contact Cheri (lisstaff@hawaii.edu) for more information about procuring one or both through ICS funds.