Empowering Academic Librarians: Insights from the ACRL and Harvard Leadership Institute

This summer, Dr. Linda Golian-Liu, Dean of Libraries, and Victoria Thur, Assistant Dean of Special Collections, Archives, and Distinctive Collections, were selected to participate in the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) and Harvard’s Leadership Institute for Academic Librarians held in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The week-long institute brought together a cohort of 130 academic librarians from across the United States, Canada, Europe, and the Caribbean. The program focused on key areas through readings, discussion, and group work: contemporary leadership challenges, leading, and reframing change.

"We had eight faculty lecturers who engaged us in our leadership practice and helped us learn how to reframe our thinking," - Victoria Thur

The directors are Maureen Sullivan, Past President of American Library Association and Association of College and Research Libraries, and Dr. Alex Hodges, Librarian and Director of the Monroe C. Gutman Library, Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE).

The faculty: Dr. James P. Honan, Kennedy Scholl for Business at HGSE; Dr. Joan Gallos, Professor of Leadership Emerita at the Wheelock College, Boston University; Dr. Nicole A. Cooke, University of South Carolina; Suzanne Haley founder & CEO of S. Haley & Associates and Co-founder of Changing the Lens; Dr. Deborah Helsing, HGSE; Dr. Alexia Hudson-Ward, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Libraries; Dr. Jerome Offord Jr. Associate University Librarian Harvard library; and Rebecca Tolley, East Tennessee State University.

Photo by Victoria Thur