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Abstract: Stories from the Road: Embedding a Librarian with an Immersive Leadership Development Travel Experience
The Great Lakes Leadership Academy (GLLA) is a Michigan State University Extension program designed to foster a cohort of stakeholders from the fields of agriculture and food systems, sustainability, and community development into leaders working to promote the common good. The GLLA’s flagship Leadership Advancement Program (LAP) follows a rigorous curriculum over the course of a full calendar year that includes in-person and virtual course work, group research projects, and regional and international immersive learning travel experiences.
In 2024, the Michigan State University Library’s (MSUL) Environmental Sciences Librarian embedded with GLLA staff to support the LAP as they embarked on three regional learning experiences across the state of Michigan. Each experience focused on one of three course themes in agriculture and food systems, community development, and natural resources and participants conducted research on each of the location and relevant course content prior to departure. Library support for the preparatory research included purchasing relevant course materials, developing a research guide for the program featuring material relevant to each trip location, and holding virtual office hours for cohort participants. GLLA staff also borrowed media equipment for use during the travel experiences from MSUL’s MakerSpace, including a camera tripod and a portable lapel microphone for recording video. During the field experiences, the librarian served as a group documentarian – collecting relevant documents and mementos from each location visited, recording relevant quotes from guest speakers, and speaking with cohort participants to capture not only the educational content but also the feeling of learning in an immersive cohort experience. The qualitative data gathered was then synthesized to tell a cohesive story of the program in general and the regional travel experiences specifically. This not only commemorated the experience for the cohort participants, but also serves as a way to explain the benefits of the LAP to future funders and potential applicants.
The proposed poster will visually display various aspects of the GLLA case study, including mapping the various locations for the travel experiences, sample photographs taken from the field and pull quotes from speakers and participants. The poster will also contain separate sections detailing the background information for the collaboration, a demonstration of the library support for the program prior to the travel experiences with research guide screenshots, a description of how the librarian integrated into the preexisting GLLA staff dynamic, and a discussion of challenges in telling the LAP story and lessons learned from the experience.
In 2024, the Michigan State University Library’s (MSUL) Environmental Sciences Librarian embedded with GLLA staff to support the LAP as they embarked on three regional learning experiences across the state of Michigan. Each experience focused on one of three course themes in agriculture and food systems, community development, and natural resources and participants conducted research on each of the location and relevant course content prior to departure. Library support for the preparatory research included purchasing relevant course materials, developing a research guide for the program featuring material relevant to each trip location, and holding virtual office hours for cohort participants. GLLA staff also borrowed media equipment for use during the travel experiences from MSUL’s MakerSpace, including a camera tripod and a portable lapel microphone for recording video. During the field experiences, the librarian served as a group documentarian – collecting relevant documents and mementos from each location visited, recording relevant quotes from guest speakers, and speaking with cohort participants to capture not only the educational content but also the feeling of learning in an immersive cohort experience. The qualitative data gathered was then synthesized to tell a cohesive story of the program in general and the regional travel experiences specifically. This not only commemorated the experience for the cohort participants, but also serves as a way to explain the benefits of the LAP to future funders and potential applicants.
The proposed poster will visually display various aspects of the GLLA case study, including mapping the various locations for the travel experiences, sample photographs taken from the field and pull quotes from speakers and participants. The poster will also contain separate sections detailing the background information for the collaboration, a demonstration of the library support for the program prior to the travel experiences with research guide screenshots, a description of how the librarian integrated into the preexisting GLLA staff dynamic, and a discussion of challenges in telling the LAP story and lessons learned from the experience.