Annual Meeting 2023

Alpha Chapter at the University of Illinois Initiates & 2023 Anniversaries: Alpha Chapter’s 75th & iSchool’s 130th!

Alpha Chapter at the School of Information  Sciences (iSchool), University of Illinois, Urbana- Champaign celebrated its Annual Meeting and  Initiation Ceremony on Saturday, May 6 online. We welcomed 30 graduates from August and December 2022 and May 2023 including 1 graduate of the BS in Information Sciences program. At the 2023 Convocation ceremony, we had the pleasure of presenting the Anne M. Boyd Award to Margot Cuddihy and the Kathryn Luther and William T Henderson Award to Zhaneille Green. We heartily congratulate them both on the demonstrated contributions they’ve made to our community.

Join us in welcoming our newest Alpha Chapter members from the Class of 2023: Savannah J. Adams-Clark, Stephen Kenneth Barnes, Wendy L. Bering, Zoë G.E. Bowlus, Samantha K. Cicone, Karina E. Cooper, Margot Cuddihy, Jonathan Yehuda Engel, Dana Katherine Fanslow, Brea L. Fearon, Zhaneille B. Green, McKinzie L. Horoho, Rachel Elizabeth Kaplan, Jou Lee, Shuyi Liu, Krystal Madkins, Darek Lech Makowski, Durandy Marion McConnell, Myriam Ramos, Cayley J. Rydzinski, and Zella (Hanyu) Zhao. From the Class of 1922: Meredith A. Bazzoli, Jacob Brian Bonner-Baker, Yi-Yun Cheng, Tabitha M. Cochran, Ly Dinh, Emily Frances Fishkin, Cordiah Camille Hayes, Veronica Spring Jones, and Lynn Marie Lawrence-Brown. 

In attendance were Alpha Chapter Officers President Pia Hunter, Vice President Anna Elizabeth Mitchell, Secretary/Treasurer Linda Smith, and Past President Sharon Comstock. Also in attendance and serving Alpha Chapter this year was Emily Knox, Faculty Advisor. Our new initiates were invited to join the Alpha Chapter officers for a group photo in Zoom.

This year, we were delighted that new members were able to join us as nearby as Urbana-Champaign and as far as Hong Kong.  Our guest speaker Barbara Alverez, Alpha Chapter member, librarian leader, and part-time faculty member here at Illinois, met the current moment, calling all of us to engage in meaningful, intentional partnerships.  She opened with a quote from adrienne maree brown: “The idea of interdependence is that we can meet each other’s needs in a variety of ways, that we can truly lean on others and they can lean on us. It means that we have to decentralize our idea of where solutions and decisions happen, where ideas come from.” Alverez pointed out that we—each of us —are a part of leading significant shifts and movements within our profession; that our power rests in each other.

We also celebrated the accomplishments of Alpha Chapter Faculty Advisor Emily Knox who has been selected as the 2023 recipient of the American Library Association’s Beta Phi Mu Award. She will be recognized at the Award Ceremony at the ALA Annual Conference in Chicago on June 25.

As the first BPM Chapter in the nation, we invite members past and present to join us in celebrating Alpha Chapter’s 75th Anniversary (1948-2023) throughout the academic year 2023-2024. We are especially pleased that Alpha Chapter Secretary/Treasurer, Professor Emerita Linda C. Smith’s career of service, scholarship, and leadership is being honored in the Library Trends Vol. 71(1) issue as part of a program at one of several events scheduled to celebrate the iSchool’s 130th Anniversary. The June 25 program at the American Writers Museum in Chicago will coincide with the ALA Annual Conference. The breadth and scope of Linda’s career and contributions is inspiring, and we are grateful for her tireless and unwavering support of BPM and Alpha Chapter.