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READ Poster Honors: 2021 Honorees & Ceremony

Shortened 2021 READ Poster Reveal & Honoree Celebration

Scroll to the bottom of this page to view the full ceremony.

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2021 Honorees and Posters

Amanda Gelber

Director of Student Engagement

Reading: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

In only a couple of years at McDaniel, Amanda has quickly become a major supporter and partner to Hoover Library. Her nominators describe her as an unabashed bookworm and voracious reader, and she has used that passion to establish and co-run the opt-in common reading/book club for first-year students this past fall and put on various Office of Student Engagement events with reading and writing themes that have important impacts on society such as the program “Let’s Talk About How to Be an Antiracist.” From the moment she stepped on campus, she was ready and excited to collaborate with Hoover Library on outreach and programming efforts, including for finals week and the McDaniel Votes campaign. Amanda demonstrated her advocacy for the library by making sure Hoover Library got its due credit for leading the McDaniel Votes campaign efforts in the lead-up to the 2020 Presidential Election. We are incredibly grateful to have Amanda as a partner and supporter and thank her for standing up and advocating on behalf of the library.

Elva Joya

Psychology Major, Class of 2022

Reading: Cien años de soledad (One Hundred Years of Solitude) by Gabriel García Márquez

As her nominators explain, Elva is an all-around fantastic contribution to the McDaniel community, especially the library. A Psychology major with minors in chemistry, biology, and Spanish, Elva is a Global Fellows and in the Honors program with great passion and enthusiasm for scholarship and knowledge. While working on her capstone, she connected with multiple librarians with thoughtful, engaging research and significantly used the library’s materials and resources. As President of the Hispano-Latinx Alliance, Elva has taken great strides to connect the student group with the library, including connecting the group’s Historian with the college archivist to ensure the voices of students are heard and preserved in College history. Lastly, Elva has been a regular attendee of library events and programming, even in the midst of COVID, and has enthusiastically voiced her support and appreciation for the library’s efforts. Students like Elva truly make our jobs so rewarding, and we are so pleased to recognize her with this honor.

Dr. Gretchen McKay

Professor of Art History, Faculty Athletic Representative

Reading: What the Best College Teachers Do by Ken Bain

Dr. McKay is a Professor of Art History and the Faculty Athletic Representative to the NCAA, and she engages with the library on so many levels. She uses materials borrowed from the library to inspire students in her extremely popular classes and consistently encourages her students to do research using library materials, especially for her Reacting to the Past classes. She has also used various library materials and services as she works on her book about mentoring division III student athletes. Dr. McKay has brought her art history classes to the archives, connecting them with amazing primary source material they may have never known existed if not for her class. Gretchen is even a big supporter of the library on social media—regularly engaging with the library’s accounts and sharing how much she loves the library and its librarians. And we love her right back! Thank you, Gretchen, for being such an overall fantastic library supporter in so many ways.

Suzanne Nida

Senior Lecturer of English, Director of College Writing & First Year Composition

Reading: Atonement by Ian McEwan

As a Senior Lecturer of English and the Director of College Writing and First Year Composition, Suzanne has worked extensively with the library over the years to incorporate information literacy into classes for first-year students. She acts as a liaison between the library and McDaniel’s composition instructors, highlighting the central importance of Hoover Library and its resources and services to newly hired instructors during their summer orientation. By doing so, Suzanne has influenced how our first-year students think about the library as a resource.

Suzanne has always been ready to step in and help the library as needed, including serving on the search committee for the previous Information Literacy Coordinator, providing feedback on library information literacy lessons, and helping design a new assignment calculator tool developed to help students manage their time best while working on research papers.

Suzanne has partnered with Hoover on major projects such as the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) Sparks! Grant which led to grant-funded information literacy activities embedded into English 1002. She also assisted in Project Standardized Assessment of Information Literacy Skills (SAILS) to assess the information literacy acumen of McDaniel students. Suzanne also incorporates information literacy and library materials into her own composition classes and encourages her students to take advantage of the library’s resources. We are thrilled to finally bestow Suzanne with this honor and thank her for everything she has done to support Hoover Library.

Matt Pelletier

German Major, Class of 2021

Reading: Tintenherz (Inkheart) by Cornelia Funke

In addition to being a German major set to graduate this spring, Matt has been a Library Circulation Student Worker for 3 years, providing a friendly helping hand to everyone who stops by the Circulation Desk. Even with the weirdness brought by new policies in light of COVID-19, Matt has been an ever-reliable and hardworking person, always willing to step in and cover extra shifts when needed. Matt is also a frequent user of library materials and services and attends many of the library’s events and programs. We will certainly miss having Matt around, but we are happy to send him off towards graduation with this honor.

Tom Phizacklea

Vice President for Administration & Finance

Reading: Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin 

Tom has been instrumental in helping the library make major improvements to the building, including the recent replacement of the chiller for the climate control system and a sorely-needed and long overdue roof replacement. He is always ready to work with the library to accomplish our goals and solve problems, and he is truly dedicated to making things better for the students at McDaniel. We are thankful we have this chance to thank Tom and present him with this honor before his well-deserved retirement!

Full 2021 READ Poster Honors Ceremony

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