Library features faculty research
Taking place during Research Week, the Faculty Author Reception and Exhibition celebrated USU’s faculty authors Wednesday in the Merrill-Cazier Library.
The USU faculty book room and new books lounge, on the second floor of the library, were dedicated at the reception.
Three USU faculty members were chosen to present at this year’s reception, each having published research in the past year. The event highlighted Richard Krannich, professor and former sociology, social work and anthropology department head, Joseph Tainter, professor from the department of environment and society, and Nathan Straight, assistant professor of English at USU’s Brigham City Distance Education campus.
Jennifer Duncan, head of collection development at the library, said these men were chosen because their books had some kind of connection connecting them, even though each represents a different department.
“I think it’s nice if there’s a way that we can make the authors – and the books – speak to each other,” Duncan said. “There was kind of a theme. All of them in some way dealt with the environment. That’s what we were looking to do.”
Krannich was recognized for his book, called “People, Places and Landscapes: Social Change in High Amenity Rural Areas,” Tainter for “Drilling Down: The Gulf Oil Debacle and Our Energy Dilemma” and Straight for “Autobiography, Ecology and the Well-Placed Self: The Growth of Natural Biography in Contemporary American Life Writing.”
“I felt it went well, and personally I enjoyed it quite a bit,” Tainter said. “I was pleased that the event was so well attended.”
Krannich said, “Attendance was considerably better than I had anticipated.”
He said he liked the format of the presentations and the way they influenced the afternoon.
“It allowed highlighting of several faculty members’ works, and there was an interesting synergy among these three books, as in various ways all dealt with environmental and resource issues, though from quite different disciplinary perspectives,” Krannich said.
Anna McEntire, public relations specialist for USU’s vice president for Research, said Research Week is a chance for the university to honor faculty, graduate and undergraduate researchers and to shine a spotlight on the quality work these groups do.
Krannich said the book reception was a good addition to Research Week.
“As Vice President for Research Mark McLellan noted yesterday in his opening comments, having a scholarly book published is a major accomplishment reflecting a large input of effort, and it’s nice to have these highlighted in a public manner,” Krannich said.
McEntire said research is a core mission of USU, and it contributes to the quality of education offered here, as students get opportunities to perform independent projects and to learn from great minds in their field.
She said hundreds of faculty, students and community members participate in Research Week events.
Duncan said one of the difficult parts of putting it together every year is to track down the books that USU’s faculty members have published.
“Most researchers are frequently submitting and publishing journal articles,” McEntire said. “A book is a multiplier of that. It stands as a significant body of work, indicating a substantial amount of invested time and effort and a carved-out niche in the discipline. For many disciplines, an authored book is the standard of research excellence.”
The Merrill-Cazier Library staff is responsible for this particular part of Research Week. Duncan said she noticed the need and proposed the idea that became the Faculty and Author Reception and Exhibition.
“I had just come into this position, and I became aware of Research Week, and I thought, ‘Why doesn’t the library celebrate Research Week in some significant way?'” Duncan said. “Then I thought, ‘Why don’t we honor the book authors?'”
She said the first year of the exhibit was harder than it was this year.
“The first year we had a big display out in the atrium and that was a lot of work,” Duncan said. “It was too much. I think that this is nicer. It’s a little more intimate, and people can actually look at all this stuff.”
McEntire said she expects this particular aspect of Research Week to continue in years to come.
“We appreciate the library’s effort to turn our recognition of faculty authors into a yearlong celebration with the dedication of the new Richard Schockmel USU Collections Room, which does such a great job of showcasing the outstanding scholarship of USU faculty authors,” McEntire said.
– juliann13stock@aggiemail.usu.edu