One of our most essential practices at the River Campus Libraries is obtaining counsel and feedback from students and faculty. I think the faculty will forgive me, but I have to say engaging with students is my favorite.
When I started as dean in 2012, I made it a priority to establish formal mechanisms that ensured our students had a way to provide input on services, projects, and anything else on which they had thoughts or concerns. This effort resulted in the placement of student representatives on the Advisory Committee to the River Campus Libraries and the creation of the Undergraduate Student Advisory Board, Student Forums, and regular meetings with the leaders of the Students’ Association and the Graduate Students Association.
I value these channels and opportunities for formal discourse because students tend to be our “canary in the mineshaft.” As the libraries often become a “home away from home” to students, they develop an intimate familiarity with our spaces and services. That closeness allows them to point out current issues—large and small—that we can address immediately.
These meetings also provide us with critical input on current and aspirational projects, services, and more. For example, meetings with the Undergraduate Student Advisory Board led to us giving some learning spaces particular designations, such as “Quiet” or “Collaborative.” Student feedback also resulted in an undergraduate-only opening of an exhibit in Rare Books, Special Collections, and Preservation. Sometimes these are just opportunities for us to toss out ideas we have, and the students let us know if we’re on the right track.
In all forums, we take student feedback very seriously. Student Forums are open feedback sessions for students to weigh-in on developing projects like our current refresh of the Gleason Library. Recently, we had a non-traditional version of one of these sessions through our recent “Chair Fair” in Gleason Library. Students turned out in droves! The event offered them a chance to test several chair types that we are considering to purchase as part of the Gleason Library Refresh Project. Earlier in this project’s life, students guided us on how the new Gleason Library will look and feel by helping us choose a mood board off of which the architects would design. In short, the Gleason that students see in the fall semester (when the project is scheduled to be completed) will, in many ways, be a reflection of their requests and preferences.
Every one of these interactions fills me with joy. It’s a real privilege to be able to sit with the students and hear first-hand how students use our libraries, how they feel about our staff, and what they think we can do better.
I believe very strongly that our libraries play a pivotal role in our students’ success, and their input plays an equally pivotal role in ours.
Mary Ann Mavrinac
Vice Provost and Andrew H. and Janet Dayton Neilly Dean
University of Rochester Libraries
