Elections 2016

Candidate Biographies and Statements

Vice Chair/Chair-elect

Christy Fic

Christy Fic is the University Archivist & Special Collections Librarian at Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania. Before coming to Shippensburg, she worked as a contract processing archivist for the Smithsonian Institution's National Anthropological Archives. Christy holds an MLIS from the University of Pittsburgh, an MA in Applied History from Shippensburg University, and a BA in Anthropology & Sociology from Lafayette College. Christy currently serves SAA as a Steering Committee member of the Students and New Archives Professionals (SNAP) Roundtable. She is active in the Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference (MARAC) and is a member of the organization's Web Team. Christy also holds positions in the Pennsylvania Library Association (PaLA), as the Secretary/Treasurer of the Preservation Roundtable and a member of the leadership team for the South-Central Chapter.

Statement:
One of the greatest services that the College and University Archives Section provides its members is support. I've experienced a strong support system of college and university archivists in my home state of Pennsylvania as a member of the Keystone Library Network. I have learned the importance of having colleagues to ask questions of, provide answers to, and collaborate with. In the College and University Archives Section, we harness the power of a much larger network. As a member of this Section, I have benefited greatly from the collective wisdom of the group. I would like to have the opportunity to give back to this Section by serving as the next vice-chair/chair elect in order to support our members as they seek answers together and look for ways to collaborate in shared endeavors. While our individual job responsibilities may vary, we share common goals and interests as we strive to provide the constituents of our campus communities with the best resources and services. I am interested in fostering those commonalities and providing C&UA Section members with opportunities for growth and development. Thank you for your consideration.

Rebecca Goldman

I’m the Head of Archives and Digital Initiatives at La Salle University, where, among other responsibilities, I oversee the University Archives. I’ve served as a Steering Committee member for the College and University Archives Section since 2013 and for the Metadata and Digital Object Roundtable since 2014. As a newer professional, I served as founder and chair of the Students and New Archives Professionals Roundtable. I’m also a member of the 2015 cohort of the Archives Leadership Institute. On the slightly-less-professional side, I write Derangement and Description, a webcomic about archives.

Statement:
These are a few initiatives that I’d like to work on as your Vice Chair/Chair Elect:

  • Increasing member participation. Section leaders can be more transparent in our decision-making. We can also encourage discussion on our listserv and other online venues, and create opportunities for any interested member to contribute to projects initiated by the Steering Committee.  
  • Collaborating with other sections and roundtables, on initiatives that are relevant to college and university archivists.
  • Developing recommendations for student workers in college and university archives. Many of us rely on student workers to keep our archives functioning. I’d like to tap into our collective wisdom and share ideas for recruitment, training, and creating work experiences that are positive for our students and our archives.

Scott Pitol

As University of Illinois at Chicago University Archivist since January 2012, Scott Pitol manages the university’s historical records of enduring value. His current focus is exploring options for collecting, preserving and making available the born digital documents that have begun to replace their traditional paper counterparts and often elude our traditional collection methods. Previously, he worked more than five years as the Corporate Archivist at The Pampered Chef, where he also directed the Records Management program. Scott served on the SAA Host Committee for the 2011 Annual Meeting in Chicago, as the SAA Business Archives Section Steering Committee Chair, Vice Chair, and Immediate Past Chair from 2008‐2011, and organized the 2010 Business Archives Colloquium in Washington, DC. Locally, he served on the Chicago Area Archivist Steering Committee for eight years and was the Vice Chair for three. Scott received his MLIS from Dominican University in 2006 and was the President and Founder of the SAA Dominican University Chapter.

Statement:
We are a large and diverse group. I like to think that fact provides us more chances for success at finding and communicating more diverse solutions to the issues we all face. I embrace the opportunity to work on your behalf as the C&U vice‐chair/chair elect and to help the section continue to progress toward its identified priorities and those new priorities that develop over time. The recent launch of The Academic Archivist blog is a great example of our progress and provides opportunities to take the exchange of ideas to the next level. This resource can become the go‐to destination for information about our corner of the profession. I thoroughly enjoyed my past experiences working for the membership through SAA section leadership and welcome the opportunity to continue that service through C&U.

Steering committee

Greg Bailey

Greg Bailey is the University Archivist and Clements Curator at Texas A&M University.  He has served in these capacities for two and a half years. As University Archivist he is responsible for the day-to-day operations of the university archives and related collections and serves as the primary spokesperson for Texas A&M history on behalf of the Libraries.  As Clements Curator he is responsible for the papers of two term Governor William P. Clements.  Prior to coming to Texas A&M, Mr. Bailey was the University Archivist and Records Manager at Stephen F. Austin State University for three years.  He received his BA in History with minors in Geography and Political Science from Eastern Illinois University and holds an MLS from Indiana University with a Specialization in Archives and Records Management.  Mr. Bailey also serves on the Brazos County Historical Commission which works to ensure the preservation of historic buildings, sites, artifacts, documents and other important pieces of Texas history.

Statement:
Howdy!  I am excited about the opportunity to serve on the College and University Archives Section Steering Committee.  I have had to opportunity to work as a University Archivist for five and half years at two universities in my career.  These positions have given me experiences that I would like to share with the college and university archives community.  I also would love to have the opportunity to learn from this community as well.  I have served as a mentor in the SAA Mentoring Program, worked the Career Center at the SAA Annual Meeting, and this August will become one of the two designated SAA Key Contacts in the state of Texas.  I am hoping to further my engagement and participation in SAA and my growth as an archivist through this opportunity. 

Susanne Belovari

I have been the Archivist for Faculty Papers, University Archives, University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign, since 2014, responsible for obtaining and processing the historically significant papers of its faculty. Previously, I worked as archivist for reference and collections at Tufts University, Massachusetts and as Holocaust restitution historian and archivist for the Holocaust Victims' Information and Support Center by Jewish Community of Vienna, Austria. I have long been a member of SAA and several of its sections and roundtables and am currently on the steering committee of the SAA International Archival Affairs Roundtable. At a global level, I have tried to represent the needs and interests of university archives as board member of the international Section on University and Research Institution Archives (ICA-SUV) from 2006-2014, and again for 2016-2020. I have taken on various responsibilities for ICA-SUV among them editor of the Archivists Across the Globe Online Biography, editor of our newsletter, redesign of our website (2016), membership in various committees and contributions to government documents as well as international ICA-SUV guidelines re student records and scientific data.

Statement:
As I wrote last year, the College and University Archives Section of SAA is one of the largest and most active sections pooling our exceptional resources to address issues facing academic and other archival institutions. Since I have benefitted from the section’s work, I would like to contribute to it by serving on its steering committee drawing from my professional experiences, international viewpoints and service on the board of our international counterpart. The list of issues facing academic archives is endless. Challenges of resources and international matters are just two of those with which we will increasingly have to deal , i.e. figuring out inventive ways to deal with an increasing work load (also given the challenges of handling digital archival records) with equal or fewer resources and addressing international matters that may range from WIPO and copyright questions, cooperation regarding digital preservation and human rights archives, sharing skills and knowledge across national borders for our mutual benefits, and an increasing need to make our collections internationally accessible in an understandable and easy manner within a networked globe and its diverse user communities.

Christina Zamon

Christina Zamon has served as the Head of Archives and Special Collections at Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts for 9 years.  She holds duel master’s degrees in library science and history from the University of Maryland where she also worked as a graduate assistant in the Preservation Department. Prior to arriving at Emerson College she was the archivist for the National Press Club and acquisitions assistant at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C.  She began her career as a Cataloging Assistant for Retrospective Conversion at the Frick Art Reference Library in New York City in 1999.  In 2005 she became a Certified Archivist.  Zamon’s professional activities include serving as Chair of the Lone Arrangers Roundtable from 2010-2012, serving as Chair of the College and University Section from 2014-2015, and an active member in the New England Archivists.  Zamon is the author of The Lone Arranger: Succeeding in a Small Repository published by SAA in 2012.

Statement:
Having served as the Chair of the College and University Section I would like to step back into a leadership role as a Steering Committee member.  In this capacity, I look forward to working with section leadership to address the challenges of archives in the 21st Century.

Since joining the roundtable in 2008, I have seen the C&U section successfully collaborate within the section and with other sections and roundtables on various projects to improve the work of C&U archivists.  Going forward, I would like to see the section build on those collaborations and provide further opportunities for our section members to engage both within our section and beyond.  Specifically, I would like to work with the Issues and Advocacy Roundtable, Archivists and Archives of Color, and the Archival Educators Roundtable to address the technological as well as the changing scope of collecting and disseminating information. As a steering committee member, I will bring my background and experience working in a C&U setting as well as the institutional knowledge to move the section forward with new initiatives.