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Biography:
April K. Anderson-Zorn is the university archivist for Illinois State University. Anderson-Zorn holds a master's degree in History from the University of Central Florida, an MLIS from Florida State University, maintains a Digital Archives Specialist certificate through the Society of American Archivists, and is a certified archivist. Anderson-Zorn is active in SAA and the Midwest Archives Conference, presenting topics and authoring articles related to university archives outreach projects and tools.
Candidate Statement:
It has been such a joy to meet and work with so many Section members this past year! I had the privilege to fill a vacated seat on the College and University Archives Section Steering Committee in Spring 2020. With that appointment, I've had the opportunity to connect with a passionate and dedicated Section leadership team that works hard to meet its members' needs. Through the Spring webinar series and weekly coffee chats – that many of you regularly attend – these formal and informal discussions have allowed Section members to have new and exciting interactions during an otherwise isolating time. I would love the opportunity to continue to serve the Section both as the current weekly coffee chat convener and member of the Steering Committee. I value the conversations, spaces, and ideas the Section has created this year and continue my participation in this important work.
Biography:
Sandra Varry is the Heritage & University Archivist at Florida State University where she collects, manages, and provides access to FSU’s archive and manages its Heritage Museum. She holds an MFA in Photography from the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill, and an MLIS from the University of South Florida. She became a Certified Archivist in 2013 and Digital Archives Specialist in 2014. She is a recent past chair of the Visual Materials Section of SAA, and a past President of the Society of Florida Archivists. She has also served as a founding member and later chair of the College & University Archives Section of SFA. She taught traditional and digital photography for 13 years before becoming a full time archivist, specializing in historic photograph collections. Her current interests lie in the complexities of campus histories and building inclusive archives, salary advocacy, and the preservation and accessibility of visual materials. Sandra currently serves as a member of the C&UA Steering Committee.
Candidate Statement:
I look forward to the opportunity to continue serving the section as Vice- Chair/Chair-Elect of the College & University Archives Section. I am especially interested in the section’s work on updating the C&UA Standard, and the continued development of webinars and other resources for our membership. These topics are as important as ever given current world events, and our ability to leverage our knowledge and skills as archivists will inform our professional work into the future. I feel strongly that we have to be diligent in exploring ways to increase engagement in the profession by creating inclusive opportunities for all of our members. As a long time member of the section I have found it an invaluable resource in navigating the challenges of institutional archives and found the section's Coffee Chats to be a lifeline during the pandemic. I have continuously participated in state and national professional associations because I believe it is essential both to contribute to the profession and continue to learn from the diverse perspectives and experiences of those in our field. As Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect, I would continue to be an advocate for the section's membership and provide strong support to the Chair and Steering Committee.
Biography:
Tiffany Cole is the archivist at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. In her role at JMU, Tiffany manages all aspects of collection processing including new and legacy arrangement and description. Tiffany also assists with collection development, reference, outreach, and instruction. She earned her MA in public history from JMU and completed her BS in history from Eastern Mennonite University. She has been a member of the Society of American Archivists since 2016, the Academy of Certified Archivists since 2018, and earned SAA’s Arrangement & Description certification in March 2020. Tiffany has been a member of MARAC since 2014 and is the senior co-chair of MARAC’s Finding Aids Award Committee. She previously served on SAA’s SNAP Section as social media coordinator. Tiffany is a member of JMU’s Campus History Committee which is charged with examining the university’s history as a predominantly white institution in an effort to provide a more inclusive, honest, and complete history of the school. Prior to her work at JMU, Tiffany held the positions of Reference Coordinator at the Albert & Shirley Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia and Assistant Curator of Research at James Madison’s Montpelier.
Candidate Statement:
It is my pleasure to submit my nomination for the Steering Committee of SAA’s College & University Archives Section. I look forward to providing the perspective of a smaller institution—collections-wise—that functions only as a de facto university archives but still prioritizes documenting its history. Given my institution’s precarious UA designation, I have benefitted greatly from C&UA’s initiatives and outreach particularly the virtual coffee chats as well as the Academic Archivist blog and I am anxious to give back to the section.
Through my work on JMU’s Campus History Committee, I have become particularly interested in the unique position that archivists and university archives have in impacting and informing the historical narrative at colleges and universities as they reconcile their racist pasts. As more and more institutions of higher learning are actively engaging with their campus histories, I will always advocate for archivists to have a seat at the table where institutional truth-telling is a goal. The work to interrogate institutional histories is founded in examining extant primary sources as well as identifying archival silences and recognizing whose experiences have historically been un/under documented. As I see it, the work to remedy institutional silences through community collaboration, collection development, and reparative re-description is a core function of university archives and one I am particularly passionate about. I hope to collaborate with fellow C&UA colleagues to learn more about and promote these kinds of initiatives.
Biography:
Elizabeth Scott is the Archivist & Special Collections Librarian and Assistant Professor at East Stroudsburg University (ESU) in Pennsylvania where she is responsible for the University Archives and Special Collections, the University Art & Sculpture Collection and the Al Cohn Memorial Jazz Collection. Additionally, part of her job responsibilities include librarianship where she provides reference, teaches library instruction sessions, and is a liaison to various academic departments on campus. She holds a B.A. from Dickinson College in history and English, an MLS from University at Albany, SUNY, and is a certified archivist through the Academy of Certified Archivists. She is pursuing a second master’s degree in Professional and Digital Media Writing in the English department at ESU.
She has been a member of SAA for over twenty years and was a recent peer-reviewer for the Teaching with Primary Sources Case Study publication led by the Reference, Access, and Outreach Section of SAA. She has held leadership positions on the Academy of Certified Archivists’ Board and was the Regent for Outreach from 2014-2018. Additionally, she is involved with the Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference (MARAC) and just finished serving two years as a Member-at-Large and will continue on the Nominations Committee. From 2016-2019, she was the Co-Chair of the Communications Committee, served as the Program Committee Co-Chair for the Spring 2019 conference and co-chaired a task force.
Candidate Statement:
I am Elizabeth Scott and I am running for a member's seat on the Steering Committee of SAA's College & University Archives (C&UA) Section. I am an Archivist & Special Collections Librarian and Assistant Professor at East Stroudsburg University (ESU) in Pennsylvania. Prior to coming to ESU, I was the Archivist & Records Management Librarian at the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. Additionally, I have worked as a project archivist in various other academic archives.
One of my research interests is academic archivists and tenure. My research group and I presented at the 2020 SAA Research Forum with a panel presentation entitled “Reappraising Our Professional Identity: Addressing the Knowledge Gap with Tenure and Promotion for Academic Archivists." I am very interested in continuing research on the tenure-track process for academic archivists in the field.
According to the 2017 WArS-SAA Salary Survey, approximately 39% of archivists and records managers are employed in academic institutions which means there are a lot of us out there! If elected as a Steering member, I see this opportunity as a way to give back to the C&UA section which I have looked to for advice and information and as a way to help advance the agenda of all academic archivists. I would be very interested in helping analyze the results of the landscape survey of college and university archivists in order to understand the make-up of our group. Being such a large percentage of archivists, it is important to learn what we are facing in academia with supported data. Having been involved with other organization’s leadership, I would be a dedicated and active member of the Steering Committee. I look forward to the election and thank you for your consideration!
Biography:
Virginia (Ginny) Hunt is the Associate University Archivist for Collection Development and Records Management Services and currently serving as Interim University Archivist at the Harvard University Archives (HUA). At the HUA, Ginny oversees both the strategic development and implementation of University records policies, as well as the development and curation of the historical collections that make up Harvard’s primary repository of university and personal archives, including Harvard faculty papers, university records with long-term historical significance, and other Harvard-related material from the 17th through the 21st centuries. Prior to this appointment, Ginny was the Assistant Archivist at the Center for the History of Medicine at the Countway Library of Medicine and Curator of the Warren Anatomical Museum. She has also worked as an archivist and preservation specialist at the Congregational Library in Boston, the Houghton Library and Schlesinger Library at Harvard, and was a consultant for the Massachusetts Historic Records Advisory Board. Ginny has been involved with SAA in various capacities since 1995, including serving on the Steering Committee and as Chair of the Acquisitions and Appraisal Section (2013-2015), Standards Committee, and is currently serving on the J. Franklin Jameson Archival Advocacy Award committee. In the last 20 years Ginny has written about and presented on ethics and diversity in archival collection development programs, records management and archival appraisal for analog and digital materials, outreach and promotion for college and university archives, and best practices for collection documentation. Most recently she contributed a chapter on institutional archives in the upcoming SAA publication, Archival Accessioning. She is on the faculty of the Society of American Archivists Continuing Education Program where she teaches Fundamentals of Acquisition and Appraisal. Ginny holds a BA in Communications from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, an MSLIS from Simmons College, and an ALM in Museum Studies from the Harvard University.
Candidate statement:
I am excited and honored to be submitting my nomination for Steering Committee for the College and University Archives Section of SAA. As a member of the C&U Section for nearly 25 years, I am well aware of the complicated yet enriching work that college and university archivists and records managers engage in to balance the administrative, legal, cultural, privacy, and historical needs of their home institutions. We provide scholarly resources for researchers studying the disciplines taught, research carried out, and individuals who have inhabited or interacted with our institutions over time. Having worked in educational and/or C&U archives most of my career, I am passionate about promoting and shining a light on the diverse, rich, and seminal scholarly and historical resources in our institutions’ records.
For the uninitiated, college and university archives are often seen merely through the lens of a home for yearbooks, sports teams photographs, or institutional administrative files. However, as we know, our collections are so much more, rich and robust with information on local, national, and international history. College and university archives hold the unique ability to “document the now” as it is happening. Because our core work is to collect and preserve the records of our educational institutions, at any given time the materials we collect are a reflection of the scientific, political, literary, and intellectual discoveries and innovations that could potentially have a profound impact on the way future citizens may eventually live, work, and understand the world. Educational institutions are also social microcosms of the larger world we inhabit: artistic, cultural, and political demonstrations unfolding on campuses become incubators for larger movements leading to changes in national and international policy, laws, societal norms, and social justice. Our ability to connect the information in our own institutions’ documentation and records with unfolding current or near future events allows us to raise awareness that the work we do to collect and preserve our institutions’ collections and records provides unique insight into the foundations of influence on national and global actions that were conceived of at our colleges and universities.
College and university archives are now entering new frontiers: serving as data repositories, homes of massive web archives, platforms for innovative digital projects, and incubators for social justice collections documenting and embracing diversity and inclusiveness reflected in movements and initiatives in which our home institutions are engaging. C&U archives are also expanding to support community archiving projects to serve as centers for preserving the history and culture of previously undocumented individuals and communities where their institutions are situated, and, as such, providing an important, if not always flattering understanding of the history of the institution and its surrounding community. All of these reasons exemplify why supporting the work of C&U archivists and their collections are exciting to me. As a member of the Steering Committee, I would hope to serve our Section membership in exploring these types projects, promoting collaboration within our membership and other Sections with similar diversity or social change initiatives to leverage resources to do this work, and focus on our common goals to better meet the challenges of being an archivist in the 21st century will entail.
Biography:
Zach Brodt is the University Archivist & Records Manager at the University of Pittsburgh Library System’s Archives & Special Collections. Prior to becoming University Archivist in 2015, Zach spent five years as Pitt’s University Records Manager and one year as their labor collections project archivist. He is also a Pitt alumnus, having earned a MLIS and a BA in History and Classics from the University of Pittsburgh. As University Archivist, Zach created a Student Organization Records Toolkit to help student groups preserve their history and offer the archives as a resource of expertise in addition to traditional roles of storage and access. He also joined Project STAND to share information about student activism at Pitt. Zach is a member of SAA and MARAC and has presented at several conferences. In addition, he is a member of the Pennsylvania Historical Association and has served on numerous university committees. In October 2019, Zach was appointed as the archivist for Alpha Phi Omega National Co-ed Service Fraternity and has served on their National History and Archives Committee since 2015.
Candidate statement:
I look forward to the opportunity to serve as a member of the College & University Archives Section steering committee. Throughout my career, I have welcomed any chance to learn from the collective wisdom and experiences of my colleagues and the C&UA Section has been a valuable resource for me since becoming a university archivist. With this in mind, I hope to work toward promoting activities in which section members can learn from each other’s successes and failures. I am also interested in encouraging networking within the section to foster collaboration in existing initiatives as well as new projects and grant-seeking ventures. These outlets of sharing information have become more important than ever during the ongoing pandemic in which university archives find themselves scrambling to support online learning and distant researchers while also facing budget cuts and hiring freezes. It would be an honor to serve our community of archivists and I greatly appreciate your consideration.
