2024 Election Candidates

2024 Election: Candidate Statements

Thank you to all of the excellent candidates who have agreed to run for positions as Steering Committe members in this year's election!

You will be voting for:

One (1) Co-chair, 2024-2026

Two (2) Steering Committee Members, 2024-2026

Please make sure to carefully read all the candidate biographies and statements of interest and make your selections. Ballots are managed by SAA through SurveyMonkey; you will receive a message in your inbox when the ballot is open!

Co-Chair Candidates

The following candidates are running for the position of Co-Chair:

Meghan Glassbrenner, Processing Manager, Special Collections Research Center, George Mason University Libraries

Bio:

Meghan Glasbrenner is the Processing Manager for George Mason University’s Special Collections Research Center (GMU, SCRC). She received her M.S.L.I.S. specializing in Cultural Heritage Information Management from The Catholic University of America, as well as an M.A. in English specializing in 20th Century American Drama from Montclair State University and a B.A. in English concentrating in Theatre from Lebanon Valley College. Her academic interests include participatory archives, film studies, and theatrical adaptation and interpretation, and she has presented her research at both the American Drama Conference (“Miller and the Holocaust”) and the Bridging the Spectrum Symposium (“Web 2.0 & Participatory Archives”) and is an active member of MARAC and SAA.

Statement:

In addition to my academic background in theatre and drama, my current processing work is centered on the papers of Zelda Fichandler, one of the founding members and long-serving first artistic director of Washington, D.C.’s Arena Stage. Additionally, having been founded as the repository for the records of the Federal Theatre Project, performing arts are a main collecting area for SCRC. We currently hold over 130 processed performing arts related collections, ranging from single item set and costume designs to serving as the repository for the Arena Stage records. I am excited for the opportunity to utilize my performing arts background to serve in a role that would allow me to collaborate in expanding the reach and visibility of the Performing Arts Section and build connections with other organizations and professionals.

Nathalie Proulx DeSalvo, Reference Archivist, The Dance Archive, University of Denver 

Bio:

Nathalie Proulx DeSalvo is the Reference Archivist for The Dance Archive at the University of Denver. She graduated from the University of Denver with my MLIS in 2015. Since then, she has been able to learn about and work through all aspects of the archival life cycle within her career at The Dance Archive. Through her work, Nathalie  gets to interact with people connected to dance whether that be as dancers, choreographers, photographers/videographers, philanthropists and more. She works with these individuals and the community to provide reference services, acquire and process archival collections, and create educational exhibitions and documentaries through archival research and materials (her favorite!).

Statement:

I would like to join the Performing Arts Section as a co-chair to be more engaged with the national archival community and learn from other performing arts archives. Previously I have presented at the 2017 Section Meeting with Kate Crowe, but most of my service in this community has been regionally. I served as the Newsletter Editor for the Society of Rocky Mountain Archivists from 2017 to 2022. I loved learning about other institutions’ projects and seeing the similarities and differences within archival management in our region. I am looking forward to becoming more involved with the Performing Arts Section and SAA in general.

Steering Committee Member Candidates

The following candidates are running for the section Steering Committee:

JeeYoon ‘Elise’ Choi, Graduate Student, Department of Information Science, University of North Texas

Bio:

JeeYoon ‘Elise’ Choi has had a thirty year career as a professional musician, with several graduate degrees in organ performance, music, and choral conducting. She also has been involved in developing events and founded and served as the first artistic director of the international Bach Festival in Charleston, South Carolina.

Statement:

I am interested in serving on the steering committee as a person who has recently changed careers and values being deeply involved in one’s profession from the start. As I now embark on a library career, I am working as an intern in an academic library, taking seminars on music cataloging, and working with a theological archive at Southern Methodist University to gain experience and to cultivate and promote underused collections. I would very much be honored to serve in a position that would help develop and guide the association in meaningful and productive ways.

Jesse Koontz, Assistant Archivist, Claretian Missionaries Archives

Bio:

Jesse Koontz recently graduated from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with an MLIS, and she is currently working as an assistant archivist at a religious archives in the Chicago area.

Statement:

Like many, being an archivist is my second career, or perhaps third. My undergraduate degree is in set design, and I originally thought I’d be working in museums with that degree. After graduation, I spent about fifteen years working in restaurants until I finally decided to return to school.  When COVID hit, I enjoyed taking dance classes online, offered at studios around the nation. Some classes even offered a history of where certain dance forms and steps came from, which got me thinking about a dance archive. While I’m not a performing arts archivist, that is a dream job for me. I joined this community because I wanted to learn more about performing arts archives, and as a member of the steering committee, I look forward to working on projects that would provide education to members of the section and bring in additional members.

Chloe Walker, Assistant Archivist, Colgate University

Bio:

Chloe E. Walker holds an Associate of Arts in Art History, a Bachelor of Arts in Art History and Criticism with a minor in Museum Studies, and a Master of Library and Information Studies with certificates in Archival Studies and Digital Humanities. Mrs. Walker was a ballet dancer, and upon entering college, discovered a deep passion for historic preservation and cultural heritage. She has held positions with the Institute of Texas Cultures (San Antonio, Texas), the Western History Collection, and the Ballets Russes Special Collections and Archives (Norman, Oklahoma). She was an Adjunct Professor in the School of Dance at the University of Oklahoma while working as the Collections Specialist for the Mason Vintage Costume Collection. She has consulted for the University of Oregon (Eugene, Oregon) and the Gerald Arpino Foundation (Chicago, Illinois). Mrs. Walker is currently the Assistant Archivist in the University Libraries at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York. There she is involved in curriculum development, researcher accessibility, and inclusive processing practice. Her research interests include folklore/folklife, digital humanities, and performing arts history.

Statement:

As a Steering Committee Member I would bring my experience in performing arts and performing arts collection processing. I am motivated to assist archivists and collections librarians in their pursuits of preservation and accessibility.

Hollis Wittman, Metadata Consultant for the Humanities, Virginia Tech University

Bio:

Hollis Wittman currently works as Metadata Consultant for the Humanities at Virginia Tech, but her background is in archival work and music preservation and she remains committed to musicology projects in the library world as well as an active member of SAA. She is particularly interested in contemporary electronic and electroacoustic music preservation.

Statement:

I am a 2021 MS/LIS graduate from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where I had the opportunity to work both as a cataloger for multimedia materials at the Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning and as an archivist at the Sousa Archives & Center for American Music  at UIUC. I also hold an MA in musicology from Western Michigan University and worked in archives and special collections at WMU. I enjoy supporting the work of professional organizations and as a graduate student I served in various roles with groups, including Music Graduate Students at WMU and the UIUC Special Libraries Association chapter. In my years in SAA, I have really appreciated the programming and resources provided by the Performing Arts Section, and I would love the opportunity to contribute!

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