As I write this, our graduating students are enjoying individualized walks across a stage set up at Sea Gull Stadium with families and friends cheering them on, and faculty are scrambling to finish grading final exams and papers. The oddest academic year of our lifetimes is coming to an end.
As many people have undoubtedly noticed, textbook prices can be ridiculous. While some textbooks are reasonably priced, others cost hundreds of dollars. These can add considerably to the cost of going to college.
My name is Samantha Steltzer, and I am a junior in the Clarke Honors college, double majoring in communication and history. On September 4, 2020, I arrived in person at the Edward H. Nabb Research Center for Delmarva History and Culture, and I began my three-credit archival studies internship.
One of the pleasures of working on a university campus is interacting with students. For those of us who work in the SU Libraries, the students we interact with most intensely are our student workers. Today, we are profiling a student worker who graduated this May, Dan Fairburn.
We are often impressed by the work that SU students do, and we proudly showcase their efforts in whatever ways we can. One example of that, if you’ve ever been on the second or fourth floors of the Guerrieri Academic Commons (GAC), home of the main library, is by hanging student research posters on our walls. But students also do creative work, and we look for ways to highlight that.
Our MakerLab is a fantastic resource for the SU community, offering exciting technologies such as 3D printing and virtual reality for all to use. However, it often can be challenging to get started with these unfamiliar technologies. Without prior experience, it is difficult to know exactly what the technology is capable of or what is feasible with the equipment available.
One of the pleasures of the Guerrieri Academic Commons (GAC) is that we have space in which to exhibit our collections, highlight history and culture, and partner with others. This spring, the Nabb Center staff treated us to excellent exhibits, “Decoding Political Propaganda,” “The Power of Humanity: The Red Cross on Delmarva” and “First Not Last: Black Greek Life at Salisbury University.”
While Salisbury University’s campus is a bucolic place, it is not isolated from what goes on in the world. Clearly, the pandemic has had huge effects, but other trends have also affected us. Two trends influencing our curriculum – globalization and a focus on the experiences of minoritized populations – require adjustments in the SU Libraries’ collections to support faculty teaching and students researching in these areas.
Salisbury University’s Horticulture Department recently moved a plant into the Guerrieri Academic Commons, home of our main library. The building is named for the late Patricia Guerrieri, the beloved matriarch of the Guerrieri family and an SU alumna. Why is this relevant to a story on a plant? Patti Lou, as she was known to her family, loved plants, and this particular plant, a night-blooming cereus cactus, belonged to her. The family gave it to SU. It blooms only once a year, at night.