Responsiveness, updated curriculum key to SLIM’s new accreditation
ESU Media Relations
Thursday, July 17, 2008
New master’s degree programs available in Emporia and Overland Park are two developments resulting from an accreditation review of Emporia State University’s Master of Library Science degree offered through the School of Library and Information Management (SLIM).
The American Library Association (ALA) recently awarded SLIM continuing accreditation to 2015. The announcement follows a meeting between Gwen Alexander, dean of the School of Library and Information Management, and the ALA Committee on Accreditation at the association’s annual conference in Anaheim, Calif. in June.
The seven year accreditation is the maximum offered by the ALA, which works to assure quality, innovation, and value in library and information studies education programs. The action removes the “conditional” accreditation designation under which the program had been operating for the past three years.
“We’ve worked very hard to change the SLIM program and enhance it,” said Alexander. “We’ve visited the advisory councils in each of the states where we teach and held focus groups with students to determine the kind of classes they wanted. We also touched base with the state library organizations so they know about the changes we’re making,” Alexander said.
The principal changes in the program involve a reduction in the credit hours required for a Master of Library Science (MLS) degree through SLIM. Students will earn the 36 credit hours necessary for the degree by attending weekend seminars at ESU’s Emporia campus or its Metro Learning Center in Overland Park, and online-delivered courses.
Groups of up to 35 students will form cohorts that complete the requirements for the MLS degree. “We will start an Emporia cohort in August, and the Overland Park cohort will begin in the spring,” said Alexander. Eventually, SLIM will begin new cohorts in both locations each semester.
Similar weekend-intensive classes are taught in Portland, Ore., Salt Lake City, and Denver. SLIM’s curriculum includes current issues courses that feature trips to domestic and international locations for service learning opportunities. Classes will visit Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, San Miguel de Allende in Mexico, and Sofia, Bulgaria this fall. Expenses for travel are provided by scholarships, which are made possible by a $1.9-million bequest from the late Martha Kruse Furbur, a 1938 SLIM graduate.
From its beginnings as an extension of ESU’s teacher education program in 1903, the library program at SLIM has developed to embrace an expanded view of library service, information management, and information technology. It was the first school west of the Mississippi River to offer classes in library and information management.
SLIM graduates are employed across the United States and in many foreign countries, many of them as directors, deans, and other administrators. The school is also well known for graduating school media specialists, and it offers 18-credit certificates in Information Management, Archival Studies, and Legal Information Management.
The SLIM program at Emporia State University was first accredited in 1931, and master’s degrees were first offered in 1964. The School of Library and Information Management (SLIM) came into being in 1983, and began offering Doctor of Philosophy degrees in Library and Information Science in 1993. An Information Resource Studies undergraduate program started in fall 2000, with traditional classes held on the ESU campus.