Dalsheim Receives Inaugural Atkins Library Faculty Engagement Award

CLAS researcher Joyce Dalsheim has won the inaugural J. Murrey Atkins Library Faculty Engagement Award. Dalsheim is an assistant professor in UNC Charlotte’s Department of Global, Area, and International Studies in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences.

She was honored at a reception on Thursday, Sept. 17, in the library’s Halton Reading Room.

The Atkins Library Faculty Engagement Award is given to a UNC Charlotte faculty member who has engaged in innovative or exceptional work with library collections, programs, and services. The award, given in the fall, along with a $2500 allocation for professional development, enables the library to recognize outstanding faculty contributions to the library’s mission, vision, and strategic initiatives.

Stephanie Otis, instruction coordinator at Atkins Library, nominated Dalsheim for the 2014-15 award.  The award committee recognized Dalsheim for her deep collaboration with her department’s subject librarian to integrate critical reading and thinking as part of her students’ research process.

In 2012, Dalsheim initiated “Reading is Research,” a collaborative effort to promote more meaningful research instruction and improve student learning outcomes. It is an on-going project designed to provide students with the tools to become critical, creative thinkers, and independent researchers who are able to find, evaluate, and synthesize information to come up with their own compelling arguments.

Dalsheim and Otis developed a set of strategies that shift the focus of research from “search” to “think” and from information gathering to in-depth reading. Students leave the class with a better understanding of what it means to do research and how librarians can assist in their projects. They learn to associate the library with thinking and reading in addition to considering it a place to find information.

“Partnerships like this one demonstrate that the library is much more than a source for content,” Dalsheim said. “I hope this project inspires others to take advantage of the resources and expertise Atkins offers. We have found this time to be a valuable investment, as we see students’ attitudes toward research and the library changing as they engage more fully with information sources.”

Through the project, Dalsheim and Otis aim to promote a deeper understanding of the world to increase informed and critical decision-making, actions, and innovations.

“By initiating this collaboration, Dr. Dalsheim has advocated for research instruction that goes beyond scheduling a session in the library to involve faculty and librarians planning the syllabus, class meetings, and assignments together.” Otis said. “This approach helps establish the library as an academic and curricular partner rather than an optional service.”

Dalsheim earned a doctoral degree in Cultural Anthropology from The New School for Social Research and a master’s degree in Intercultural Communication in Education from the University of Pennsylvania. Her research focuses on conflict, nationalism, religion, and the secular in Israel/Palestine. She is author of Unsettling Gaza: Secular Liberalism, Radical Religion and the Israeli Settlement Project (2011) and Producing Spoilers: Peacemaking and the Production of Enmity in a Secular Age (2014), both from Oxford University Press.