Dalsheim to receive inaugural Atkins Library Faculty Engagement Award

Joyce Dalsheim, an assistant professor in the Department of Global, International and Area Studies, is the first recipient of the J. Murrey Atkins Library Faculty Engagement Award.

She will be honored at a reception on Thursday, Sept. 17, in the library’s Halton Reading Room; the event starts at 3:30 p.m.

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, bestowed in the fall along with a $2,500 allocation for professional development, enables Atkins Library to recognize outstanding faculty contributions to its mission, vision and strategic initiatives.

Stephanie Otis, instruction coordinator at Atkins Library, nominated Dalsheim for the honor, and the Faculty Engagement Award committee recognized the professor 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 ongoing 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,” said Dalsheim. “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.”

Otis stated because Dalsheim initiated the collaboration, the professor 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. “This approach helps establish the library as an academic and curricular partner rather than an optional service.”

Dalsheim holds a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from the New School for Social Research and Master of Science 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.