Staff and Faculty in Libraries Honored with Purple Star Awards

Posted on: August 27, 2020

On August 20, 2020, faculty and staff from JMU Libraries were among the JMU employees honored with Purple Star Awards.

The awards were announced in this year’s annual staff address. The President’s Purple Star Awards recognize the contributions that faculty and staff make to JMU, as part of the Governor’s Honor Awards Program.  

Online teaching and learning — “Teamwork” Purple Star Award  

Faculty and staff in Libraries in collaboration with the Center for Faculty Innovation, the Office of Disability Services, Information Technology, and other campus partners, were awarded the Teamwork Purple Star Award. These groups worked together under unprecedented circumstances to support JMU faculty in moving over 6,200 course offerings online, and to help students adjust to the challenges of online learning, in spring 2020.

This monumental effort included Libraries’ contributions such as:

  • Analyzing and addressing technology continuity concerns and training and support in partnership with JMU IT for synchronous and asynchronous courses.
  • Developing a “Guide to Hybrid and Online Teaching,” including teaching strategies, accessibility best practices from the Office of Disability Services, instructional technology tutorials, and content from CFI. To date, the online guide has over 32,000 visits.
  • Holding collaborative office hours in which Libraries and CFI colleagues supported faculty.
  • Offering 85 workshops to over 790 faculty on topics ranging from using Webex to assessment strategies in the online environment.
  • Answering over 4,000 virtual support requests sent to the Libraries related to library resources, Canvas, Webex, Illumira, Respondus, TechSmith Relay, and other academic technologies.
  • Designing and hosting the JMU Libraries Online and Hybrid Teaching institute, which provides in-depth interactions with instructional designers related to online or hybrid course development, scaled quickly from 10 to over 300 faculty participants.
  • Building a web page detailing the many resources were made temporarily available for free due to COVID-19 or through current JMU Libraries subscriptions, purchases, and consortia agreements. These resources allowed faculty and students to access readings, media, and teaching resources for academic purposes.
  • Developing innovative workflows to provide users with needed resources despite safety measures requiring that institutions, world-wide, stop shipping books to each other for Interlibrary Loan.

Read more about this work on JMU News or JMU Libraries News.

Face shields and other PPE efforts — “Community Service and Volunteerism” Purple Star Award

Recognizing the critical shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) at local hospitals, eldercare facilities, and hospices in spring 2020, a team from the JMU Libraries’ Makery and other departments contributed alongside JMU faculty members and Harrisonburg small business owners to a community-based effort manufacture PPE. Together, they 3D printed 3,000 face shields in 30 days to supply PPE to Sentara RMH and local healthcare organizations using 3D printers from the Rose and Carrier Makery and the History Studio.

JMU Libraries’ employees, including Carlson Jenkins, Jordan Brink, Kevin Hegg, Jamie Calcagno-Roach, Eric Stauffer, Grover Saunders, Dan Easley, Art Pekun, and Kirsten Mlodynia, worked alongside other JMU staff and faculty and community members to keep 3D printers running nearly around the clock to print the face shields. The team joined with broader campus efforts to supply gowns, face masks, and hand sanitizer including the College of Health and Behavioral Studies, the College of Visual and Performing Arts, and the College of Science and Math.

Read more about this work in JMU News, The Breeze, or the Daily News-Record. 

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