Vanderbilt Visions: An Exercise in Collaboration

Abstract

Five months before the Fall 2007 semester the Committee on Undergraduate Information Literacy (CUIL) and Vanderbilt Libraries were notified their proposal to present one of the weekly sessions for Vanderbilt Visions, the university's first-year orientation program, was accepted. Through a collaborative effort, over 30 staff from 5 libraries, the Center for Teaching, the Writing Studio and the Learning Resource Center worked together to design and present a session that focused on intellectual engagement at Vanderbilt and explored the differences between college and high school research. This was the first opportunity for the Libraries to work with our campus partners on such a large-scale project.

Several challenges the planning and development group faced included:

* Developing a multi-media program that would meet cross-disciplinary needs for students enrolled in 4 undergraduate schools

* Ensuring that the diversity of the Vanderbilt community was reflected in the presentation

* Determining the best way to present this session to 1700 students utilizing available staff resources

* Introducing staff with differing levels of technical expertise to new technologies

* Asking staff to take on a new, large-scale project scheduled for the 3rd week of fall semester - a time that is traditionally very busy

This presentation will focus on how we met these challenges, what we learned from working with our campus partners, what we would do differently next time, and the unexpected benefits to our experience.