Drop in international enrollment affects my university’s bottom line

Image credit: UCM’s International Student Services

Here’s an informative article by Charles L. Welch about the economic, educational, and cultural benefits to having international students attend regional public universities: like the University of Central Missouri, through which I am pursuing my graduate studies in librarianship.

Character education: Books about Creativity

For a character-education focus on “Creativity,” here are several books from SRCSA library.
https://youtu.be/7Xoti2X2NGA

UCM’s SOLIS Book Club: Our pick for Fall 2026

In Fall 2026, SOLIS Book Club will read and discuss Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross. We’re the only VIRTUAL book club at the University of Central Missouri and our discussion is open to students, faculty, alumni, and staff.
https://youtu.be/Tfh4lj4lhxA

Book-Talk: Opting Out

In my latest book-talk: I love Opting Out, the soon-to-be-published middle-grade graphic novel by Maia Kobabe and Swati “Lucky” Srikumar. In an accessible way, it addresses the upheaval of puberty, the awkwardness of seeing your closest friend pair up with a romantic partner and suddenly have less time for you, and the confusion when your internal sense of self doesn’t fit within a rigid boy-or-girl binary. Books like this, which center non-binary experiences, help to dispel confusion and introduce the possibility of existing outside society’s rigid binary.
https://youtu.be/YxvXvPaXo5M

Sharing joy in reading to (hopefully) reverse its decline

An interesting column in the latest Phi Kappa Phi Forum talked about the decline of reading for pleasure in the United States. To address this decline I think it’s important for those of us who love reading, to willingly make ourselves visible as readers. And so here are two ways that I try to promote a reading culture among young people at the library where I work.
https://youtu.be/T5KtBbgEqeo