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Early-Career Professor Recognized for Teaching Excellence

Headshot of Elliott Kuecker in front of Manning HallOnly three years into his career as a professor, Elliott Kuecker has received his second teaching award. This time, it’s the 2024 Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE) Early Career Excellence in Teaching Award.

According to ALISE, “Kuecker was selected based on evidence of his strong influence on the student experience at UNC-Chapel Hill, including quotes from student evaluations highlighting his development of experiential learning opportunities and out-of-the-classroom support. The nominator, SILS Assistant Professor Alex Chassanoff, provided stories and examples of Dr. Kuecker’s student-centered thinking; contribution to the LIS curriculum; history as a career builder/mentor; communication of core principles of the LIS profession, and the value of libraries and information work; and keeping up with cutting-edge issues in the profession and teaching.”

Path to SILS

Kuecker’s first experience working in a library came about as a graduate student at the University of Florida. While pursuing a master’s in English he worked for the University’s digital newspaper project, and found he enjoyed the library work environment. After earning his first master’s, he went to work full-time at the University of Florida law library while pursuing a master’s in library and information science (MLIS) from Valdosta State University.

“I was just a full-time worker thinking I would get my library degree to be a librarian. It took me about two years. I just paid for it as I slowly worked away at it every semester, including summer,” said Kuecker.

He then worked at one of the library of Emory University. In addition to archival work, he provided instructional librarianship, going into classrooms to teach students how to work with different types of information. He next worked at the University of Georgia as an instructional librarian and ran a lab in digital humanities.

A former teacher from Valdosta, Dr. Linda Most, surprised Kuecker by encouraging him to submit his master’s paper for publication.

“I was shocked by that,” said Kuecker. “Being kind of introverted, I was scared of publishing. But I guess that’s the seed that launched my academic life. Before that, I was just focused on being a librarian and moving up in that way, maybe to be a department head or something. But after I got started publishing, it was very exciting. And that’s when I decided to get a PhD. So, I worked and got the PhD at the same time. And in many ways becoming a full-time academic was somewhat of an accident. It wasn’t part of my plan.”

Kuecker discovered that he loved to write and research, and he gained confidence as a teacher while working as an instructional librarian. He was ready to apply to be a professor, and UNC SILS was hiring.

“UNC has an amazing reputation among practicing librarians everywhere I’ve worked,” said Kuecker. “So I feel like it always loomed over me as a great institution— a really excellent library school, a great archive school. And so to me, it was aspirational.”

“And I was like, I will not get interviewed. Because for someone like me, just because my background wasn’t super academic and other people in my family aren’t academic, it felt way too many steps ahead of the social capital I had, if you will.”

Despite his reservations, Kuecker got the job.

ALISE Nomination

Kuecker joined UNC SILS in Fall 2022. That year, he received the Deborah Barreau Award for Teaching Excellence. His teaching falls mainly in the area of archives and record management, as well as librarianship.

Fellow Assistant Professor Alex Chassanoff nominated Kuecker for the ALISE award.

“I nominated Elliott for this award for several reasons,” said Chassanoff. “From the minute I joined the SILS faculty, I was so impressed by Elliott’s commitment to teaching and his students. He brings enthusiasm and innovation to the classroom, while also serving as a mentor for students by leading practicum experiences and serving as a faculty advisor on student organizations such as QLIC and SCOSAA.  His genuine care for his students is palatable and inspirational.”

“I just love feeling supported by the people that I work with,” said Kuecker. “So it means so much to me that she would just spend her time that way (completing the nomination) when she could spend it any other way.”

Approach to Teaching

One of the keys to Kuecker’s success is likely the preparation he puts into lectures. He loves finding ways to make topics easy to digest. He also focuses on partnerships for experiential education.

“Wilson Special Collections Library, for example, is amazing. Jackie Dean, Patrick Cullom, Dawne Lucas, Annie Peterson, Sarah Carrier, and Matt Turi are just amazing people  who are so kind to me and they allow our students to come into the space and do hands-on activities with real materials. So I think that’s been a huge advantage here.”

Last year, Kuecker shared his love of research by inviting students in his Community Archiving class to co-write a paper about teaching community archiving. The paper was published in “Archivaria, The Journal of the Association of Canadian Archivists.”

Callie Beattie (MSLS ’24) was one of the student writers of that paper and spoke highly of the experience when interviewed for a story on her time at SILS last spring.

“Elliott Kuecker is just the most amazing professor ever. So supportive. So dedicated. I took his community archiving class last semester–it was amazing. He put the practicum together that I’m doing. He’s taken us under his wing and provided opportunities for us to have professional opportunities and grow. I feel lucky to have encountered such an awesome professor.”

“The students here are people who actually want to learn, so that is an advantage for me as a teacher— because I don’t have to make them want to learn. All I have to do is welcome them to the space and give them the information. I love having relationships with all these students who are people I would never meet otherwise.”

“It doesn’t happen every time, it doesn’t happen every semester, but when you get the right combination of people and then you’re handling readings and ideas, you can have this really exciting space in the classroom. Those days are some of the most fun. And so I think those are the things that keep me really excited.”

About Elliott Kuecker

Dr. Elliott Kuecker spent ten years working in academic libraries, serving as an instructional librarian for the humanities, a college archivist, staff in physical and digital preservation, running a Digital Humanities Lab, and more. In addition, he has facilitated numerous critical theory reading groups and books to prisoners initiatives.

He publishes in several fields with an emphasis on the crafts of archiving, performing qualitative research, composing academic writing, and pedagogy. He has authored multiple studies on labor ethics in the LIS field and many methodological pieces pertinent to qualitative research and its intersection with post-structural theory. He also publishes studies on children’s creations found in archives and curriculum analyses of craftwork in American schools. He is a frequent reviewer for numerous LIS and qualitative research journals.

Outside of research and teaching, he loves running, bicycling, hiking, and walking. He enjoys reading nonfiction, collecting Americana music, and playing outside with his family.

 

 

 

 

 


Related Programs: Master of Science in Information Science (MSIS), Master of Science in Library Science (MSLS)