[Editor's note: Seamus Scanlon of City College's Center for Worker Education received this award in 2009.]
Vartan Gregorian, President of the Carnegie Corporation of New York addressing the audience at the Awards ceremony at the New York Times building, Dec 3rd 2009
The I Love My Librarian Award for the library at City College’s Center for Worker Education was a synchronous match for a number of reasons.
The Carnegie Corporation, which sponsors the award with the New York Times in conjunction with the American Library Association, demonstrates a proven record in promoting and proselytizing for education in the US and abroad. It views education as the fundamental building block for a citizen’s economic and cultural well being and indeed a major component in helping integrate immigrants into the country.
Assistant Professor and Librarian at City College's Center for Worker Education, winner, delivering comments at the Carnegie Corporation/New York Times Award ceremony, Dec 3rd 2009
Coming from Ireland, a country once know as the “Island of Saints and Scholars” before consecutive invasions by the Vikings, Normans, and others obliterated the grand appellation, I was struck by the primacy of the provision of education espoused by the Carnegie Corporation. It resonated strongly with me because such an emphasis has developed in Ireland over the last two-hundred years, re-establishing education, teaching, and learning as both economic and cultural enablers.
The economic dividends are easy to appreciate. The cultural or confidence building of the Irish grew apace with educational attainment, creating a striking artistic and literary framework for articulating a confident Irish identity that helped to precipitate the 1916 rebellion against the British and the subsequent emergence of a competent political and administrative framework and a confident populace.
When schooling for the Catholic population was circumscribed by the British, Hedge Schools with sentries posted (in the best guerilla tradition) to warn of approaching Crown Forces flourished across Ireland. Not only was the inherent efficacy of education recognized by the Irish, but it also became a form of defiance of the Colonial British rule, making the illicit schools a practical as well as a subversive movement creating an unbeatable combination of defiance and education. It instilled in the Irish an appreciation that schooling was the prerequisite for intellectual and economic independence and for nationhood itself. Since Independence (1922), the Irish education system remains robust and retains a strong folk memory in the Irish psyche.
The Carnegie Corporation has a special interest in celebrating the immigrant experience and in promoting access to education as the main buttress for immigrants to enable them to prosper and to integrate into the US. Immigrants significantly impact the host nation in positive ways by their zeal, intelligence, fortitude, and diligence.
These ideals coincide in large measure with the credo of the City University of New York and City College in particular whose motto is “Access and Excellence.” City College was for the many years the premier college within the CUNY system and provided first-class public education to generations of immigrants and their children,producing nine Nobel Laureates and ten Pulitzer prize winners.
In turn, City Co
llege’s Center for Worker Education is the exemplar of the provision of education for non-traditional students. The Center was established in t
he 1970s by the Unions and others to provide a college education to their members in the evenings and at weekends. It caters for a non-traditional cohort of students which includes not only workers but full-time homemakers and those whose education was disrupted due to various life and social factors. The Center was amalgamated within City College and is now a full division within the College. The full-time and adjunct faculty at the Center for Worker Education are particularly dedicated to the ideals of providing an excellent education for immigrants, workers, mature students, and others who wish to better their economic and social conditions.
There is another component that makes the I Love My Librarian Award for the library service at the Center for Worker Education particularly apposite because public education (or broader public endeavors) should be excellent. There should be no dichotomy between public funding and excelle
nce. Dr. Vartan Gregorian, the President of the Carnegie Corporation, spoke about this theme at the I Love My Librarian Award ceremony at the New York Times. There should be no dichotomy between funding from the public coffers and highest level of service provision. As the former president of New York Public Library, Dr. Gregorian has seen at first hand the public funding/excellence coupling paradigm.
(LtoR) Assistant Professor Seamus Scanlon, Professor Pam Gillespie and Associate Dean of City College Libraries, Associate Professor Rob Laurich, Head of User Services, City College Libraries, Dec 3rd 2009
I saw this pairing of public funding/excellence at various jobs in Leabharlann James Hardiman at the National University of Ireland, Galway, Queen’s University Belfast, the Hartley Library at the University of Southampton (England), and Cambridge University’s Scientific Periodicals Library. They all had different structures, different management and styles, but they all promoted best library practice in terms of library service for students.
I was able to bring my accumulated experience from these universities and the student-centric library service provision they promote to the Center for Worker Education. It was a great honor when the Carnegie Corporation, with its ideals of education, equality, excellence, and access (ideals that faculty and staff share at the Center), made the award for the library service we provide to the students at the Center for Worker Education.
Seamus Scanlon (City)