SLIS presents 2024 Alumni Awards

Beatrice Canales, Melinda Rietkerk and Asha Norman were all recognized with alumni awards from the School of Library and Information Studies. The alumni awards were presented at the SLIS reception in April at the 2024 TLA Conference in San Antonio. 

Canales, a 2019 MLS graduate, received the $1000 Ann Barnett Outstanding Professional Service Award. She is an Academic Unit Assistant/Open Education Advocate at Alamo Colleges – San Antonio College. 

She won the TWU SLIS Continuing Education Award in 2021, and since then has served on its selection committee. At San Antonio College, Bea has served the Early Childhood Studies Program and has continued her advocacy for children’s literacy and affordable access to college reading materials for all students. Her main passion, however, is Open Educational Resources. She used her 2021 award money for a Creative Commons certification. More of Canales’s achievements since her last TWU SLIS alumni award include:

• Recognized by Open Education (OE) as a 2022 finalist for the Global Support Specialist Award
• A 2022-2023 SPARC OE Leadership Fellow (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources)
• Currently the co-principal investigator and grant program manager for the 3-year, $1.963 million Alamo Colleges Open Textbook Grant from the U.S. Department of Education
• Digital Experiences Chair for the 2024 Texas OE conference
• Presenter at TWU’s OE Practices conference
• Involved with ALA, ACRL and will be on the 2025 Caldecott award committee. 

Rietkerk (MLS 2023) is a Library Assistant at Grand Rapids Public Library in Michigan. She is involved with connections and collaboration with the local community and is working right now to develop a partnership with the Treetops Collective – a group that works to empower refugee women to become leaders. Rietkerk will use the award to help her attend two Michigan Library Association conferences.

Norman (MLS 2022) is a Reference Librarian at the Saint Louis County Library in Missouri. She advocates for providing needs to marginalized groups within the community – the elderly, immigrants, those with disabilities, and incarcerated individuals. 

Norman will use the award to attend both the American Library Association conference as well as a meeting of librarians hosted by the San Francisco Public Library with the Mellon Foundation, which focuses on discussing justice-involved patrons. 

Rietkerk and Norman, the Continuing Education Award winners each received $500.

Page last updated 4:19 PM, August 16, 2024