Three receive SLIS alumni awards

May 25, 2023 — DENTON — Rosemarie Rodriguez, Sierra Laddusaw and Tonya Marie Hinkebein were all recognized with alumni awards from the School of Library and Information Studies.

Rosemarie Rodriguez won the 2023 Ann Barnett Service Award

Rodriguez, MLS 2015, was named the Ann Barnett Service Award winner, which comes with a $1,000 cash prize. Rodriguez is a public service librarian at Northwest Vista Community College (NVC) in San Antonio.

She is the previous winner of the S. Janice Kee Continuing Education Award and has been active in both college and community initiatives the past five years. Some of her achievements include:

Won a grant to develop the first circulating Zine Collection at a community college
Created mobile library services for students
Increased library visibility on campus with pop-ups
Established archives
Led oral, digital and analog preservation of resources
Hosted meditation sessions for faculty, staff and students
Collaborated with Black Lives Matter to organize workshops in diversity, equity and inclusion

Rodriguez co-chairs the Women’s History Month committee and is a member of the Alamo Colleges District Wellness committee, as well as NVC committees on employee wellness and Hispanic Heritage Month.

“If there is a current trend or service we want to implement in the library, just include Rose because she might already be planning something or she might have an idea of what to do,” said NVC Library Director Norma Velez-Vendrell.

Sierra Laddusaw, MLS 2015, received this year’s S. Janice Kee Continuing Education Award along with $500.

S. Janice Kee Award winners Sierra Laddusaw and Tonya Marie Hinkebein

Laddusaw, a scholarly communication librarian at the University of Arkansas-Fort Smith, is going to use the funds for her Master of Science in Geographic Information Science at Northwest Missouri State University.

She is the first two-time winner of the award and used it in 2017 to attend the American Library Association Annual Conference for the first time.

Tonya Marie Hinkebein, MLS 2008, also received the $500 Kee Award. She is a media resource specialist at Burks Elementary School in McKinney Independent School District.

Hinkebein will use the award to help fund her trip to the American Association of School Librarians National Conference in Tampa this October.

Page last updated 1:13 PM, May 25, 2023