ZSR Library faculty and staff are leaders in creating innovative programs, courses, and events. The pandemic made this work more challenging so to help continue this important work, the ZSR Dean’s Office started offering innovation grants to ZSR faculty and staff in the fall of 2020. Supported by unrestricted gift funds, these grants have made activities from workshops to Little Free Libraries possible since their inception. Grants range in size from $50 to $2,000. Two awards were made this past academic year and are described below.

LIB290 Course Enhancement

Summer Krstevska received a ZSR Innovation Grant of $600 to support and enhance her library course, Creating Social Change Here and There. This course provides students the opportunity to explore how prominent industries in North Carolina shape communities and transform over-time. They used the energy industry as a case study and explored not only the historical context of the energy industry’s impact in our state, but also how entrepreneurs, organizations and companies are innovating within the energy industry to create social good at home and abroad. The course culminated with a trip to Norway at the end of the semester to meet with entrepreneurs and organizations there.

The grant funded the registration fees and transportation for 10 students and Summer to attend the UNC-Chapel Hill Cleantech Summit on March 27, 2023. This experience allowed the students to more critically and thoroughly consider/compare the impact the energy industry has on driving social change here and abroad.

Wellness Collection

We awarded a ZSR Innovation Grant of $1,450 to a group of library employees lead by Director of Public Services Rodrigo Castro to create a circulating “Wellness Collection” that will include resources on topics such as mindfulness, meditation, stress reduction, physical exercise, nutrition, sleep, hygiene, and other wellness-related subjects.

The grant funds will support the purchase of new materials for the collection, including books, technology, peripherals, among other resources. They are consulting with the ZSR Ambassadors, the Office of Wellbeing and the Wellness and Sustainability Committee to curate a collection that is relevant, useful, accessible, and timely.

I am grateful to all ZSR faculty and staff for their innovative work and look forward to seeing more great proposals in the coming academic year!