Robert Slayton, Former LRC Dean, Named Interim Provost

A longtime dean has been appointed as the interim provost at Vincennes University, according to an announcement from VU President Dick Helton. Robert A. Slayton, former dean of the Learning Resources Center, will assume the post. Slayton came to VU in 1972 before retiring this past spring. A state leader in the field of academic libraries and educational technologies, Slayton served three times as president of the board of the Indiana Cooperative Library Services Authority and has served on the board of the Academic Libraries of Indiana. He also has been an active participant with the Community College League for Innovation for many years. Slayton may be contacted by e-mail at provost@vinu.edu, or by calling 4262. (From Duane Chattin, VU Director of Public Information)

“Bob brings an extensive knowledge of VU and its faculty and staff to this position. He has been a leader in many of the efforts that have moved VU forward and I have confidence that he will continue to demonstrate such dedication as interim provost.”
--VU President Dick Helton

BANNED BOOKS WEEK A SUCCESS!

"Free People Read Freely"

By Anita Slack, Information Services Librarian

Although Banned Books Week 2011 has now come to a close, we had a great time and got the word out on the VU Campus about the historical and modern problem of censorship. Shake Library sponsored a Banned Books Week Matching Contest where students were asked to match the title of the book to the reason it was challenged or banned. The winners claimed five-dollar gift cards to Grinders and free meals at the Tecumseh Dining Center.

The Banned Books Readout took place on the library front stairs on September 30th. Members of the VU faculty and staff read passages from their favorite banned books. Participating readers included David Peter, Dean of Shake Learning Resources Center, who read from Orwell’s 1984; Andrew Bonvicini from the Department of English, reading from Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange; and John Livers, Dean of Students, shared a passage from To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Michael Legate, the Technical Director of the Red Skelton Performing Arts Center, read an excerpt from Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut; Josh Williams from the Department of English read from Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited, and Public Services Librarian Laura Hiatt-Smith read a passage from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling. Eric Margerum, the Dean of Social Sciences and Performing Arts, shared a passage from Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, and Technical Services Librarian Abby Creitz read from Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games. Reference Librarian Richard King read from James Jones’s From Here to Eternity, Chad Bebee (see photo above) from the Department of English read Ginsberg’s “Howl,” and Information Services Librarian Anita Slack read a passage from Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451.

It has been estimated that around two hundred VU students, faculty, staff and community members dropped in to witness the Banned Books Readout. The library also collected twenty-eight signatures throughout the week and during the Readout on a Banned Books Week Proclamation. The Proclamation details the importance of our First Amendment rights to free access of information and free expression, and states that Shake Library encourages “free people to read freely, now and forever.”

For more photos about the event, see the Shake Library Facebook Page at https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150837169910024.732436.15429730023&type=1 .