Events

The Reentry Resource Program at the Education Justice Project (EJP) publishes practical guides for people returning home from prison and for those being deported from the US. These roughly 200-page guides, published in English and Spanish, offer empowering information and resources for individuals going through often-traumatic transitions. Lee Ragsdale will discuss the resources, how to access them, anticipated updates, and more. In addition, Lee will talk about EJP’s Reentry Guide Project through which the organization provides a year of technical and financial assistance to organizations to create their own reentry guides. Those already published though this project can be found here. 

Presenter:

Lee Ragsdale directs the Education Justice Project's Reentry Resource Program at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. The Reentry Resource Program connects people with the resources they need for a healthy transition to life after prison or deportation. EJP has produced the Illinois reentry guide, Mapping Your Future: A Guide to Successful Reentry since 2015. As a college student at Loyola University Chicago, Lee participated in the Campaign to End the Death Penalty in Illinois and later tutored in San Quentin Prison in California. As the partner of a formerly incarcerated and deported person, she has personal experience with the effects of incarceration and deportation on families. Lee has a BA in English from the University of California, Berkeley, and MAs in Spanish and English Linguistics from the University of Illinois. She lives with her husband in Mexico where they run the nonprofit organization, Mexipets Animal Rescue.

Chad Rand is the outreach and distribution coordinator for the Education Justice Project’s Reentry Resource Program. He is also an alumnus of EJP, having been incarcerated for nearly 13 years in the Illinois Department of Corrections. He earned with BA in English and Theatre and currently works from the campus of the University of Illinois.

Resources:

• Reentry Guides (pdfs)
• Hard Copy Request Form

Register to attend.

Hosted by CARLI

The Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee meets monthly.

This virtual meeting is held via Zoom / Conference Call.

Contact CARLI Support for attendance details.

Colleagues at Southern Illinois University Carbondale discuss how opportunities to develop reparative archival collections emerged and have been pursued in collaboration with underserved Black and LGBTQ+ communities in the southern Illinois region. The panel reflects on expected and unexpected benefits and challenges of coordinating initiatives and building collections with internal and external partners and stakeholders and offers thoughts on best practices based on their experiences.

Presenters:

Anne Marie Hamilton-Brehm, PhD, CA, (she/her), Associate Dean of Library Affairs at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, directs the Special Collections Research Center and oversees Records Management and the Sharp Museum. After earning her doctorate in Linguistics from the University of Georgia in 2003, she earned her MLIS from the University of Alabama in 2008. Over the past two decades, she has developed digital and archival collections and exhibits for universities and public libraries in Georgia, Tennessee, Nevada, and Illinois. An active member of the American Library Association (ALA), Society of American Archivists (SAA), and Midwest Archives Conference (MAC), she serves as a mentor for ALA’s Rare Books and Manuscripts Section, as vice chair of SAA’s Accessibility and Disability Section Steering Committee, on the editorial board of MAC’s Archival Issues, on the Illinois State Historical Records Advisory Board (ISHRAB), on the Learning Network Committee of the Association of Research Libraries,

and locally on the General John A. Logan Museum board. Her research and initiatives support underserved communities.

Juniper Oxford (she/her) is a trans historian and an advocate for queer issues in higher education. Her thesis “Declarations of Womanhood: Trans Lives, Livelihoods, and Afterlives of American Women 1890-1954” was awarded University of Vermont’s Outstanding Master’s Thesis Award. Oxford is an archivist with the Southern Illinois Queer Archive and leads the Paulette Curkin Pride Resource Center at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

Pamela Smoot, PhD, (she/her), Professor of History at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, specializes in African American history and archival administration. She came to Carbondale in 1999 after earning her doctorate in American History from Michigan State University. She also holds a Master of Science in European History and Education and a Bachelor of Science in History and Government/Public Affairs from Tennessee State University and earned a certificate in leadership and development in higher education to complete the prestigious HERS (Higher Education Resource Services) Summer Institute for Women in Higher Education at Bryn Mawr College. For more than two decades creating, sustaining, and expanding antiracism, diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, she was honored in 2024 with SIU’s ADEI Lifetime Achievement Award. Her current research focuses on Black Pittsburgh: The Depths of a Secret City, 1830-1945. A founding member of Reclaiming the African American Heritage of Southern Illinois Project, she has been instrumental in developing and opening the Southern Illinois African American Heritage Center at Morris Library in 2025.

Register to attend.

Hosted by CARLI

Getting Started with LibreTexts: Conductor and the Libraries

Learn how to set up your account and to navigate the site, locate materials, and set up projects.

This workshop is part of a series of workshops designed for the support of Open Education Resources in the State of Illinois and funded by the Support of the Creation of Open Education Resources grant from the U.S. Department of Education and the Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education.

This workshop is open to all CARLI members.

Please register in advance! https://illinois.zoom.us/meeting/register/o3xv_pRrTwuGV887GiwoPA