2021 Montana Academic Library Symposium (Private)

Back by popular demand, we have secured Bryan Alexander as our keynote speaker for the Symposium! Bryan spoke at the 2019 MT Symposium where his future-oriented insights were much appreciated. Bryan is an internationally known futurist, researcher, writer, speaker, consultant, and teacher, and senior scholar at Georgetown University. As higher education and academic libraries now face a future unlike any other, we are happy to have Bryan's unique expertise once again.

Bryan Alexander is an award–winning, internationally known futurist, researcher, writer, speaker, consultant, and teacher, working in the field of higher education’s future. He completed his English language and literature PhD at the University of Michigan in 1997, with a dissertation on doppelgangers in Romantic-era fiction and poetry.

From 2002 to 2014 Bryan worked with the National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education (NITLE), a non-profit working to help small colleges and universities best integrate digital technologies. With NITLE he held several roles, including co-director of a regional education and technology center, director of emerging technologies, and senior fellow.  Over those years Bryan helped develop and support the nonprofit, grew peer networks, consulted, and conducted a sustained research agenda.  In 2013 Bryan launched a business, Bryan Alexander Consulting, LLC.  Through BAC he consults throughout higher education in the United States and abroad.

Bryan is currently a senior scholar at Georgetown University and teaches graduate seminars in their Learning, Design, and Technology program. He recently published Academia Next: The Futures of Higher Education for Johns Hopkins University Press (January 2020), which won an Association of Professional Futurists award.  He is currently working on Universities on Fire: Higher Education in the Age of Climate Crisis (2022).  His two other recent books are Gearing Up For Learning Beyond K-12 and The New Digital Storytelling (second edition).

Sam Wineburg is the Margaret Jacks Professor of Education and, by courtesy, of History & American Studies at
Stanford University. Educated at Brown and Berkeley, he holds a doctorate in Psychological Studies in Education from Stanford and an honorary doctorate from Sweden's Umeå University. Wineburg heads the Stanford History Education Group (sheg.stanford.edu), whose curriculum and assessments have been downloaded nearly ten million times, making it one of the largest providers of free curriculum in the world. His current work focuses on how people judge the credibility of digital content, research that has been reported in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, Time Magazine, BBC, and Die Zeit.

Kelsea Jones
Kelsea has a Master's degree in Education from The College of Idaho. She has taught writing courses at college and high school levels and she also has experience as a Reference & Instruction Librarian teaching information literacy.  Kelsea has worked as a media consultant for land conservation organizations and as a web designer for non-profit groups. Kelsea’s skills in design, gaming, literature, and passion for equity-based education all contribute to her approach to collection development and instruction in the academic setting.

Lulu Miller is an American writer, artist, and Peabody award-winning science reporter for National Public Radio. She co-hosted the WNYC Studios show Radiolab, and co-founded NPR’s Invisibilia—a show about the invisible forces that shape human behavior. Miller is the author of Why Fish Don't Exist, a nonfiction scientific thriller and memoir that The National Book Review called a "small marvel of a book" and left the New York Times “smitten.” Miller graduated from Swarthmore College with a degree in History and taught and wrote fiction at the University of Virginia on a Poe-Faulkner Fellowship. Her reporting interests include disability, mental health, and, inexplicably, entomology. 

* Sorry, Lulu had to cancel due to the birth of her son (see adorable picture).
We wish Lulu and her family's newest addition the best!
(And hope we may find another opportunity to work with her in the future.)

Dr. Shane Doyle (Ed.D. Curriculum and Instruction) is a member of the Apsaalooke Nation, and hails from Crow Agency, MT. Doyle is now based in Bozeman and works as a cultural consultant for groups like Montana OPI, the National Park Service, The Montana Wilderness Association, Mountain Time Arts, the National Indian Education Association, and others. Shane’s work includes public speaking, curriculum design, archaeological and genetic research, artistic performance, environmental advocacy, and film production.

In addition, we are excited to offer these speakers - and more:
 

Janelle Booth
Interim Director, Government Affairs for MSU-Bozeman

Janelle Booth is the MSU Government Affairs Director. She has previously served as research director for the Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education and ran an agricultural leadership program through MSU Extension. Janelle holds a Masters of Public Administration from MSU and a Bachelors degree in Biology from South Dakota State University.

Loy Sprague
Faculty, Fort Peck Community College

Loy Sprague is a faculty member at Fort Peck Community College in the Social Work, Addiction Studies, and Psychology programs. She has more than 20 years of practice in Vipassana meditation, trained in Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction through the University of Massachusetts Medical School Center for Mindfulness, and teaches the Psychology of Stress Management each year at FPCC.

 Laura Tretter
 Library Manager at the Montana Historical Society

Laura Tretter is the Library Manager at the Montana Historical Society where she has worked since 2015. Before accepting her current position, Laura was the Technical Services Librarian at MHS where she quickly learned the depth of the library collections. Laura received her MLS from the University of Washington in 2001. 

Jeff Malcomson
Photograph Archives Manager at the Montana Historical Society

Jeff Malcomson has been a public historian for over 23 years in Colorado, Arizona, and Montana, working as an archivist specializing in government records and photographs.  He is currently the Photograph Archives Manager at the Montana Historical Society in Helena, MT, where he has worked since 2005.  Jeff earned a Master’s degree in history from Colorado State University, where he studied public history and history of the American West.