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#TBT Comeback ‘Cats: By Popular Demand, Football Returns to Villanova

photo of plastis football

 

In 1984, Villanova Football made its triumphant return to campus.

A constant at the University since 1894, football was not played at Villanova for three seasons, until alumni and students rallied to revive the Wildcat gridders. The effort even included a benefit at the Philadelphia Academy of Music with legendary comedian Bob Hope!

During this first season, football cheerleaders tossed this palm-size football (now in the University Archives) to the home crowd. The team played at the Division III level and featured a shortened five-game schedule, going undefeated. New Head Coach Andy Talley would helm the team for 230 wins over 37 seasons and send many players to the NFL, including Philadelphia Eagles great Brian Westbrook.

 


headshot of Shawn Proctor

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shawn Proctor, MFA, Communications and Marketing Program Manager at Falvey Memorial Library, says his favorite Villanova football player is Matt Szczur (pronounced “Caesar”) who led the team to a national championship in 2009.


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The Curious ‘Cat: The Marist Mindset

The Marist Mindset List was released this month detailing what has always and never been true for the class of 2023. This week, the Curious ‘Cat asked Falvey Memorial Library staff,

“What’s most surprising?”


Rob LeBlanc, First Year Experience Librarian:

“I still use my iPhone to make calls. Also, neither YouTube or Wikipedia are acceptable academic resources.”

Caroline Sipio, Access and Collections Coordinator:

“I still picture Alex Trebek with a mustache.”

Gina's headshot

Gina Duffy, Communication and Marketing Program Manager:

“I like that a majority of students will be renting their textbooks.”

Kallie Stahl, Communication and Marketing Specialist:

“I still use my iPod, which is apparently nostalgic.”


Kallie Stahl MA ’17 is Communication and Marketing Specialist at Falvey Memorial Library. 


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FotoFriday: Gerald Ford Sworn in as President

Villanovan with Gerald Ford on the cover

On this day 45 years ago, Gerald Ford was sworn in as the 38th President of the U.S., after the Richard Nixon resigned.

In November 1976, The Villanovan covered President Ford’s visit to Villanova University and delivered remarks to students including, “In the last two years, the United States of America has made an incredible comeback, and we are not through it yet….I have done my best to put this nation back on even keel, to chart a steady course for our country’s future.”

Read his complete remarks on the Ford Library Museum website.

 


Shawn Proctor

Shawn Proctor, MFA, is communications and marketing program manager at Falvey Memorial Library.


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Reading Toni: Explore Morrison’s Body of Work

Toni Morrison book collage

“Love is or it ain’t. Thin love ain’t love at all.”

—Toni Morrison (1931-2019)

 

Toni Morrison, Pulitzer Prize, Nobel Prize, and American Book Award winner, passed away today at the age of 88. On the eve of a new biopic about Morrison, Kallie Stahl looked back on the library’s collection of her work. In honor of her life and incredible contribution to American letters, we are re-running a portion of the blog, originally featured in June.

Whether you’re familiar with Morrison’s narratives, looking to re-experience her storytelling before the film, or new to the author’s work, Falvey Memorial Library has a number of Morrison’s novels for you to explore:

    • The Bluest Eye (1972) The story of eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlover—a black girl in an America whose love for its blond, blue-eyed children can devastate all others–who prays for her eyes to turn blue: so that she will be beautiful, so that people will look at her, so that her world will be different.
    • Sula (1973) Two girls who grow up to become women. Two friends who become something worse than enemies.
    • Song of Solomon (1977) With this brilliantly imagined novel, Morrison transfigures the coming-of-age story as audaciously as Saul Bellow or Gabriel García Márquez. As she follows Milkman from his rustbelt city to the place of his family’s origins, Morrison introduces an entire cast of strivers and seeresses, liars, and assassins…inhabitants of a fully realized black world.
    • Tar Baby (1981) The place is a Caribbean island. In their mansion overlooking the sea, the cultivated millionaire Valerian Street, now retired, and his pretty, younger wife, Margaret, go through rituals of living, as if in a trance.
    • Beloved (1987) Set in rural Ohio several years after the Civil War, this profoundly affecting chronicle of slavery and its aftermath is considered to be Toni Morrison’s greatest novel and the most spellbinding reading experience of the decade.
    • Jazz (1992) This passionate, profound story of love and obsession moves back and forth in time, as a narrative is assembled from the emotions, hopes, fears, and deep realities of Black urban life.
    • Paradise (1997) In prose that soars with the rhythms, grandeur, and tragic arc of an epic poem, Morrison challenges our most fiercely held beliefs as she weaves folklore and history, memory and myth into an unforgettable meditation on race, religion, gender, and a far-off past that is ever present. 
    • Love (2003) A Faulknerian symphony of passion and hatred, power and perversity, color and class that spans three generations of black women in a fading beach town.
    • A Mercy (2008) Reveals what lies beneath the surface of slavery. But at its heart, it is the ambivalent, disturbing story of a mother and a daughter—a mother who casts off her daughter in order to save her, and a daughter who may never exorcise that abandonment.
    • Home (2012) The story of a Korean war veteran on a quest to save his younger sister. Frank Money is an angry, broken veteran of the Korean War who, after traumatic experiences on the front lines, finds himself back in racist America with more than just physical scars. He is shocked out of his crippling apathy by the need to rescue his medically abused younger sister and take her back to the small Georgia town they come from that he’s hated all his life.
    • God Help the Child (2015) A tale about the way the sufferings of childhood can shape, and misshape, the life of the adult. At the center: a young woman who calls herself Bride, whose stunning blue-black skin is only one element of her beauty, her boldness and confidence, her success in life, but which caused her light-skinned mother to deny her even the simplest forms of love.

Kallie Stahl, MA ’17 CLAS, is communication and marketing specialist at Falvey Memorial Library. Her favorite Toni Morrison novel is The Bluest Eye.


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Welcome to Falvey: Sarah Hughes Joins Research Services and Scholarly Engagement


Sarah Hughes recently joined Research Services and Scholarly Engagement as the Nursing and Life Sciences Librarian. Research Services and Scholarly Engagement works to support research, teaching, and learning at Villanova University; enabling the discovery of, access to, and stewardship of a vast array of scholarly resources.

A native of New Jersey, Hughes has a passion for research, earning a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology from Rutgers University and a Master of Science in Library and Information Science from the Pratt Institute. She is currently pursuing a Master of Arts in Professional Communication from William Paterson University.

“I enjoyed spending time in the library as an undergrad and eventually discovered that I wanted to pursue a career that was both research oriented, but also personal, where I helped people,” she says.

Her interest in the field began when she enrolled in a medical librarianship course taught onsite at Weil Cornell Medicine in Manhattan. “I was in the same building that was being used by the doctors, residents, and nurses. It was exciting. I liked the idea that the research I was assisting the community in could be used for making advances in medicine,” Hughes says.

Furthering her knowledge of the profession, Hughes worked several internships in various hospitals and institutions, including the New York Academy of Medicine, the Manhattan VA Medical Center, and the University Medical Center of Princeton at Plainsboro. The experience she gained helped make for a smooth transition from medical librarian to academic librarian.

Hughes is familiar with academic libraries due to her work with nursing students at Dominican College and teaching library instruction courses to undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral students at William Paterson University before transitioning to Falvey Memorial Library. Hughes knew Falvey Library was right for her when she saw that the scholarly librarian position focused exclusively on nursing and life sciences. “I have a deep respect for nurses. Working in the emergency department at Princeton, I was amazed by all of the tasks the nurses dealt with during their shifts.”

Hughes says she is excited to meet the students and faculty in the fall and encourages the Villanova community to reach out and set up an appointment. “I can assist nursing students with finding and using databases, utilizing citation management tools, and pointing them towards great evidence-based practice resources.” Faculty in the Fitzpatrick College of Nursing can also contact Hughes about research consultations. “Research is a big undertaking and takes a great amount of time—months, sometimes years. We’re exploring what tools the library can offer to help scholars in the sciences and other disciplines. Given that Villanova is R2: doctoral university, the stakes and the expectations are higher, and we need to support them.”

In her free time, Hughes enjoys going to see live music, watching foreign and documentary films, exploring new restaurants, traveling, and spending time outdoors kayaking. An avid tennis fan, she likes watching her favorite players Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal.

“My door is always open to students and faculty. The Fitzpatrick College of Nursing is very prestigious, so I’m thrilled to have a great group of students with which to work. There’s so many different avenues they can take once they finish their degree. I’m excited to help prepare students for their time at Villanova and beyond.”

Hughes’ office is located in the Learning Commons on the second floor of Falvey Memorial Library. Room 220. 610-519-8129. Email: sarah.hughes@villanova.edu. She will also be at Driscoll Hall from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Thursdays this fall.


Kallie Stahl MA ’17  is Communication and Marketing Specialist at Falvey Memorial Library. 


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Public Safety’s Mobile Treat Unit Shares Smiles and Ice Cream With Students, Library Staff, and Faculty


On this sunny afternoon, Public Safety stopped by Falvey Library sharing smiles and ice cream sandwiches with students, library staff, and faculty! The Mobile Treat Unit’s (MTU, for short) ice cream route today included Bartley, Connelly Circle, Tolentine, the Monastery Gate, O’Dwyer and the Oreo.

The MTU be making the rounds again Thursday, July 25 and Wednesday, July 31. Check Campus Currents/Wildcat Newswire for updated times and locations for the next two routes…or just listen for that friendly ice cream truck jingle echoing across campus.

Thank you to Public Safety for keeping Villanova’s campus safe and sharing some tasty treats!


Kallie Stahl, MA ’17 CLAS, is communication and marketing specialist at Falvey Memorial Library.


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Confronting the Legacy of Slavery: Villanova Students Uncover Fragments of American Family Histories

Tomorrow, July 2, marks the 55th anniversary of the signing of the Civil Rights Act, enacting landmark legislation that prohibited racial discrimination in employment and education. It also outlawed racial segregation in public spaces. The act laid the groundwork for the country to progress forward toward equality, yet the wounds caused by slavery’s past remain even today.

This past spring, a group of Villanova students in Professor Judith Giesberg’s Slavery in the Modern World course attempted to piece together the separated strands of African-American families torn apart prior to and during the Civil War, when family members were sold away, escaped to the North, or joined the Union army.

After the Civil War and following the abolition of slavery, African-Americans began to look for loved ones with the help of newspaper ads. Although historical evidence tracing the lives of former slaves is limited, there is census evidence that some families reunited with the help of these ads. Based on life records found through Ancestry Library, students crafted digital timelines that narrated the lives of the individuals identified in the ads. Some of these stories have what appear to be happy endings; in other cases, individuals seem to have disappeared from the historical record.

last seen headline image

Dr. Giesberg is the driving force behind the Last Seen: Finding Family After Slavery project which collates, publishes, and transcribes this kind of newspaper ad. The digital project website is supported by the Department of History, the Albert Lepage Center for History in the Public Interest, and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Villanova University, as well as by Mother Bethel AME Church and the Pennsylvania Abolition Society. Villanova graduate students browsed through countless reels of microfilm in their search for personal ads placed by African-Americans looking for lost family members and friends, scanned the ads, and posted them to the website. Transcription of the ads is crowd-sourced and depends entirely on volunteers. Many of these ads are easy enough to identify by the recurring Information Wanted headline.

spreadsheet of Last Seen entries

Students in Dr. Giesberg’s course used the Last Seen website to find a personal ad that piqued their curiosity. They learned the basics of the Timeline JS software in a library research workshop. Timeline JS is free software created and maintained by Knight Lab at Northwestern University. All story elements for the timeline including images, maps, and text are captured in a Google spreadsheet. This sounds simple enough, but students spent considerable time researching and presenting the histories hidden behind a single short personal ad.

slavery in the modern world 2019 timeline projects

They researched historical context such as geographic locations and regional slave laws and they identified appropriate and copyright free images to make their timelines visually pleasing. In short, they learned a lot about the research and publishing process. Then, two days before their final deadline, Google changed its software and broke every student’s timeline in the process. Everyone held their breath, not sure if functionality would be restored before the projects were due. With only eight hours to spare, the problem was fixed thanks to the advocacy of the folks at Knight Lab.

Links to the student projects have been posted to the Library’s website together with projects from prior years. Library resources used by the students include Ancestry Library, the African-American Studies Center, and African-American Newspapers: The 19th Century. For images students mostly relied on Wikimedia Commons which includes images from the National Archives, the Library of Congress and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Interested readers are invited to explore these at times bittersweet, at times uplifting, and at times devastatingly sad narratives of African American lives in the 19th century.

Learn more about the Last Seen Project.


Jutta Seibert is Director of Research Services & Scholarly Engagement at Falvey Memorial Library.


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The Curious Cat: #FalveyIncludes: Baldwin and Bechdel

Celebrating Pride Month, the Curious Cat asked Falvey Memorial Library staff,

“What is your favorite LGBTQ+ novel and/or who is your favorite author?”

Jesse Flavin, Acquisitions and Electronic Resources Coordinator: “James Baldwin.”


Caroline Sipio, Access and Collections Coordinator: “Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel.”


Laura Hutelmyer, Acquisitions and Electronic Resources Coordinator: “Maurice Sendak.”


David Burke, Metadata Librarian: “Oscar Wilde.”


Chris Hallberg, Library Technology Developer: “Molly Ostertag, the artist and co-author (alongside Brennan Lee Mulligan) of the webcomic Strong Female Protagonist.”


Rob LeBlanc, First Year Experience Librarian: “It is a toss-up between Annie Proulx and David Sedaris.”



Kallie Stahl, MA ’17 CLAS, is communication and marketing specialist at Falvey Memorial Library. Share your favorite authors on Falvey Library’s Diversity and Inclusion Subject Guide! (This blog is was originally published June 20, 2018, in a slightly altered form.)

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A Study in Economy: Meet Matthew Fagerstrom, 2019 Falvey Scholar

Matthew Fagerstrom receives the Falvey Scholar Award from Jeehyun “Jee” Davis, Associate University Librarian for Collections and Stewardship.

Matthew Fagerstrom receives the Falvey Scholar Award from Jeehyun “Jee” Davis, Associate University Librarian for Collections and Stewardship.

 

BY SHAWN PROCTOR

This is part 4 of a 6-part series featuring the 2019 Falvey Scholars. Read more about them every Tuesday and in the upcoming issue of Mosaic: the library’s bi-annual publication.

 

Scholarly Stats:

Matthew Fagerstrom ’19 CLAS

Hometown: Hershey, Pa.

Faculty Mentor: Michael Curran, PhD, Assistant Professor, Economics

Research: The Financial Industry in the Era of Fiat Currency: An Empirical Approach

Other Honors: Villanova Undergraduate Research Fellows Summer Program Grant

 

In his own words:

Matthew’s Research:

My research project involved curating a literature review covering developments in the measurement of financial regulation, monetary policy, and the growth of the financial industry.

Following understanding the literature surrounding these topics, I conducted a Vector Autoregression (VAR) and Structural Vector Autoregression analysis using data on financial compensation, monetary policy, financial deregulation, and unionization.

Through my research I found that as the money supply in the economy increases that wages in the financial industry rose faster than wages in the rest of the economy. Between 1973 and 2015 employees in the financial industry saw their wages grow from 80 percent of averages wages to 150 percent.

Today, we assume that money is neutral. This study suggests significant non-neutralities of money due to the persistent relationship between the monetary base and financial variables. Banks need to be aware of how their policies will impact the distribution of jobs and production, and plan monetary interventions accordingly.

 

Matthew’s “Falvey Experience”:

The library was of immeasurable value, especially in writing the literature review. Writing the literature review involved reading and compiling sources from the Matthew Fagerstromcutting edge of the economics discipline, as the topic I researched has not been researched by many other scholars. I accessed almost every journal through the library, as they were restricted by “paywalls,” which made my research efficient.

Moreover, the private study spaces that populate Falvey Memorial Library were oases where my productivity could flourish.

In previous, but related research, Linda Hauck, Academic Librarian for Business and Human Resource Development, assisted me with finding data sources that I carried over into this project.

The Impact on Him:

I learned a great deal about writing literature reviews from this process, and I also learned applications of matrix algebra in the VAR setting. This experience has made me more confident about becoming an academic economist and has given me the confidence to write literature for my graduate-level political science classes.

What’s Next:

I am continuing my Villanova education next year in order to earn a master’s in political science and Government. Beyond that, I plan to pursue a pre-doctoral fellowship then a PhD.

 


Shawn Proctor

Shawn Proctor, MFA, is communications and marketing program manager at Falvey Memorial Library.

 


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Welcome to Falvey: John Banionis Joins Resource Management and Description


John Banionis recently joined the Resource Management and Description Department as the Metrics and Assessment Librarian. Part of Collections and Stewardship, the Resource Management and Description Department assists in building healthy and robust library collections through active conversations with campus communities and strong collaborations with internal and external partners.

“My role relates to the business end of the library. I look at the usage of library materials and develop a comprehensive cost-per-use methodology to support data-driven decision making about Falvey’s resources. I gather data and analyze specific interest points in order to help showcase the value of Falvey and its initiatives to the larger community.”

A native of Philadelphia, Banionis earned a Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies from Penn State University, a Certificate in Copyright Leadership and Management from the University of Maryland, and a Master of Science in Library and Information Science from Drexel University. Working in sales for numerous journal publishers before transitioning to Falvey Memorial Library, Banionis always had an interest in scholarly publishing.

“I’m excited to move to the library side of the equation, to develop customized solutions for Falvey and integrate data analysis into the library’s workflow.”

Though Banionis typically works with Falvey Library staff, he encourages Villanova faculty and students to reach out to him if they have any specific questions about resource usage levels (using actual data numbers) for determining what resources might be of most interest to students and faculty in a specific department/college.

He also encourages faculty to converse with him about publishing options: “I can provide metrics for academic journals, including alternate venues in which faculty might want to seek publication.”

Another resource he suggests faculty and students utilize is the Affordable Materials Project (AMP). AMP is a university-wide collaboration between the bookstore, Falvey Library, the Center for Access, Success and Achievement, and the Office of the Provost to provide faculty with resources and options for selecting high quality course materials while reducing the cost for students.

“The data I’ve seen already from AMP shows real value. Some of Falvey’s most highly used resources are coming from AMP,” he says. “The overall cost benefit is great because these resources are continually being used by multiple students year after year.”

In his free time, Banionis enjoys tailgating at Penn State football games, playing strategy board games, and spending time with his black cat, Millie. An avid singer (tenor), he is a member of multiple choirs including the Chester County Choral Society, Daylesford Abbey, and a small ad hoc eight-person choir titled Sine Nomine, which translates from Latin as “without a name.”

As Villanova is an R2: doctoral university, Banionis recognizes the opportunity to continue to globally expand research output.

“There are so many great plans and proposals happening at Villanova and at Falvey Library. There’s a lot more research output and an increased need for research support that the library can assist with. Falvey is the university’s steward of scholarly information–fuel for the academic engine.”

Banionis’ office is located in Collections on the second floor of Falvey. 610-519-4282. Email: john.banionis@villanova.edu.


Kallie Stahl, MA ’17 CLAS, is communication and marketing specialist at Falvey Memorial Library.


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Last Modified: June 24, 2019

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