On April 3rd, the 4th Annual ECU Anthropology Alumni Lectures celebrated our second speaker – Christine Andresen! Christine is a 2007 graduate who received her bachelors in anthropology and a MA in Library science in 2010. Currently, Christine works for ECU’s Laupus library as an Instructional Design Librarian. The title of her talk was, “Anthropologist in the Library: An Unexpected Adventure.”
As a reminder, the purpose of ECU Anthropology Alumni Lecture series is designed for former ECU anthropology students to share their expertise and experiences to current anthropology students who are preparing to graduate or who are anticipating to graduate in the next few years. We hope this lecture series creates more of a constructive, practical dialogue between recent ECU anthrpology graduates with current ECU anthropology majors.
Christine’s lecture was precisely what the students needed to hear because Christine said that she didn’t have a specific plan to follow after graduation – it just happened. In fact, although Christine specialized in cultural anthropology (and took my Medical Anthropolgoy class a few years ago) and had hoped to travel the world using her cultural anthropology expertise, she realized that immediate opportunities with her bachelor’s degree in anthropology did not occur. She therefore had to resort to her back-up plan and take the advice from her grandmother. Her grandmother suggested that she volunteer at ECU’s library. Well, it just so happened that eventually ECU hired Christine as a liaison and instructional design librarian.
Christine’s talk was casual and informal in which she shared many of the pratical, real-life issues that many graduates face. Although her plans did not go as planned initially, she found ways to create new opportunities and skills simply by working hard in the jobs that became available to her. One thing lead to another and now she is the liasion for the Dental School and instructional design librarian. Christine is also enrolled in another graduate program to receive her second Masters. This one will be in Instructional Design Technology. With this second masters degree, Christine indicated that it will make her more of an expert in several areas and marketable because every library needs an expert to teach faculty and students about how to use the latest research data bases for their individual needs.
Ironically, I can attest to Christine’s outstanding expertise because a couple of hours after her talk to students, I was involved in a research database training session for faculty in the Belk building and guess who was the instructor — Christine along with her colleague from ECU library! What a small world and what a great outcome for our outstanding anthropology major who is working for ECU as an Instructional Design Librarian! Indeed, the title of Christine’s talk is fitting to where she is now in her career — “Anthropologist in the Library: An Unexpected Adventure.”
Check out a few photos from her talk!