Emily Swan
Emily Swan is a graduate student from Columbia, South Carolina, pursuing her master’s degree in mass communication. Her interests include entertainment journalism, nonprofit public relations and health communication.
Posted March 13, 2017
By Emily Swan
School of Library and Information Science Ph.D. student April Dawkins has been hired as an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro.
Graduating in May after four years at the University of South Carolina, she is excited to begin her new role in her academic specialty of school librarianship.
“I’m very excited to be working with future and current school librarians,” she said. “I believe this will provide wonderful opportunities for collaboration with education faculty and students in their teacher preparation program.”
Since she began her doctoral studies, Dawkins says she has grown personally and professionally, in large part because of the opportunities SLIS has to offer. She participated in various graduate assistantships and professional trainings during her time at USC.
Dawkins cited the importance of feeling valued and supported in her endeavors, as the faculty and staff encouraged and supported her.
“SLIS is a program that values its doctoral students and repeatedly provides opportunities for doctoral students to teach, collaborate with professors on research, and present at state, regional, and national conferences.”
A former teacher and school librarian, Dawkins focused her research on intellectual freedoms within the school library setting.
“My dissertation examines the factors that influence selection decisions that school librarians make when choosing to add or exclude items from their collections,” she said.
As she prepares for her graduation from the program, Dawkins looks back fondly on her time at USC, and has nothing but praise for the SLIS doctoral program.
“Not only is it an excellent program with a well-respected reputation with the library and information science professional community, it is also a program about people. The faculty and staff at SLIS truly do care about their students and about the community,” she said. “This faculty cares about its students.”