Kent State University School of Library and Information Science

I moved to Columbus, Ohio in 2009 from California, and this is the only school granting the MLIS degree in the area. The admissions process had several glitches in it; forms went missing, phone calls were placed at 8 AM local time (to unfortunate Californians which were received at 5 AM). My goal was to complete the program in one calendar year, and I had selected courses according to the guidesheet and the class rotation, some of which were not offered as scheduled. Although I understand the difficulty with scheduling professors and classes, as it is currently published, it results in frustration on the part of students who try to use it as a scheduling tool.
In addition, I found the curriculum itself to be rather constraining; with the five core classes and the practicum/​culminating experience, this blocks off a full eighteen units of the thirty-​six unit curriculum, allowing for only six electives. When discussing this limitation with my fellow students, I found that many others also felt that this restricted them from truly focusing on areas which they wanted to specialize in; I wanted to focus on public libraries, and had hoped to take a wide range of classes addressing diverse populations (adult, young adult, children) and resources (government, humanities, science, reader’s advisory), as well as marketing and ethics, but quickly realized that I could not do so within the prescribed number of classes remaining after the core. I do also think that the Information Technology class needs to be evaluated and rewritten since students coming into the program have a wide range of technological abilities; some are native computer users, and others are more recent adopters.
It is excellent that the management class is included in the core curriculum; far too many students are focused on a love of books, and not enough on the fact that every day, they will have to interact with co-​workers, superiors, subordinates, and the general public in ways which demand knowledge of organizational communication and management. I found the management class and the collection development classes to be the most practical and valuable of all the classes which I took.
The effective use of technology such as video conferencing courses and Blackboard was inconsistent at best; some teachers did exceptionally well at managing video courses, and others did not. I also found that the practicum (internship) program was rather constraining as any internship which paid even a negligible stipend was excluded from the credit-​earning culminating experience.
Although I have been highly critical of the program (and have expressed this to the program’s leaders and administrators), I do believe that Kent has the potential in Columbus to be a strong program. With its many renowned public libraries, the State Library, Ohio Historical Society, and other institutions, there is a wealth of knowledge and resources to draw upon in this area.