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The Small Grant Review committee received and reviewed 7 applications in the most recent cycles (March and May 2021). All the applications (some after revisions) were accepted with either full or partial funding: Title Applicant Institution Category Activity dates LJA Library Leadership and Management Certificate Livia Piotto John Cabot University Professional development May - October 2021: 6 online courses 2021-2022 Institute on Open Educational Resources Dalal Hakim Rahme American University of Beirut Staff exchange/consultation Year-long institute Summer School Linked Data for Cultural Heritage 2021 Giovanna Contigiani John Cabot University Professional development 4-day online program: 7-10 June 2021 DuraSpace Workshops and Open Educational Resource Training at Al Akhawayn University (September 2021) Paul Love Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane Project Staff exchange a few days long: Sept 2021 (precise length unclear) Grant to support Professional Development Courses for American University of Beirut Library Staff- 2021 Sahar Ghandour American University of Beirut Professional development 7 month-long online courses attended during July 2021-Jan 2022 Ecomedia Literacy Research Website Antonio Lopez John Cabot University Project 2 month milestone of a larger project Participating in the Lede Program for Data Journalism, Columbia Journalism School Anastasia Valeeva American University of Central Asia Professional development 2.5 month long program: 7 June – 13 August 2021. Responses have already been sent out to all the applicants. How to apply in the next cycle The deadline for the next round of applications is midnight on 10 September. The Small Grant guidelines provide information about how to apply, including the scope of the program and the criteria used in reviewing applications. To help folks better understand the program, and how to apply successfully, we’re holding an informal half-hour Q&A session on 13 September 2021, 15:00–15:30 (Paris time, local time). AMICAL administration will be on hand to answer questions and provide advice. If we end up with lots of participants (or questions), we’re happy to extend the session a bit longer.

The Call for Proposals for AMICAL 2021 (June 21–24) is now open, with a deadline of 30 May. We’ve made it through a year and a half of disruption of our teaching and working environments, sometimes through reinvention of our methods, and sometimes simply by weathering the challenges with bravery and care. We’re all in a moment of flux, preparing for the coming academic year in the midst of a transition out of remote teaching and services. We’ve learned many lessons, in particular related to online pedagogy and library services, but we have many continuing challenges. We’re wondering things like: How can we improve student engagement in hybrid and blended environments, which we’ll increasingly be working with even after the pandemic? What role can we play in contributing to well being – our own and that of students – in this more digitally intermediated world? What are the dimensions and measures of digital literacy in our rapidly changing digital universe – and how can we design our courses, and our learning resources, to make meaningful progress along those dimensions? How can we gather – or create! – free and open course materials that reflect our own unique curricula and learning environments? How can we develop library resources and learning technologies that build both on what we know from the scholarship of teaching, learning and libraries, and on data about our own students’ and faculty’s experiences with our resources? What roles can libraries, technology or digital pedagogy and scholarship play in ensuring diversity, equity and inclusion in our teaching, learning and working environments? We invite you to propose presentations of practical help and inspiration for AMICAL colleagues on these questions, and on many other topics relevant to our American-international liberal arts institutions. The call, like the conference itself, is open to all interested staff and faculty from AMICAL member institutions. We especially encourage participation from librarians, faculty, faculty developers, instructional designers and academic technologists. AMICAL events are built using highly participatory session formats. For this call, you can propose Community Idea Exchange sessions: brief presentations combined with active audience participation. So come share what you’ve learned with an engaged audience of peers, and gain new insights from them in the process! See the full Call for Proposals for more guidance on the format, framing and topics of sessions that we’re hoping to include in the AMICAL 2021 program. Read the “Call for Proposals” –The AMICAL 2021 Program Committee

To honor the memory of Elisabetta Morani, former John Cabot University Head Librarian who died suddenly in November of last year, Karen M. Bohrer and Susan L. Perry have founded a program in Elisabetta’s name to support library staff development across the AMICAL Consortium. The Elisabetta Morani Library Staff Development Grants program is being launched today, on April 13, in honor of Elisabetta’s birthday. Present and highly engaged with the AMICAL Consortium ever since its inaugural meeting in 2004, Elisabetta helped to give both shape and life to our organization. Elisabetta was ever present as a constructively critical, friendly, enthused, passionate, engaging and generous colleague, someone who often and easily shifted her thinking beyond her own interests, to thinking about the interests of others and the collective interests of the consortium. A fund supporting this program has been established by generous seed donations from Karen and Susan, former AMICAL colleagues and close friends of Elisabetta. In their founding proposal for this program, Karen and Susan write: Throughout her career, Elisabetta Morani was ever seeking to improve her own practical library skills, and she valued highly what she learned from her AMICAL colleagues. It is the aim of the Fund to give library staff within the consortium the opportunity to develop skills that will help them better do their work in their own libraries. Overview of the program The program offers a limited number of micro grants, 2-3 times a year, to support event registration, training fees or other direct costs of practically-focused professional development activities for library staff. Requests should not exceed €500. Applications for funding may be submitted by any library staff member from any AMICAL member institution (of any member category: Full, Affiliate, or Network). They should be working in a library role, but there is no requirement to have a masters or professional degree in library and information sciences. This program aims to support activities that are: focused, pragmatic staff development, such as targeted workshops and courses targeting skill areas that relate to any aspect of library professional practice Find out more and apply The program is now open for applications through May 2. Find out more about the program, and how to apply, here: Elisabetta Morani Library Staff Development Grants Future calls for applications will be announced on AMICAL Connect two to three times a year, according to the remaining availability of funds for a given year: near the beginning of the Fall and Spring semesters, and in early Summer. Contribute to the sustainability of the Fund In addition to the founding donations from Karen and Susan, additional donations to the fund have been made by other colleagues and friends. New contributions are warmly welcomed and would help to sustain this valuable opportunity for AMICAL library staff, and preserve Elisabetta’s memory, into the future. If you would like to contribute to the fund, email contact@amicalnet.org and we’ll send you instructions for how to do so. Thanks The Consortium extends its thanks to Karen and Susan for proposing and enabling this initiative, to the other colleagues and friends who have contributed to the Fund, and to the Elisabetta Morani Fund Committee members, who are helping to set up and administer this program: Jyldyz Bekbalaeva (Library Director, American University of Central Asia) Fatmeh Charafeddine (Associate University Librarian, Research and Academic Collaboration Services, American University of Beirut) Jeff Gima (AMICAL Consortium Director, American University of Paris) Livia Piotto (Interim Head Librarian, John Cabot University) Evi Tramantza (Director of Libraries, American College of Thessaloniki)

AMICAL members, the primary audience for this report, can access a slightly more detailed, members-only version of this document. Through collaboration, the AMICAL Consortium raises the quality of libraries, technology and learning across the 28 international liberal arts institutions that form our membership. AMICAL’s programs build and leverage the connections between libraries, technology and the classroom as spaces where information is used and created in study and scholarship. Our programs aim for outcomes in the following strategic focus areas: Cost-saving on library and information resources Innovative, adaptive and effective library and technology leadership Innovative liberal arts pedagogy and scholarship – with a particular focus on: information & digital literacies digital liberal arts: digital pedagogy and scholarship anchored in the liberal arts curricular environments, and in the local resources or geo-cultural contexts, of AMICAL institutions Our work has been supported since 2004 by a series of grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, including our current multi-year grant of $1.1M for “Building Leadership & Capacity for Digital Liberal Arts across the AMICAL Consortium.” AMICAL member institutions themselves also contribute essential financial support for AMICAL’s operations. AMICAL’s core programs and resources include: Consortial price negotiation on licensed library databases and other library/academic resources Staff and faculty development: events, cohort training programs, and consultation services Small Grants: for training, staff exchanges and project support An online community network and collaboration tools In the face of this past year’s many challenges, AMICAL’s programs and peer network have been an increasingly important source of support for member institutions. Below is an overview of this consortial support and collaborative activity for the period of August 2019 – July 2020, along with highlights of more recent activity through January 2021. Consortially Leveraged Access to Library & Academic Resources AMICAL’s E-Resources Committee leverages our collective bargaining power to negotiate with vendors (Project Muse, Springshare, and others) for discounts on ebook collections, article databases and other library and academic resources. 17 member institutions benefited from discounts through AMICAL. We continue to work with OCLC to bring latest-generation library management technologies to members while keeping the costs as broadly accessible to members as possible. Members participated in a Knowledge Unlatched initiative to enable open access to 7 academic journals in the humanities and social sciences. The AMICAL Conference The annual AMICAL Conference brings together our librarians, instructional designers and technologists, and faculty developers – as well as disciplinary faculty interested in collaborating with them – for workshops, discussions and showcases of local projects and initiatives. The AMICAL 2020 Conference was held January 15-18 at the American University of Kuwait. The conference program – under the theme “Digital Transformation at International Liberal Arts Institutions: Innovation, Collaboration & Sustainability” – included the following highlights: Keynote by Siva Vaidhyanathan on “The operating system of our lives: How we misunderstood the digital transformations” (recording) Pre-conference workshop on “Strategic approaches to the development of digital literacies” (Doug Belshaw, Co-founder, We Are Open Co-op) Pre-conference workshop on “Library leadership in the global context” (Donna Scheeder, President, Library Strategies International; co-facilitated by members of AMICAL’s Leadership & Assessment Committee) Glass Room exhibit exploring society’s dependence on data and technology – and the normalization of monitoring and surveillance 43 sessions presented by AMICAL members on libraries, technology, learning and digital transformation Post-conference meeting of AMICAL Representatives (mostly library directors), organized using Liberating Structures techniques to identify opportunities for future collaborative actions Attendance figures for AMICAL 2020: 97 attendees from 25 member institutions 82% of member attendees received funding for accommodation or airfare to attend, and all members’ registration fees were covered by AMICAL The following roles were represented: 48% Libraries/Archives 31% Faculty or faculty developers 10% IT managers/staff 6% Instructional designers or technologists 3% Administrators and other roles Online Events Since the onset of COVID-19, AMICAL’s events have been organized entirely online, and these virtual professional development opportunities have become both more frequent and more substantial. Many events have aimed at supporting member institutions’ own responses to the pandemic, for example helping faculty and librarians to adapt to teaching online. Over time, we’ve also been learning how to work effectively through online gatherings on nearly all of our strategic focus areas, from library leadership to digital liberal arts. Just for the period August 2019 through July 2020, we organized 19 online events, focused on: Information/digital literacies (10 events) Library/technology leadership (4 events) Online teaching/learning (4 events) Library systems/technologies (1 event) Many of AMICAL’s events address several such focus areas, drawing connections between them. In addition to these events from last year, a full list including more recent events can be found on our Past events page. AMICAL’s first-ever Mid-Year Virtual Forum, held 13-14 January 2021, drew 162 registrants, with up to 80 simultaneous participants observed in some sessions. The Forum’s program addressed challenges for teaching, technology and libraries in the current pandemic context of online and hybrid learning, reflecting on experiences from the Fall semester and workshopping together to apply those lessons to plans for the Spring and coming year. Collaboration, as always for AMICAL, was center stage, and much of the workshops’ content was participant-driven in small groups. The 2021 AMICAL Conference, meanwhile, will also be held online, in late Spring or early Summer 2021. AMICAL Coordinated Participation in Training & Workshops In April 2020, we funded leaders of AMICAL committees and groups to attend a full-day online immersion workshop on high-engagement group facilitation methods for inclusiveness and meaningful participation, organized by Liberating Structures London (10 registrants from 4 AMICAL institutions). During Summer 2020, AMICAL partnered with organizers of two major online events related to digital pedagogy and online learning, enabling participation at no cost to interested AMICAL members: Digital Pedagogy Lab (10 registrants from 4 AMICAL institutions) OLC Innovate 2020 Virtual Conference (145 registrants from 22 AMICAL institutions) In October 2020, we partnered with Library Juice Academy, a leading provider of “online professional development workshops for librarians and other library staff,” to offer all members a 20% discount on course registration fees. Digital Liberal Arts Cohort Program: Team Training & Project Support The latest iteration of AMICAL’s Digital Liberal Arts (DLA) Cohort Program was launched in Summer 2020. The DLA Cohort Program aims to build a learning community with training and resource support for faculty-staff teams working on digital approaches to pedagogy and scholarship in the liberal arts. The program supports these teams with access to third-party training and expertise, a peer community of practice, and a series of AMICAL-facilitated project showcase and peer consultation events. The most recent project supported through the Program is: “Development of Digital Literacies at AUC: Professional Development and Toolkit for Faculty.” The DLA Programs Committee will be working in the coming months on building out support for the community of DLA cohort participants from recent years, as well as making plans for course-integrated DLA collaborations and the grant-funded hiring of a DLA Fellow for consultation and training on digital scholarship and pedagogy. Small Grants for Libraries, Tech & Learning: Training & Project Support Our Small Grants program funds training, peer exchange/consultation and projects that support AMICAL’s mission, in particular in the following priority areas: library and technology leadership, information and digital literacies, and digital liberal arts. Last year, we awarded Small Grants to colleagues at 8 member institutions. Examples: Professional development Open Education Global 2019 Conference NYU Abu Dhabi Winter Institute in Digital Humanities Development of digital storytelling and filmmaking skills for teaching and research Peer exchange/consultation Educational technology and digital literacy: group workshops and individual consultations Training and consultation for creating an oral history project Projects International learning collaboration: Culture, gender and psychology Library-faculty capacity building in 3D modeling AMICAL as a Peer Network: Community & Infrastructure AMICAL Connect member forum: AMICAL serves as a collaboration network for over 500 librarians, faculty and technologists at our member institutions. AMICAL Connect, the consortium’s forum, serves as the online hub for sharing information with peers and seeking help from them, coordinating action on consortial programs, and finding collaborators across institutions. Last year members shared over 1600 posts, and 84 new colleagues joined our forum. Content management for AMICAL groups: Alex Armstrong (AMICAL Program & Technology Officer) recently developed “AMICAL Guides,” a sub-system within AMICAL’s content management system allowing member groups to publish web content for their groups, and for AMICAL members generally. Our OCLC Working Group has been developing a guide supporting AMICAL members’ use of OCLC services, and we expect other groups may begin developing such AMICAL Guides as well. Curricular collaboration: Small but promising steps are being made in technology-enabled curricular collaboration: Following conversations at the AMICAL 2020 Conference, faculty at AU Central Asia and AU Nigeria launched a series of inter-university virtual class discussions over the Spring 2020 semester, on topics ranging from sociology to comparative literature. The planning and execution is described here, and an AUCA student describes the experience here. Faculty at AU Central Asia, American College of Greece, and AU Cairo led a Small Grant-funded initiative in Spring 2020 linking groups of students from each institution for collaborative research, academic writing and digital showcases on Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Sharing knowledge about information literacy practices: AMICAL’s Information Literacy Initiatives Committee led several major peer-contributed research and writing projects: Administered a Fall 2019 survey on “Information literacy practices at AMICAL institutions,” reported on at AMICAL 2020 Published the book Faculty-Librarian Collaborations: Integrating the Information Literacy Framework into Disciplinary Courses (more information below) Collaborative responses to COVID-19: In March 2020, AMICAL colleagues began contributing to Resources for member institutions during COVID-19, to support faculty, technologists and librarians dealing with the shift to online/hybrid learning and other challenges of the pandemic. Resources included: A “Continuity during COVID-19” live online forum series A curated list of web resources supporting continuity of instruction and libraries An AMICAL-specific clearinghouse of library databases available for free Opening your own workshops to AMICAL peers: We’re particularly excited to report that some member institutions have recently begun welcoming AMICAL-wide participation in teaching and technology workshops organized originally for their own faculty and staff. The American University in Cairo, Forman Christian College, and Habib University have led this trend, which has enormous promise for multiplying the value of AMICAL as a network for sharing peer expertise. AMICAL Member-Authored Books on Library-Faculty Collaborations In December 2020, the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) published Faculty-Librarian Collaborations: Integrating the Information Literacy Framework into Disciplinary Courses, co-edited by Michael Stöpel (AU Paris), Livia Piotto (John Cabot U), together with Xan Goodman and Samantha Godbey (both from University of Nevada, Las Vegas). Chapters were contributed by librarians and faculty from 9 AMICAL member institutions. The book’s chapters grew out of work begun as librarian-faculty teams in the AMICAL workshop “Co-design: Integrating Information Literacy into Your Disciplinary Course” held in 2017, along with subsequent design work, assessment, and a survey of participants. More information about the book project will be shared soon on AMICAL’s Books & articles page – where you can also learn about Library Partnerships in International Liberal Arts Education, another AMICAL member-authored book, published by ACRL in April 2020. Surveys to Understand Member Needs and Priorities: Actions Being Taken Survey of AMICAL Representatives Your institution’s AMICAL Representative plays a pivotal role in advancing AMICAL’s mission, and promoting the consortium and its spirit of collaboration as a group, by representing the member institution’s stakeholders, be they librarians, technologists, faculty, or administrators. AMICAL’s Coordinating Committee organized last year a “Survey of AMICAL Representatives” to better understand what they need in order to fulfill their role as liaisons between your institution and the consortium as a whole. Since then, we’ve acted on a number of needs identified by the survey: Provide better guidance for Reps: We’re publishing a “Guide for AMICAL Representatives” shortly. Make cross-consortium member communications easier Member groups can now build and share web content as “AMICAL Guides” on our website (discussed further under “AMICAL as a Peer Network”) Reps now have their own Representatives’ Discussion Space on AMICAL Connect Consortium-wide announcements are now drafted in a way to make them easily forwardable to colleagues at your institution Keep Reps more regularly involved (in planning processes, in AMICAL Admin communications to colleagues, in discussion with each other) “Survey of institution-level AMICAL stakeholders” administered September 2020 (see below) Since November 2020, AMICAL has been organizing regular meetings among Reps (monthly, with alternating focus on their roles either as library directors or as AMICAL Representatives) We’re more consistently keeping Reps informed about participation in AMICAL programs by colleagues at their institution Communicate clearly and regularly to members the channels available to them for voicing concerns, suggestions for improvement, etc.: We’ve updated our contact page to provide multiple avenues through which members can make their voice heard.. Survey of institution-level AMICAL stakeholders In September 2020, we ran a “Survey of institution-level AMICAL stakeholders” (AMICAL Reps, library directors, academic leadership, faculty development centers, and academic IT directors) asking them to identify the biggest environmental or institutional issues in front of your institutions for the coming years. Responses for the “Biggest challenges/opportunities for next 1–2 years” were dominated by the themes of online teaching and cost savings. Other recurring themes included library professional development and issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion. “Biggest challenges/opportunities for next 3-5 years” were quite similar, with a clear call for consortial collaboration on finding ways to do more with less, and on helping our institutions to create rich, innovative and adaptive learning environments – in the library, in the classroom, and online. Looking Forward Drawing on member feedback, including the surveys above, AMICAL is currently giving focus to supporting and facilitating staff and faculty development related to teaching, technologies and library services in online or hybrid learning environments. Our E-Resources Committee is working assiduously to identify new opportunities for cost savings, and a working group is investigating how AMICAL members might be able to work on diversity/equity/inclusion together. Our Standing Committees, some guided and funded by our Mellon Foundation grant, continue their mission-focused work as well, using the survey feedback from member institutions as a compass to ensure that AMICAL’s programs and initiatives have as much beneficial impact as possible in the areas most important to our members. For Spring and Summer 2021, we aim to increase the number and scale of online events we organize, with a goal of significantly increasing participation levels, including: More frequent and regular online events and workshop-style participatory meetings A virtual AMICAL 2021 Conference (late Spring or early Summer) The following committees and interest groups, meanwhile, have identified goals specific to their focus: Leadership & Assessment Regular meetings for library directors Expand work on AMICAL library benchmarking using ACRL Academic Library Trends and Statistics survey Update and share AMICAL’s collection of consortium-funded research reports Collect and share examples of member institutions’ satisfaction surveys Information Literacy Initiatives Organize information literacy teaching observations with AMICAL peers Expand scope of “Journal Club” series and other events to include intersections with digital literacies and digital humanities Digital Liberal Arts (DLA) Programs Develop online communication resources, events and consulting to support AMICAL’s growing DLA cohort community Reevaluate profile of the DLA Fellow, to consider partially adapting this role to support institutions’ urgent needs for instructional design support in online/hybrid teaching environments Reevaluate plans for course-integrated DLA collaborations in current environment E-Resources Clarify and communicate expectations from and for vendors Improve workload distribution for negotiations Teaching Writing Outreach to bring into group more writing teachers across AMICAL Events and online discussions to develop the peer network Organize shared resources (e.g. assignments) and collaborations (e.g peer review) For academic year 2021-2022, our Standing Committees and Interest Groups will continue their mission-focused work, and we are also seeking to extend our current grant from the Mellon Foundation for this additional year. This would extend AMICAL’s grant-funded programs such as our Small Grants and Digital Liberal Arts Cohort programs, and it would allow us to more fully develop a number of projects that had to be put on hold during the onset of COVID-19: hiring a Digital Liberal Arts Fellow to provide training and consultation to members on digital pedagogy and scholarship, and supporting course-integrated digital project collaborations. We’re excited to extend and expand these initiatives, and we hope to have more news to share with you this Spring. Informed – and Get Involved! Interested in learning more or getting involved in initiatives described above, suggesting an idea, or reaching out to peers across the consortium? Here are a few ways: Browse or post messages on AMICAL Connect (our member forum); create an AMICAL Account if you don’t have one already, to get access to Connect and receive major announcements Reach out to a committee or interest group to find out more about what they’re doing and how you can help Contact your AMICAL Representative to learn more about how AMICAL might be valuable for you Attend an AMICAL event - new events are on their way and announced on AMICAL Connect Contact AMICAL staff with any questions or ideas, or set up a call with one of us

The Small Grant Review committee received and reviewed 11 applications in the most recent cycles (September 2020, November 2020 and January 2021). The following 8 applications were accepted with either full or partial funding: Title Applicant Institution Category Activity dates Introduction to Learning Design in Online/Hybrid Teaching and Learning Rebekah Rast American University of Paris Professional development 2 week-long online workshop series (July-Sep) Registration fees for The Institute for Emerging Leadership in Online Learning (IELOL) Nadine Aboulmagd American University in Cairo Professional development Online institute (12-23 Oct 2020, with pre- and post- immersion programming) Educause 2020 Online Conference Evi Tramantza American College of Thessaloniki Professional development 27–29 October 2020 Introduction to Cataloging; LSSC Elective Competencies: Cataloging and Classification Maria Pencheva American University in Bulgaria Professional development 2 courses: 4 weeks starting 1 Feb 2020, and 6 weeks starting 1 March 2021 Data Stories: An Introduction to Data Visualization April 12, 2021 - May 9, 2021 Ghenwa Wehbeh Lebanese American University Professional development 12 April - 9 May 2021: 4 week online course Participation in the NICAR conference for Professor and 6 students Anastasia Valeeva American University of Central Asia Professional development 3-5 March 2021: 3-day online conference Registration for full virtual Pass to attend OLC Accelerate 2020 Rukhsana Zia Forman Christian College Professional development 9-18 November 2020 Enhance a Digital Cultures course Anguelina Popova American University of Central Asia Staff exchange/consultation 6-hour consultation during March Responses have already been sent out to all the applicants. How to apply in the next cycle The deadline for the next round of applications is midnight on 29 March. The Small Grant guidelines provide information about how to apply, including the scope of the program and the criteria used in reviewing applications. If you’ve read the guidelines but still have questions, we’ll be holding an informal half-hour Q&A session on 11 March 2021, 11:00–11:30 (Paris time, local time). AMICAL administration will be on hand to answer questions, listen to your feedback and provide advice. If we end up with lots of participants (or questions), we’re happy to extend the session a bit longer.

The AMICAL Consortium, including its staff and the many colleagues who form the network of peers spanning our 28 member institutions, mourn the loss of our colleague Elisabetta Morani, who passed away last Friday, 27 November. Elisabetta was Head Librarian at John Cabot University, an AMICAL member institution. Elisabetta was a central figure in the AMICAL Consortium on many levels. Present and highly engaged at AMICAL’s first meeting in Paris in 2004, and at nearly every annual meeting of the consortium since, Elisabetta helped to give both shape and life to our organization. Among the first to chair AMICAL’s Coordinating Committee as the consortium began developing basic structures as an organization, she was someone equally at ease helping us explore innovative cloud-based library systems and helping us think about meaningful library partnerships with faculty. Elisabetta helped us to see beyond the walls of our libraries, and beyond the walls of our institutions, while always keeping our vision grounded in the realities of what we actually might be able to accomplish, and of what actually may matter to our institutions, to our colleagues, and to our students. In giving her AMICAL’s 2018 “Award for Outstanding Volunteer Service by an AMICAL Colleague”, we recognized “in particular her foundational work as Chair of the E-Resources Committee, and her longstanding commitment to building a consortium that combines innovation with responsiveness to members’ current needs.” With her work with the E-Resources Committee on consortial purchasing, she undeniably helped the resources and budgets of a wide swath of AMICAL members. She also organized several key professional development opportunities for members, hosting AMICAL’s 2013 Annual Conference and organizing numerous workshops and other initiatives. Elisabetta, however, did so much more than that for our group. She had a formidable mix of intelligence, passion, and wisdom, and as the many messages that have been shared about her among colleagues over the past few days attest, her friendship and collegiality had an impact on peers across the consortium that was, quite impressively, as broad as it was deep. It’s difficult in fact to imagine AMICAL without her, she was such a visible, constructively critical, friendly, enthused, passionate, engaging and generous colleague, someone who so often and so naturally shifted her thinking beyond her own interests, beyond the interests of just her own institution, to think about the interests of others across the consortium. Elisabetta helped AMICAL feel like a family - and she was very much at the center of that family, loved dearly by her colleagues. Our sincerest condolences go out to her colleagues at John Cabot University, and above all to Elisabetta’s family and loved ones. She will be missed terribly by us all. In warm remembrance, AMICAL’s Administration and Coordinating Committee, on behalf of colleagues from our 28 member institutions AMICAL Administration:Jeff Gima (American University of Paris), AMICAL DirectorAlex Armstrong, AMICAL Program & Technology OfficerLily Servel (American University of Paris), AMICAL E-Resources Technical Coordinator AMICAL Coordinating Committee Officers:Evi Tramantza (American College of Thessaloniki), ChairMaha Bali (American University in Cairo), Vice-ChairJyldyz Bekbalaeva (American University of Central Asia), Member-at-LargeOmar Farhoud (Lebanese American University), Secretary AMICAL Coordinating Committee Members:Asma Al-Kanan (American University of Kuwait), Leadership & Assessment Committee ChairNajla Jarkas (American University of Beirut), Digital Liberal Arts Programs Committee ChairMichael Stoepel (American University of Paris), Information Literacy Initiatives Chair Note: AMICAL members can find on AMICAL Connect several ways to share their own thoughts and memories of Elisabetta.

The current period is a critical one for helping our students to avoid misinformation – and disinformation – but doing so is made more difficult by young people’s reliance on social media for news. AMICAL has partnered with DailyChatter to help meet this challenge, raising students’ awareness and critical understanding of global current affairs through free access to the DailyChatter news digest service. Students are more likely to get their news through social media - and have trouble gauging its quality Stanford’s 2016 “Civic Online Reasoning” study of students’ information-evaluation competencies, along with its 2019 follow-up study, highlighted the difficulty young people have with gauging the quality of information they come across online. Recent Pew studies show meanwhile that college-age adults look to social media more than anywhere else for their news, and that those who do rely on social media for their news tend to be less critical, less engaged readers. Help our students explore more reliable news-gathering channels As people interested in cultivating our students’ critical use and sharing of information, what can AMICAL Consortium members do about this? One thing we can do is encourage our students to make regular use of news-gathering channels that are more reliable than social media. A great example of such a channel is DailyChatter, an email news digest focused solely on international news. DailyChatter is completely independent and non-partisan, and such a source can be particularly valuable in combination with an awareness of the bias of various news outlets (see Ad Fontes Media’s Media Bias Chart). The daily newsletter arrives by email at around 6am US Eastern time, includes a brief and easily readable digest of selected international stories with links to further media coverage from a variety of outlets. Join other AMICAL institutions in facilitating students’ free subscription to DailyChatter DailyChatter is now providing free subscriptions to college and university students around the world, and I’m pleased to announce a consortial partnership to facilitate subscriptions to their daily newsletter for all students, as well as faculty and staff, at AMICAL member institutions via the sign-up form linked below. The free subscription program was launched to help expand college students’ knowledge and understanding of global issues, which is now more than ever an essential civic need. More than 9500 students from 155 leading US and international colleges and universities are now enrolled in the program. Nine AMICAL institutions have already arranged their own direct partnerships with DailyChatter, and anyone from those institutions will be redirected from the AMICAL form below with a link to their own institution-specific sign-up page. If you’re from any other AMICAL institution… Sign up for DailyChatter through AMICAL …and share this with your students and colleagues You can share the link above with students, but I encourage you in particular to share it with any colleagues who might be in a position to reach out to the student body as a whole with a message about critical news sourcing: library directors, provosts, or others such as deans or directors of student life/services. As examples: AUP’s President Celeste Schenck chose to announce DailyChatter with an email of her own to the AUP community, and one of Yale’s student service offices decided to promote DailyChatter on their homepage. Feel free to copy or adapt this example student-directed announcement to announce DailyChatter to your own community. Questions about DailyChatter? Please reach out directly to Elizabeth Bartle, Director, University Relations and Strategy, ebartle@dailychatter.com, if you have any questions. She can help you to launch the service on your own campus.

The call for applications to AMICAL’s Digital Liberal Arts Cohort program is now open! Do you have a faculty-staff team working on a digital liberal arts project or initiative? This program gives your team access to AMICAL’s Digital Liberal Arts Cohort, a learning community combining peer expertise with grant-supported training and resources. It’s the cornerstone of our efforts to raise the faculty and staff capacities of member institutions for localized, digital approaches to liberal arts education. Program overview A learning community with training and resource support for faculty-staff teams working on digital liberal arts initiatives Applications for the program are invited from teams engaged in digital liberal arts projects or initiatives that are anchored in some way in local teaching and learning, and that involve a partnership of local faculty and staff. Teams may have as few as two members and can include faculty, librarians, technologists and academic administrators. The program will support these teams with access to third-party training and expertise, a peer community of practice, and a series of AMICAL-facilitated project showcase and peer consultation events. We use “digital liberal arts” as an umbrella term covering digital approaches to pedagogy and scholarship in the liberal arts. Our use of this term includes digital humanities, digital literacies, and the use of technology to enable new forms of interdisciplinary scholarship or pedagogy. We are interested in supporting a wide range of initiatives: from individual digital projects, to course redesigns with elements of digital literacy or scholarship, to campus-wide curricular initiatives involving digital literacies, pedagogy or scholarship. This program is part of our 2018-2021 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for “Building Leadership and Capacity for Digital Liberal Arts across AMICAL.” Our aims for it are: to support initiatives that will contribute to capacity-building at the institutional and consortial level; to solidify AMICAL’s role as a cross-institutional network; and to develop sustainable consortial models for supporting the digital liberal arts. (From the program website) How to apply Applications for the program are open from today until end of day on September 14. Each team need only submit a single application. Prospective applicants should read the “Cohort opportunities and support” page for more details and then follow the steps in “Applying to the cohort”. We will be holding an informal Q&A session on 3 September, 11:00 am Paris time (local time) with members of the Digital Liberal Arts Program Committee. Register for this session to clarify any questions you have about the program and to receive advice in preparing your application. If you have any questions about the program or your application, you may also reply to this email. We look forward to reading your applications! –Digital Liberal Arts Programs Committee Najla Jarkas (American University of Beirut) Maha Bali (American University in Cairo) Jeff Gima (AMICAL / American University of Paris) Alex Armstrong (AMICAL)

We’re excited to announce the newest iteration of AMICAL’s Digital Liberal Arts Cohort program! This program is the cornerstone of our efforts to raise the faculty and staff capacities of member institutions for localized, digital approaches to liberal arts education. Previous iterations focused around coordinated attendance of onsite events. Given global events, the program has been overhauled to take advantage of online opportunities. About the program A learning community with training and resource support for faculty-staff teams working on digital liberal arts initiatives Applications for the program are invited from teams engaged in digital liberal arts projects or initiatives that are anchored in some way in local teaching and learning, and that involve a partnership of local faculty and staff. Teams may have as few as two members and can include faculty, librarians, technologists and academic administrators. The program will support these teams with access to third-party training and expertise, a peer community of practice, and a series of AMICAL-facilitated project showcase and peer consultation events. We use “digital liberal arts” as an umbrella term covering digital approaches to pedagogy and scholarship in the liberal arts. Our use of this term includes digital humanities, digital literacies, and the use of technology to enable new forms of interdisciplinary scholarship or pedagogy. We are interested in supporting a wide range of initiatives: from individual digital projects, to course redesigns with elements of digital literacy or scholarship, to campus-wide curricular initiatives involving digital literacies, pedagogy or scholarship. This program is part of our 2018-2021 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for “Building Leadership and Capacity for Digital Liberal Arts across AMICAL.” Our aims for it are: to support initiatives that will contribute to capacity-building at the institutional and consortial level; to solidify AMICAL’s role as a cross-institutional network; and to develop sustainable consortial models for supporting the digital liberal arts. (From the program website) How to apply as a team Applications for the program are open from today until end of day on July 5. If your team isn’t able to submit an application during this period – don’t worry! There will be another call in September with a longer submission window. Prospective applicants should read the “Cohort opportunities and support” for more details and then follow the steps in “Applying to the cohort”. July 2020 event of possible interest to cohort teams: Digital Pedagogy Lab For teams that are interested in applying to the cohort, we’d like to highlight an upcoming event: Digital Pedagogy Lab 2020 will be held 26 July – 2 August. Only the following courses are currently open (and have very few seats remaining): Intro Critical Digital Pedagogy Information Literacy Data, Code, Ethics Digital Identity Blended Maker Faire PreK-20 Recess: Play in the Time of the Pandemic If you would like to receive funding to participate in any of the above courses, send us an email by 30 June (even if you haven’t submitted your application yet). In your email, list your team members’ names, the courses that they would like to participate in, and a sentence for each describing how the training relates to the project you have in mind. Do note that funding for training through this program is subject to certain requirements, and associated with certain expectations, as outlined on the cohort website. Your team will still need to submit a cohort application by July 5. Remember that there will be opportunities for teams to apply for the cohort at the start of each semester for at least the coming year. For teams interested in attending Digital Pedagogy Lab 2020, we realize that time is short for teams to organize themselves, so don’t hesitate to reply to this email and ask us any questions you may have about your prospective application. –Digital Liberal Arts Programs Committee Najla Jarkas (American University of Beirut) Maha Bali (American University in Cairo) Jeff Gima (AMICAL / American University of Paris) Alex Armstrong (AMICAL)

The Small Grant Review committee received and reviewed 6 applications for the May 2020 cycle. The following 4 applications were accepted with either full or partial funding: Title Applicant Institution Category Activity dates Online Instructional Design and Delivery June 1 - July 12, 2020 Joyce Draiby Lebanese American University Professional development 1-month online course: 1 June - 12 July 2020 Bissell Library Staff Training for Upgrading and Operating an Institutional Repository and handling images and also technology hardware request Efthymia Kompouri American College of Thessaloniki Professional development Online classes over a 4-month period (Sept - Dec 2020), plus equipment AUCA Library-Faculty Capacity Building in 3D Modeling Aida Abdykanova American University of Central Asia Project Open-ended request for equipment Ethnographic Documentary: Returning to Homeland Mukaram Toktogulova American University of Central Asia Project 11-month project: July 2020 - May 2021 An additional application from Anguelina Popova for a team of AUCA colleagues to attend OLC was cancelled, since they were able to register through the AMICAL-sponsored attendance to OLC Innovate 2020 initiative. Responses have already been sent out to all the applicants. How to apply in the next cycle During the summer period (June – August), only applications for micro-grants will be reviewed. Micro-grants are reviewed on a rolling basis but, due to summer holidays, responses may be delayed. Applications for regular grants will re-open in the fall with a tentative deadline of 14 September. The deadline will be confirmed in late summer or early fall and announced on AMICAL Connect. In the weeks before the deadline, we’ll be also holding an informal half-hour Q&A session to answer questions and listen to feedback. Check the Small Grant guidelines for full information about how to apply, including the scope of the program and the criteria used in reviewing applications.