Spring is the season traditionally associated with new life, but in academia new growth oftencomes in Fall. We are celebrating our new faculty and would like to introduce you to lecturer JoyDunkley, assistant professor Jocelyn Castillo and substitute professor Ignacio Sanchez. Many of usbecome librarians because we love books. To help you get to know them, I asked each new facultymember to write something about the books currently engaging them.
Professor Dunkley has been with us for a while on a substitute line, and we are happy that shechose to apply for our lecturer position last year and plans to stay with us. She is a valued memberof our reference staff, responsible for book circulation and for training our college assistants whoyou see at the desk and shelving in the stacks. Joy is also working with the Open EducationalResources project team. Professor Dunkley’s favorite book is Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe.Recently she read Zebratown: The True Story of a Black Ex-con and a White Single Mother in Small-townAmerica by Greg Donaldson. Her preferred guilty reading pleasure genres are true crime, socialjustice, and politics. Her aspirational reading -those books you intend to read but haven’t quitegotten round to yet – include Equal Justice under Law: An autobiography by Constance Baker Motleyand The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St. Paul’s School by Shamus Khan. Professor Dunkley looksforward to reading A Trial by Jury by D. Graham Burnett and The Privileged Poor: How Elite CollegesAre Failing Disadvantaged Students by A.A. Jack.
Ignacio Sanchez is our new electronic resources librarian, taking over from Maureen Richards whois easing in to a well-deserved retirement. Professor Sanchez ensures smooth access to databasesand electronic content for our community, on campus or off. He brings valuable experience fromColumbia, Purdue, and most recently, the Mina Rees Library at the Graduate Center. He enjoysreading the magical realism genre the most, and his favorite author is Isabel Allende. He justfinished a captivating story by Sofía Segovia, titled El Murmullo de las Abejas or The Murmur of Bees,which beautifully blends magic and history.
Jocelyn Castillo comes to us from New Jersey City University, and will be leading our informationliteracy program. Please see page … She recently read What Would Frida Do? by Arianna Davis andlooks forward to reading Satchmo: My Life in New Orleans by Louis Armstrong.
For one of our faculty, a new life awaits in Washington. We say farewell to substitute professor EllisGing who has been enticed away by the Library of Congress to acquire and catalog materials fromSouth America, where his language proficiency and translation skills will be invaluable. Ellis hasbeen working with Professor Maria Kiriakova on rejuvenating our book collections in the stacks.From Professor Ging: I’m looking forward to reading Penance by Eliza Clark. Over the past fewyears, following the rising tide of interest in true crime media, a number of novels have beenreleased that engage directly with tropes and formats specific to the genre. (Chasing theBoogeyman by Richard Chizmar is the first to come to mind for me, because of its potentautofictional angle.) I’m particularly interested in what Clark’s take on true crime through fictionwill be — as a younger author, and a woman, she is closer in perspective to the real or perceivedaudience of a lot of recent true crime media.
--- Ellen Sexton