Every summer, the Center for Global Studies (CGS) and collaborators in the Illinois Global Institute (IGI) and University Library leverage campus expertise and breadth of library resources to support international and area studies syllabi development and programming at community colleges and Minority Serving Institutions across the country through the International Studies Research Lab (ISRL). The ISRL provides access to U.S. Department of Education Title VI resources for institutions that do not have direct access to these funds. It is a unique program that benefits students beyond the walls of the University of Illinois, and throughout the United States.
Through the ISRL, faculty, staff, and administrators in 2-year colleges and 4-year universities access the University of Illinois Library collections—the largest of any public university in the U.S.--and collaborate with library subject specialists. Fellows come in with a proposal for a project, from expanding international and area studies curricula to developing study abroad programming to broadening their own library holdings or even something brand new.
The past three years of ISRL were disrupted by the pandemic with the 2021 and 2022 labs held virtually, and the 2023 lab in a hybrid format. This year, however, we transitioned back to a fully in-person lab with all 12 participants coming to the U of I campus during the week of June 10-14. This allowed all participants to fully explore library resources and make connections with each other and campus collaborators on a new level. During the week at Illinois, participants spent their time in the library researching in the stacks, archives, and databases. In collaboration with campus partners, they also attended workshops on study abroad, citation management, and two keynote speeches from former ISRL participants. After a week of gathering resources, participants went home and completed their projects, turning in a final product on August 1, 2024. The lab was hosted by the Center for Global Studies (CGS) in collaboration with the International & Area Studies Library (IASL) and Center for African Studies (CAS) and was co-sponsored by the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, European Union Center, and Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center.
A highlight of the 2024 ISRL were our keynote speeches from Isabel Scarborough from Parkland College and Zach Petrea from Heartland Community College. Both Scarborough and Petrea are alumni of the ISRL, each having participated multiple times over the past nine years. Scarborough opened the lab with a discussion of her work through the ISRL to globalize Parkland’s offerings through collaborations with the U of I area centers and building out the international coverage library collections on their campus to provide faculty and students with access to research materials. She also offered an opportunity for participants to get to know each other and their projects better through interactive activities. Petrea closed the in-person segment of the lab with a discussion of what his ISRL projects led to. He shared how his ISRL work led him to being awarded two major grants to build out study abroad and on-campus international activities. His presentation demonstrates that the ISRL does not end when participants turn in their syllabi, white papers, or other final product. Oftentimes, this is just the beginning. These presentations, along with connections to subject specialists and experts in their fields of interest make the ISRL a unique space of learning and growth for fellows.
The 2024 ISRL hosted 12 participants from around the United States—as far east as Ohio, south as Florida, and west as Washington State. The ISRL is intended to serve fellows’ home institutions. These twelve fellows came from institutions of all sizes and serve a diverse array of students, with five of this year’s participants coming from Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs). ISRL’s customizability and the wealth of resources here at UIUC allows for the application of international studies in many capacities—this year, CGS collaborated with the Center for African Studies to bring three faculty from HBCUs and one independent scholar to ISRL. Na’Imah Ford is an English professor at Florida A&M University, an HBCU, and a CAS ISRL fellow. Her project focused on creating an English course focused on the Black experience in Europe. Ford’s course is both an on-campus and study abroad course, and she was able to access a wealth of resources using U of I’s databases and physical collections. Julio Capeles is an ISRL fellow from Oakton Community College—a two-year public school in Illinois that is an Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institution (AANAPISI). His project centered on increasing global studies materials and resources at community colleges because as Oakton—a highly diverse college—continues to draw students from around the world, he recognized that their library and instructional materials need to reflect their student body.
The 2024 ISRL resulted in a total of 11 projects across varying topics and regional focuses. These projects, as well as materials from previous years, are free to download from the university’s institutional repository, IDEALS. IDEALS makes ISRL projects discoverable through different search platforms like Google Scholar and the University of Illinois Library online catalog. In total, ISRL projects have been downloaded over 23,000 times as of October 2024.
More information about the 2024 ISRL and ISRL Fellows is available on the CGS website. For notifications and announcements about next year’s lab, subscribe to the ISRL mailing list. If you have any questions, please email the Global Studies Librarian, Dr. Steve Witt, at swwitt@illinois.edu.
The International Studies Research Lab is made possible through Title VI funds provided by the US Department of Education.
