Research Librarian and Workplace Consultant to Join School of Information Studies as Follett Chair
Kaetrena Davis Kendrick has been selected to serve as the 2024-25 Follett Chair within Dominican University’s School of Information Studies.
Davis Kendrick has extensive experience as a research librarian and educator. In 2019, she was named Academic/Research Librarian of the Year by the Association of College and Research Libraries.
Her research areas of interest include professionalism and ethics in librarianship, information literacy and instruction, international librarianship, racial and ethnic diversity in librarianship, communities of practice and training and professional development.
Davis Kendrick is also the founder of Renewals, a company that provides life-work coaching, consultation, and facilitation services focused on building workplace wellbeing. This work, she said, is the outcome of her research into low-morale experiences within library and archivist workplaces.
In her role as Follett Chair, Davis Kendrick will teach a course in the School of Information Studies, host a workshop, and deliver the annual Follett Lecture in the spring.
“My mission is to inspire authentic collegiality, promote well-being, share gifts of creativity, and cultivate empathetic, engaged leadership in the workplace,” she said. “Being selected as Follett Chair, I can offer my insight on the contemporary realities of librarianship and leadership; equity, diversity and inclusion; and library worker advocacy. To do this and to also connect with DU’s esteemed faculty, staff and students makes me electric with joy and gratitude.”
Dr. Don Hamerly, director of the School of Information Studies, said Davis Kendrick’s background in researching low employee morale among library workers is especially helpful and timely given the current challenges facing libraries across the country, such as book ban demands and proposed laws that target librarians.
“Libraries are facing aggressive attacks against practices that define the very core of their being, and librarians are at the front lines of conflict,” Hamerly noted. “The nature of challenges to materials and programs in libraries affects most directly and intensely librarians from marginalized and underrepresented groups. Through her lectures, workshop, and course, Kaetrena will help our students and alumni develop short-term and long-term skills to develop resilience and cultivate critical hope.”
Davis Kendrick received her MLIS degree from Clark Atlanta University in Atlanta, Georgia, and a BA in English from Winthrop University in Rock Hill, South Carolina.
The Follett Chair is a high academic honor established by Dominican University and the Follett Corporation in 2002.
More about Davis Kendrick can be found here.