Associate Professor Kate McDowell will lead the workshop, "Using Storytelling to Persuade and Lead," for the Municipal Clerks of Illinois Institute and Academy on October 17. McDowell was invited by former senator Richard J. Winkel, Jr., who serves as director of the Office of Public Leadership at the University of Illinois Institute of Government and Public Affairs.
The workshop will introduce clerks to the basics of storytelling ethics, provide some examples of how storytelling models help to frame big and small conversations, and move into an interactive session where participants will be able to think of story prompts, identify common stories in their work, and strategize ways of telling and listening to help them serve their communities.
"As I see it, this is a great opportunity to connect with public servants who are responsible on a daily basis for making municipal laws and regulations easy for their citizens to understand and follow," said McDowell. "In preparation, I spoke with Phyllis Clark, who has been an elected municipal clerk in Urbana since the late 1960s. She was incredibly helpful in introducing me to the kinds of work clerks do every day and how storytelling—and story listening—can help address public concerns."
McDowell (MS ’99, PhD ’07) has been a member of the GSLIS faculty since 2007. She recently was appointed assistant dean for student affairs following interim service in this role since January 2014. She teaches and conducts research in youth services librarianship, the history of readers, and storytelling, and she has published articles in Children and Libraries, Book History, Libraries and the Cultural Record, and Library Quarterly.