Budd and Cusick receive Outstanding Graduate Student Award

Budd works in Scholarly Communication and Publishing, supporting digital publication workflows for the Illinois Open Publishing Network (IOPN) and completing technical checks to ensure quality, accessibility, and metadata for forthcoming publications. She also contributes to marketing, outreach, and maintaining documentation for publishing, copyright, and digital humanities programs. One of her nominators, Angela Watters, digital publishing specialist, shared, "Elizabeth Budd is diligent, smart, hardworking, empathetic, compassionate, and a true asset to our unit and the Library as a whole. Elizabeth is dedicated to upholding the quality of service that Scholarly Communication and Publishing prides themselves on, has developed an exceptional understanding and nuanced grasp of copyright, has designed visually engaging covers for several IOPN publications, and has played a formative role in developing our processes for assessing uptake of our Library's growing number of 'transformative agreements' that allow authors to publish articles open access without a fee. We have been consistently impressed with how thoughtfully Elizabeth approaches difficult discussions with authors and editors. An example of this is when Elizabeth discovered a journal's recent issue had 102 errors. Elizabeth initiated an action plan to address and correct the mistakes. Her deft handling of interactions with the editors helped set a productive tone that significantly contributed to the timely resolution of the issue."

Cusick is based in the Ricker Library of Architecture and Art, where they provide circulation and research assistance, curate exhibits and resource guides, and assist with collection development and management. They also assist with instruction, organize events, lead workshops, and create marketing materials as well as social media content. In Cusick's letter of nomination, Emilee Mathews, head of Ricker Library, shared, "Flannery's work ethic, ability to complete independent tasks with high-impact results, personality, and thoughtfulness has made them an outstanding member of Ricker Library's team. In addition to regular desk hours, Flannery hosts classes ranging from Latino Studies to Renaissance art history to graphic design, leads events such as class visits and exhibits in collaboration with arts-related groups across campus, provides invaluable assistance in drafting impact reports and newsletter articles, and developed a primer on architecture vocabulary to help our staff and student workers increase their understanding of the terminology and better help our architecture students. Last year, Flannery curated an exhibit extending the themes of a show at the campus art museum featuring the four Black faculty members of the School of Art and Design. Several Black faculty and students praised the exhibit for its care and meticulously researched and presented information, deftly amplifying Ricker's inclusive values in action."