Moises Orozco Villicaña joined the iSchool on August 22 as director of enrollment management. In this new position, he is responsible for overall recruitment and admissions.

Ann Ohms (MS '08) joined the School on August 1 as K-12 program coordinator. In this role, she advises students interested in pursuing licensure or endorsement as a K-12 library information specialist and supervises teacher-librarian candidates during their student teaching.

Georgeann Burch (MS '04), K-12 program coordinator, retired from the University on May 31, 2016. The first to serve in this role, she joined the iSchool in 2005 following experience as a school library media specialist. Under her direction, the program expanded in enrollments, offerings, and reputation.

The iSchool at Illinois seeks nominations for the Robert B. Downs Intellectual Freedom Award. The deadline for nominations is October 1, 2016.

Given annually, the award acknowledges individuals or groups who have furthered the cause of intellectual freedom, particularly as it impacts libraries and information centers and the dissemination of ideas.

The American Library Association (ALA) will hold its 2016 Annual Conference and Exhibition in Orlando, Florida, on June 23-28. The theme of the conference is, "Transforming Our Libraries, Ourselves."

In 1996, our School was the first on campus to offer an online program, making our top-ranked master’s degree in library and information science available to students around the world. This groundbreaking program was called the Library Education Experimental Program, or LEEP.

Each year, the School recognizes a group of outstanding students for their achievement in academics as well as a number of attributes that contribute to professional success. The following student awards were presented at the School's Convocation ceremony on May 15, 2016.

GSLIS alumna Lorraine Haricombe (MS ’88, PhD ’92) will deliver the 2016 GSLIS Convocation address, "Imagine." The event will be held on Sunday, May 15, at 9:30 a.m. For those who would like to watch the ceremony online, live video will be available as well as archived for future viewing.

This fall, the first cohort of students will begin their studies in our School’s new Master of Science degree in information management (MS/IM) program. These students will have the opportunity to choose from four professional pathways to prepare for successful careers in the design and management of information systems.

MS/LIS, CAS, and nondegree students who hold a Professional Educator License (PEL) can now add a Technology Specialist (TS) endorsement to their PEL with GSLIS coursework.