Winning Essay for the Chapter’s Minority Scholarship
By Rukmal Harvey, rukmal.harvey@salemstate.edu

I have been working as a Library Assistant at the Education Resources Library at Salem State College for nearly four and a half years. I started working as a student employee while studying at Salem State College for my education undergraduate degree. Since the education resources library is a special library for education major students, faculty and educators, my interest in working there as a full-time staff member increased. I worked as a student employee there and applied for the full-time assistant position when it became available. As a student I used the resources there for my undergraduate and master’s degrees in education and also to obtain my Massachusetts Teacher Certification. While working at the Salem State College library’s education resource library full-time and at the Salem Public Library in reference, part-time, I enrolled in a Master of Library and Information Science program at Simmons College. As I have a master’s degree in technology in education, I was able to get into the Doctor of Arts in Library Administration program too.

I am most interested in helping education students to succeed in their field. As English is not my first language, it was difficult for me to pass the Massachusetts Teacher Certification exam, but with the help of the library resources and tutors I was able to pass the test and be certified. I also want to give back what I have learned in the education field to the students. Educators are the trees of the new budding plants, our new generation. We need the resources for them to succeed.

At my current job, I provide reference assistance to students and faculty to do their research by showing them the electronic and print resources. I managed the education resource library when the librarian was on sabbatical leave.  I help to maintain and update the education, philosophy, and action research reports web pages, and I also maintain the education resources library’s reference, periodical, and book collections. To complement our mission in supporting diversity, I have been working on a multicultural children’s booklist web page. I train and supervise students from multiracial and multicultural groups.  I take part in hiring student employees.  I also take part as a guest speaker in Global Perspectives in Cultural Diversity graduate education course at Salem State College.  I do book displays on multicultural and multiracial topics.

I am most interested in a special library focused on a particular subject area. As my background is in education working in multicultural and international schools in the past, and having two degrees in education, I can contribute more in my field and act as a human resource to the field.

I work full-time at Salem State College and part-time at Salem Public Library to pay for my tuition at Simmons College. It would be so helpful if I could obtain a scholarship from you to pursue my education at Simmons College to make my dream come true to help students in the education field.

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