UCLA’s Library and Information Studies Alumni Association celebrates scholar of DEI and accessibility at Syracuse University, six decades of alumni.
The UCLA Library and Information Studies Alumni Association (LISAA) honored Renate Chancellor, associate professor and associate dean for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility at the iSchool at Syracuse University, with the the Distinguished Alumni Award from the UCLA Department of Information Studies. The event celebrated Chancellor, a double Bruin (’01, MLIS; ’08, PhD, Information Studies) and the achievements of more than six decades of graduates at the UCLA University Club on May 21.
LISAA President Su Kim Chung (’15, PhD;’98, MLIS) welcomed alumni back to campus, and Emily Meehan (’16, MLIS) led a roll call by decades, followed by the Distinguished Alumni Award and remarks from Chancellor. The program included remarks by Wasserman Dean Christina Christie and Professor Todd Franke, interim department chair, and a keynote from Natalie Auxier (’12, MLIS), manager, Archive Collections and Outreach, NBCUniversal. Ashley Kagan (’08, MLIS), also shared emcee duties for the program.
Dean Christie thanked Professor Franke, who has served as interim dean of UCLA IS for the last three years, and highlighted the success of the department’s graduates, of which more than 125 serve their alma mater in UCLA’s numerous libraries and collections.
“The success of this annual event is a testament to the importance of your experience here in the Department of Information Studies and to your commitment to our department,” said Christie. “Whether you graduated last year or decades ago, you are an integral part of our legacy, and your achievements continue to inspire our current students and faculty every day. We are deeply grateful to your ongoing support, your mentorship, and your engagement with the department, and particularly, our students. Your experiences are valuable, and they help us to continually refine our programs and prepare the next generation of library and information professionals.
“The information studies department has always been at the forefront of understanding about how information is created, organized, disseminated, and utilized to impact society,” Christie said. “From our longstanding contributions to library science, to our research on data privacy and digital humanities, you, our alumni, have consistently been leaders in your fields, driving progress and addressing the most pressing challenges of our time.”
Chung, who is the head of special collections public services at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, shared the LISAA goal of providing alumni with opportunities for mentoring, networking and engagement throughout the year, including colloquia and mixers. She encouraged UCLA IS alumni to mentor recent graduates and shared plans for resume clinics, job talks by alumni, and mock interviews.
Franke, who is a professor of social welfare and doctoral program chair at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, spoke on recent growth of UCLA IS. He said that 300 MLIS applications were received for the upcoming fall of 2025, with 79 students accepted; 70 of these students are from California, and more than half are students of color. He announced a recent $30,000 gift from the Friends of the Inglewood Public Library, which will provide two $1,500 scholarships for the next ten years, to be awarded annually to two incoming MLIS students. Professor Franke also shared the job placement of UCLA IS graduates, who have found positions in academic libraries, archives, public libraries, digital asset and data management, and conservation and preservation.
Auxier spoke of her role at NBCUniversal, which includes managing archival holdings and material cultures for film productions, theme parks, and corporate history, through acquisition, preservation, and exhibition of these collections. She shared her experiences on the job and her decision to earn her MLIS while already working in the archival field.
“UCLA has incredible faculty and staff that supports this amazing and wonderful program, but in addition to everything I have learned, it’s the connections that I’ve made while studying here that have greatly benefitted me throughout my career,” said Auxier. “So many of the people I’ve worked with over the years are former classmates and former interns from UCLA.
“Many friends I first met at this school now work at, or in some cases run the archives at Netflix, Disney, Paramount, and the Academy [of Motion Pictures and Sciences] library. We all share a mutual enthusiasm for … preserving the legacy of film and entertainment, and the impacts the entertainment industry has on society. I would advise all of you to rely on your network as the friends you have made and the people you have met here will be instrumental in your career development.”
Chancellor is the recipient of the 2014 Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE) Excellence in Teaching Award and the 2012 ALISE Leadership Award. She is an associate professor and affiliated faculty at the Lender Center for Social Justice at Syracuse University and has published widely in the areas of critical cultural information studies, equity, diversity and inclusion, and social justice in informational contexts.
Chancellor serves on the editorial boards of Library Quarterly and Education for Information. She also serves on the American Library Association’s Publishing Committee and has consulted on projects with numerous organizations including the Library of Congress, Gensler Architectural Firm, ProQuest, and the State Department.
Chancellor expressed her gratitude for the LISAA Distinguished Alumni Award, saying that, “Returning to this incredible academic community, one that helped shape the very foundation of my scholarly and professional pursuits, is both humbling and heartwarming. When I first walked through the doors of UCLA as a student, I could never have imagined where that path would lead.
“What I did know was that I was driven by the belief that information access was a human right, and also that libraries are not just physical space, they are essential instruments of equity, inclusion, and empowerment,” Chancellor said. “My time at UCLA … gave me the courage to ask the difficult questions [and] to challenge systems of inequity and oppression. Those lessons have stayed with me throughout my career as a scholar, as an educator, and as an advocate of social justice.”
Above: UCLA IS alumna Renate Chancellor (’01, MLIS; ’08, PhD, Information Studies) is an associate professor and the associate dean for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility at the iSchool at Syracuse University.