ALG Champion Spotlight: Denise George, Georgia State University
Georgia State University
I’m honored to have been a part of the Affordable Learning Georgia initiative from its inception. In 2013, I joined the Affordable Learning Georgia (ALG) Implementation Team to help launch the initiative, and I subsequently became the Georgia State University (GSU) Library Champion for ALG in 2014.
The ALG initiative has been especially important to me both personally and professionally. As a student, I struggled with affording course materials and felt the pain that barrier can bring. I naturally wanted to find ways to help other students and was led to later become the Library Reserves Coordinator here in the Georgia State University Library, a position that gave me deep knowledge about what professors need from course content to teach their classes.
The GSU copyright lawsuit from 2008-2020 deepened my knowledge about the impact of copyright on education and further fueled my passion for open initiatives and for large-scale change that ALG and other open initiatives bring. After becoming the Education Librarian at GSU in 2012, my primary service activities focused on the open and affordable movement. I sought new ways to help students get the materials that they need while supporting instructors with tools, access, knowledge, and community.
I’m thankful that the ALG initiative provided a place where I could share my own expertise, experience the expertise of others, and have a voice in how we can best implement the ALG initiative and support the open movement at our own institutions and across the University System of Georgia.
The ALG Team here at GSU has worked year after year to continuously promote the ALG initiative across our campuses in a variety of ways. In my own work, I’ve provided training and resources on ALG grant opportunities during every year of ALG’s history. I’ve met with departments and individuals who later secured ALG grants. I’ve met with GSU librarians who go on to promote ALG to their departments and/or become part of the grant recipient process.
But it’s not just me.
Our librarians here at GSU have long been advocates for the open movement. In 2016 our efforts expanded when GSU merged with Perimeter College. The GSU ALG initiative also expanded from one to two ALG teams, one for the Perimeter campuses and one for the Atlanta campus. The two teams evolved into the opportunity to begin working more fully together. The GSU library began to coordinate training and events offered by the library for all campuses.
I was involved in leading or co-leading many of these events, especially around Open Access Week and Open Education Week. I also worked with the Atlanta campus Center for Excellence in Teaching, Learning, and Online Education (CETLOE) to offer information sessions about ALG grant opportunities, and I coordinated with Perimeter librarians and their CETLOE to offer a faculty learning community in 2019.
More recently, the GSU Library began to focus more intentionally on the full scope of the open education movement where ALG is an integral component. The GSU library now has expanded to maintain a standing open education team, led by Charlene Martoni, with librarians from all GSU campuses.
I’m proud to be a member of this team and to offer insights and mentorship from my own experiences throughout the years. Our initiatives now include the Open for Student Success Symposium, Open Oscars, and additional open-related events throughout the year. We also have several research projects underway.