The search is over for a new dean of the Lawrence Lee Pelletier Library: Tressa Snyder has filled the role.
“I’m very excited to be here,” Snyder said. “I’m supposed to come here.”
She said the needs of the college were things she felt she could help with as a reason for her being brought in.
“I think why I was brought here and why I want to be here, we need to do a better job in terms of networking faculty, being more involved,” Snyder said. “My goal is to make the library an academic hub of the campus.”
Snyder wants to lend her own hand in an effort to connect the wider campus with the library.
“I do want to get involved,” Snyder said. “I’m actually going to be teaching an FS course in the fall.”
She also wants the library to become more invested in student research and aiding seniors with their senior comprehensive projects. A makeshift research desk has been opened near the entrance of the library that will be staffed by professional librarians.
“I want to be much more involved with the comps and URSCA,” Snyder said. “Not just, ‘Oh it’s two weeks before my stuff is due. I’m here. Let me research.’ I think there are things that we can educate about every year in the comp process that I’m more than willing to be involved with.”
She spoke of her strong feelings about diversity, equity and inclusion and of making the library a place of belonging for everyone in the community.
“Making the library a place where you feel comfortable coming and asking a question — anyone, any student, any faculty, any staff, any community person,” Snyder said. “We’re moving barriers, to certain things that might be construed as barriers and also just making those connections again with students and faculty. Basically re-educating the campus on the purpose of the library and libraries.”
Snyder said the college’s support of its library made a good first impression for her.
“I hesitate to compare, but what I will say is that I’ve been very impressed with the quality of Allegheny’s resources in terms of how they relate to our curriculum and the comp process,” Snyder said. “I have been very impressed with Allegheny’s investment in the library and education.”
Snyder graduated from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania in May 2000, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in environmental studies, geography, and geology. She then earned her Master of Science in Library Science from Clarion University in July 2004. After that, in Aug. 2020, she earned her Instructional Design MasterTrack Post-Graduate Certificate from the University of Illinois.
Snyder had been a fixture at Thiel College since 2008, where she served as director of the library. Now, she says she is ready to develop connections between Pelletier and other locations on campus.
“One of my other big goals for our library here is to be public facing,” Snyder said. “When I came to Thiel, we did not have any kind of instruction. I built that program. At the end of my tenure there, I was going to about 90 classes a semester… So my job here is to kind of figure out what that need is.”
While at Thiel, Snyder worked with the Greenville Area Public Library and the local chapter of Veterans of Foreign Wars, helping with community outreach and grant projects. She is looking to do similar projects at Allegheny by finding ways to work with the Meadville community.
She spoke of Corita Kent and her book “Learning By Heart: Teachings to Free the Creative Spirit” and how the book inspired her to incorporate creativity into the classroom for Thiel’s honors research course — a similar program to the senior project process here at Allegheny.
“I was actually just in Chicago in November presenting to the National Collegiate Honors Conference about how we did this,” Snyder said. “Students were freer to be able to do what they wanted to do for their research projects, through this process. I got to do research with students, I got to see them present and feel amazing and do amazing things. And be really excited about what they were doing.”
Snyder said what makes a good dean is the ability to understand the needs of your institution and of your library at that moment and acting on those needs.
“I never had the luxury of not physically doing the work, it’s ingrained in me,” Snyder said. “You build it, you work together.”