The Olson Fellows

2008-2010

Anne Covell

Student in the dual Center for the Book & School of Library and Information Science program. Anne holds a BA with double major in Art History and Applied Design (Metals) from San Diego State University.

2007-2009

Juli Williams

Student in the dual Center for the Book & School of Library and Information Science program. Juli holds a BA in English and Anthropology from Indiana University and an MA in Anthropology from the University of Iowa.

2006-2008

Nana (Diederichs) Holtsnider

Student in the dual Center for the Book & School of Library and Information Science program. Nana holds an MA in Comparative Literature from Colorado and a BA from the University of Iowa.

2005-2007

Rachel Sailor

Specializing in documentary photography of the American West, Rachel completed her PhD in 2007 and is now a member of the art faculty at the University of Texas at Tyler.

A native of Lansing, Iowa, Robert "Bob" Olson earned an undergraduate business degree from Iowa in 1933, working part-time as a student assistant in the Libraries, and graduated from the College of Law in 1935. He married Iowa City native Ruth Bywater in 1937 and worked in the public utility industry in Chicago until 1947, when he joined the Kansas City Power and Light Company. Over the next 26 years Olson held most of the executive positions in that company, becoming president in 1960 and retiring as chairman of the board in 1973. He was very active in the Kansas City business community, serving on the boards of several local corporations and volunteering his time among civic and cultural organizations. Ruth Bywater Olson died in 1979; Robert Olson in August 2003. His estate gift to the University, some $5.5 million, benefits nine programs, and includes the Robert A. and Ruth Bywater Olson Special Collections Fund.  Income from that fund underwrites the Olson Fellowship program.

The Olson Fellowships are designed to support graduate students in the course of their academic work; provide on-the-job training at the immediate pre-professional level for students who are or may become interested in Special Collections librarianship, museum curatorship, achives administration, or similar career paths; and offer opportunities to accumulate and document significant academic and work experience and accomplishment.

One Olson Fellow is selected each spring and offered a two-fiscal-year 50% Graduate Research Assistant appointment. As a graduate assistant, the Fellow earns a full-year stipend ($20,258 for 2008-2009); has fringe benefits, and qualifies for tuition support (at least $2,477 each semester assuming a course load of 9 or more hours); graduate assistants are classified by the University as residents of the State of Iowa for tuition purposes during the semesters they hold an appointment of 25% time or greater and any adjacent Summer Session in which they enroll. Graduate assistants must continue to be enrolled as students and forfeit the assistantship should they withdraw or graduate.

The full terms and conditions of employment in this position, including but not limited to wages and benefits, are governed by a collective bargaining agreement between the Board of Regents, State of Iowa, and UE Local 896/COGS, the union representing graduate teaching and research assistants at the University of Iowa. Copies of this collective bargaining agreement are available from the Union and may be viewed either from the University web site: http://www.uiowa.edu/hr/relations/Cogs/cogs.pdf or from the Union web site: http://www.cogs.org.

Each incoming Fellow will become familiar with all aspects of the operations of the Special Collections department and during their first year will take on a number of specific projects that involve rare books, manuscripts, and archival records. Their work will include assisting readers, answering queries, and locating materials. Projects may include bibliographic research, organization and description of collections, curating exhibitions, editing and building web pages and sites, or digitizing books and manuscripts.

In the second year of their appointments, Fellows will build on the experiences they have had in the first, and they will take on more explicitly management roles. Their first assignment, for example, will be to orient and train the incoming Fellow. They will also design and supervise projects that include other student assistants, and they will have opportunities to build a portfolio with deeper research (possibly resulting in publication), more complex exhibitions (actual or virtual), or more complex web presentations. Fellows are expected to make reasonable progress toward the academic goals they outline in their applications.

Fellows will be encouraged to take part in professional activities by attending meetings and conferences such as RBMS, MAC, SAA, ALA, ILA, or SHARP, a course at Rare Book School, or appropriate scholarly conferences. To support this, they will be guaranteed $750 each year to underwrite travel or conference expenses.

Olson Fellows are selected by competition. Candidates must be in a position to have completed at least one semester as a graduate student at the University of Iowa by the time they begin the Fellowship (i.e., have completed at least one semester of classes prior to application or be enrolled during the competition semester). Students in the School of Library and Information Science, in the University of Iowa Center for the Book, or the English, History, American Studies, and Art & Art History programs may have particular interest.

Each candidate must submit a résumé and a statement outlining their academic and career aspirations and describing how appointment as an Olson Fellow would specifically forward those aspirations. The statement is particularly important and should not exceed three (3) typed pages. References are not required (are indeed discouraged), but candidates are welcome to list one or two members of the University faculty or staff to contact should we have questions relevant to application.

Applications for the 2009-2011 Fellowship will first be accepted in mid- to late January 2009. Refer questions to: Sid Huttner, Head, Special Collections & University Archives, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, IA, 52242-1420 (319-335-5921), sid-huttner@uiowa.edu.