MILE hosts awareness week

UTM’s new MILE Program (Maximum Information Literacy Excellence) hosted an awareness week last week to get students on board for its beginning. for its reaccreditation occurring in the fall of 2013.

MILE is part of the reaccreditation process taking place on campus in fall of 2013, making sure students’ degrees are still valid.  
UTM chose information literacy as the new program to advance the education of its students.

“Information literacy is being able to locate and evaluate your sources and determining whether or not the source is useful. … It’s not about finding your sources, it’s about figuring out if they are credible or not,” said Erin Chestnut, the student director of MILE and a senior Communications major.      

The program launched Wednesday with a booth in the UC to tell students about the program and upcoming events. Chestnut handed out T-shirts and other small prizes to inform students about the program.  

Thursday’s event consisted of three sessions led by Karen White, a librarian at Paul Meek Library. Before the sessions began, Chestnut greeted students at the door to give them a Stamp Card in order for them to participate in the contest to win a free iPad in November.  

Afterwards, White began sessions in the Media Room, educating the audience on a new program, Literati, that goes along with MILE.  
With Literati, students can type in a research topic and immediately have over 700 encyclopedia and dictionary sources readily available.  

“Mind Map” is another feature students receive when using Literati. This feature helps students think outside of the box and find helpful sources they normally would not look for.  

“Source Scramble” was Thursday night’s event. Clement Hall was scattered with all types of sources written on slips of paper, and students enthusiastically scrambled all over the building in order to find credible sources.   

Chestnut has big plans for the future of the MILE Program. Even though the program does not officially launch until next fall, it is important to begin getting students on board and educated about the program.  

Up next for the program is a poster contest that begins on Oct. 17. The idea behind the contest is to request students to visually represent what information literacy means to them and put that onto a canvas.  As a reward for their effort, the winner of the contest will receive the book “I Heart Design” by Steven Heller.

An event for faculty and student honor societies will be on Oct. 29 and 30. The library will have presentations for each college, demonstrating how to best use the program for their discipline. It is a way to introduce the program to faculty and give them the tools to implement it into the classroom and their students’ research.

Nov. 13 from 2 p.m. until 4:30 p.m., there will be a Research Fair in Paul Meek Library.  Students that have taken part in the Stamp Cards for the semester should bring their cards to this event. Those students present will have their name put into the drawing of the iPad.   

The MILE Program is a program for students, built by students, that teaches information that will be useful long after graduation.  

To learn more or keep updated with events, follow the program on Facebook and Twitter. You can find general information at utm.edu/qep or contact Erin Chestnut at mileprogram@utm.edu.