UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Diane Zabel, The Louis and Virginia Benzak Business Librarian and head librarian, is the recipient of the 2015 President’s Award for Engagement with Students. The award is given to a faculty member who goes beyond his or her responsibilities to engage and encourage students in learning. The honorees have made themselves available to interact with students outside class, link students to opportunities and help them build their confidence as learners and potential contributors to society.
A nominator said Zabel has been reaching out, engaging and challenging students to understand information and to think critically about where it comes from for more than 25 years. In the past decade, she’s personally educated more than 11,000 students, provided hundreds of hours of individual research consultations and also assigned librarians to Smeal College of Business and Schreyer Honors College.
“She always thinks creatively about the kinds of services and organization that we need moving forward in the 21st century to support student and faculty successes,” said a nominator. “Legions of students have benefited from her assistance.”
In 2013, Zabel spearheaded an initiative to pair “research consultants” with Management 301 students completing industry research analysis projects. Students who saw a librarian, on average, performed better than those who did not. She also created a statistical consulting service, which tasks a graduate student with advising patrons on research design, data collection, data manipulation and statistical analysis. The position proved to be so successful it has become a fixed-term position with the University.
Zabel received master’s degrees in library and information science and urban planning from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.