Valmai Kirkham Fenster Award
of the
School of Library and Information Studies
University of Wisconsin – Madison
presented to
Dorothea Salo
for outstanding promise of
exceptional scholarly contribution to the profession
2004(signed) Louise S. Robbins
Director, School of Library and Information Studies
I know a bit more about Valmai Fenster now, so I’ll share. She was from New Zealand (yes, it is a small world, isn’t it?), and taught at SLIS only a few years before succumbing to cancer. Her students remember her fondly; one who was at my conference on Thursday came up to chat with me about her afterwards. Likewise, her colleagues have nothing but good to say about her. I am proud to have even this tenuous connection with her.
The graduation went off without a hitch—or, at least, the hitches were so minor as to be unexceptionable. (Running out of cake was the biggie. Have to do something about that next year.) Graduates, faculty, and staff were endlessly cute in their caps and robes. Speeches were delivered well and did not go on too long. No song from Charles Bunge, alas! but one can’t have everything. And the weather simply could not have been nicer.
My sincerest congratulations to Nichole, Steve, and all the other 2004 SLIS graduates and award winners!
