So what kinds of literacies do we expect students to have after they graduate from Bucknell? The College Core Curriculum is one place to start the discussion. The CCC was last revised in 2009 and provides for 4 broad educational goals for the university: intellectual skills, tools for critical engagement, disciplinary perspectives, and disciplinary depth. Each of these goals is met by specific courses or programs. Intellectual skills include a foundation seminar, lab science, integrate perspective courses, and a foreign language. Tools for critical engagement are addressed through topics on diversity in the U.S., global connections, environmental connections, and quantitative reasoning. The disciplinary perspectives are fulfilled by distribution requirements to take courses from arts and humanities, natural science and mathematics, and the social sciences. Disciplinary depth includes the major, a culminating experience, and academic conventions of writing, speaking, and information literacy.
The CCC document says that writing, speaking, and information literacy are to be incorporated in the major programs undertaken by students. It provides additional guidance on specific learning outcomes associated with information literacy: articulation and selection of resources, search strategies, critical evaluation, and the effective use of technology.
The library is deeply engaged in information literacy work throughout Bucknell. In order to support the information literacy needs of faculty and students, the research services staff adopted the 2015 Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education developed by the Association of College and Research Libraries. The framework is built around six frames: authority is constructed and contextual, information creation as a process, information has value, research as inquiry, scholarship as conversation, and searching as strategic exploration.
The Bucknell learning outcomes are influenced by the earlier standards from the ACRL which were published in 2000. The new framework proposed by the ACRL in 2015 is being adopted within Bucknell and elsewhere. The ultimate impact of this new framework on information literacy is still undetermined.