Virginia's Academic Library Consortium

 Photo by Kevin Grady

Petrina Jackson

Executive Director, Schlesinger Library

Librarian, Harvard Radcliffe Institute

Petrina Jackson began as the Lia Gelin Poorvu Executive Director of the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America and Librarian for the Harvard Radcliffe Institute November 2021. She was the director of the Special Collections Research Center (SCRC) at Syracuse University Libraries where she oversaw the Belfer Audio Laboratory and Archive, University Archives, and all curated collections. Before Syracuse, she served at Iowa State University as the head of Special Collections and University Archives. Prior to that, she served as the head of instruction and outreach at the University of Virginia’s Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, and senior assistant archivist for the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections at Cornell University. 

Jackson received a B.A. in English from the University of Toledo, an M.A. in English from Iowa State University, and a Master of Library and Information Science degree from the University of Pittsburgh. She is a widely recognized leader in the field by her active roles within the Society of American Archivists and the American Library Association’s Rare Books and Manuscripts Section.

Dr. Rhondda Robinson Thomas

Calhoun Lemon Professor of Literature

Clemson University

Rhondda Robinson Thomas is the Calhoun Lemon Professor of Literature at Clemson University where she teaches and researches early African American literature in the Department of English. Thomas has published Call My Name, Clemson: Documenting the Black Experience in an American University Community and recently signed a contract with University of Georgia Press to publish The Voices of Black Clemson: Silenced No More. She is currently serving as the Research and Community Engagement Coordinator for Clemson’s Woodland Cemetery and African American Burial Ground Historic Preservation project. Dr. Thomas is also the faculty director of the Call My Name project for which she was selected as a Whiting Foundation Public Engagement Fellow and has received grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and SC Humanities. She and three Clemson colleagues recently received a grant from the National Science Foundation for their My STEM, My Story project to create a graphic novel for children about environmental justice. She was Clemson University’s 2021 Senior Researcher of the Year and will receive the Fresh Voices in the Humanities award from South Carolina Humanities in October 2022.