Library Dean Sara Baron (right) presents the certificate of Librarian Emeritus to Leanne.
At the end of June a long-time faculty member and valued colleague of the Library will retire after 32 years of dedicated service. Associate Dean and Head of Systems Dr. Leanne Strum arrived at then CBN University in January 1984. Here in her own words, Dr. Strum describes the confluence of the early years of the University Library with the beginning of her career as an academic librarian:
At 19 I realized that I wanted to be a librarian. I graduated from the University of Tennessee in 1977 with a BS degree in business administration and in 1980 with a Master of Library Information and Science. On January 3, 1984 I joined the faculty of CBN University. The Library building was in the final phase of construction. In March 1984 the Library staff, faculty, students and facility services moved all of the books and other resources into the building. It was and still is an amazing Library.
During her years at Regent, Leanne has served in nearly every area of the Library including leadership positions as Head of Technical Services, Head of Systems, Coordinator of the Information Research and Resources course, and Associate Dean of the University Library.
An important part of Leanne’s vocation has been teaching information literacy and preparing the next generation of librarians. In 1992 she earned an MBA at Regent and in 2005 a Ph.D. in Information Science from Nova Southeastern University. She has developed and taught business research courses at Regent and Averett University and library science courses for Catholic University and San Jose State University.
Leanne’s husband, Colonel Daniel Strum recently retired from the U.S. Army, where he served as a medical doctor at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Washington, DC. Leanne says that they have several trips planned and are looking forward to sailing the Chesapeake Bay on their catamaran Vitamin Sea. When not traveling or on the water, the Strums are likely to be found at their home in Suffolk watching dolphins swim up and down the Nansemond River or working in Col. Strum’s extraordinary vegetable garden. Leanne will also continue the work she has just started for Quilts of Valor Foundation, an organization made up of 10,000 volunteers who sew healing “quilts of valor” for combat service members and veterans touched by war.
For more than three decades of devoted service to Regent University and the library profession, the Regent Board of Trustees voted in April of this year to confer on Dr. Strum the title Librarian Emeritus. Although the faculty and staff of the Library will miss our colleague and friend upon her retirement, we rejoice with Leanne as she begins a new chapter in her life. Well done, thou good and faithful servant!