Named for long-time UK Libraries director Paul A. Willis, the Willis Award is given annually to a UK Libraries faculty member who stands out amongst their colleagues through outstanding achievements in their primary assignment and exemplary leadership, creativity, and spirit of service.
Faculty members are nominated by their colleagues and selected by the National Advisory Board. Winners receive a cash award and are recognized at the annual UK Libraries National Advisory Board’s Spring Celebration.
View all of our past Willis Award recipients, and learn more about our most recent winners below.
Since beginning her career at UK Libraries in 2001, Dr. Stacey Greenwell has served in a variety of roles, including Associate Dean for Academic Affairs & Research, the first Director of the Hub, and the Head of Desktop Support. She is currently the Coordinator of Educational Services as well as an instructional designer and liaison to the College of Communication & Information and the Lewis Honors College. Greenwell is a Fellow of the Special Libraries Association (SLA), the founder of the SLA Academic Division, and co-editor of the community’s journal, Practical Academic Librarianship. She has co-authored numerous books on librarianship and instructional design and taught academic libraries courses at UK and Syracuse University.
Akhila Nadimpalli
Ruth Bryan serves as University Archivist at the UK Libraries Special Collections Research Center, where she has worked since 2011. She leads donor relations, archival appraisal, collection management, and public services and outreach for University of Kentucky records and related collections. Bryan is a co-creator and organizer of the History Allies: Helping Protect Your Past workshops, the co-founder and organizer of UK Libraries’ web archiving program, and the co-founder and organizer of the statewide Kentucky Heritage Emergency Response Network (KHERN). She publishes and presents nationally and internationally in the areas of archival appraisal, web archiving, university history, and archival management. A Certified Archivist, she has worked as a professional archivist for 23 years.
Crystal Heis
Jennifer A. Bartlett, Oral History Librarian at the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History, has served UK Libraries since 2010. Throughout her tenure, Bartlett has brought her leadership, creativity, and expertise to departments across the organization, serving as Head of Circulation, Head of Reference Services, and Interim Associate Dean for Teaching, Learning, & Research, among other positions. Her scholarly contributions have made an impact not only on UK Libraries, but on the broader profession. Bartlett is the author of Knowledge Management: A Practical Guide for Librarians (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021) and the co-editor of Libraries that Learn: Keys to Managing Organizational Knowledge (ALA Editions, 2019). She is the editor-in-chief of Kentucky Libraries and the co-editor of Practical Academic Librarianship.
