Graduate Library School Scholarship Winners
September 25, 2022
Alex Kohn
Gena Reynolds
Alex Kohn '19 and Gena Reynolds '15 are winners of the 2022 Friends of the Oberlin College Libraries Graduate Library School Scholarship. Each scholarship winner receives a $3,500 award.
Alex Kohn was born and raised in New York City, where they spent their entire life before attending Oberlin College. While at Oberlin, Alex worked with the theater community as the assistant stage manager for Family Happiness (Mainstage, 2016), as assistant director for Corpus Christi (Little Theater, 2016), as director for Stop Kiss (South Studios, 2017), and as dramaturg for Angels in America (Mainstage, 2018). Alex also directed The Glass Menagerie (Kander Theater, 2018). In 2018, Alex traveled to the "Writing Rights, Righting Wrongs: Transatlantic Narratives of Race History" conference in Ontario to present research on contrasting contemporary views of slavery among the founding fathers during the American Revolution. Alex graduated in 2019 with double majors in history and theater, plus an accidental minor in Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies. Since graduating, Alex has worked as a dog walker, canvasser for Planned Parenthood, and bookseller at an independent children's bookstore in New York City.
Alex just finished the first year at the University of Pittsburgh's School of Computing and Information Science, pursuing a Master's in Information and Library Science with a focus on young adult services. Alex currently works for the New York Public Library as a Young Adult Librarian Trainee in the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library.
Gena Reynolds grew up in Oberlin and graduated in 2015 with a history major. As a student, she worked at the Cat in the Cream and the Oberlin College Libraries' (OCL) Preservation Lab for four years. After graduating, Gena worked at the Oberlin Public Library for two years in Juvenile Services before returning to work at OCL in the Special Collections and Preservation departments in the fall of 2017. In her current position, she helps facilitate class visits to Special Collections that share the diverse materials in those collections with students and guests and supervises the Preservation Lab. Gena also works with the Libraries' communication team and the Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility (IDEA) committee. This summer, Gena attended Rare Book School, took a course on East Asian rare books, and began classes at Kent State University's Library and Information Science program. She hopes to continue to work in the areas of Special Collections and Preservation in the future.
The Friends of the Libraries Scholarship Committee: President Nathan Carpenter '20, Director of Libraries Valerie Hotchkiss, and College Archivist Ken Grossi.