WVU Libraries

The Awards Committee of the West Virginia University Library Faculty Assembly has presented the Distinguished Service Award to David Roth, who retired December 31, 2021 as a digital education specialist in the Office of Curriculum and Instructional Support with 28 years of service to WVU.

Roth was nominated by his supervisor, Kelly Diamond, head of the Office of Curriculum and Instructional Support, for the “quality of his work, thoughtful and insightful feedback on projects, and for modeling collegiality in the workplace.”

Roth’s accomplishments have included expanding and implementing quality control for instruction, scheduling workflows, and creating and maintaining instructional guides for ULIB 101, which have earned frequent praise from the librarians who have used them to teach. He has tested digital learning objects against instructional design principles, ever mindful of reducing inequities in access and representation. 

Roth’s most outstanding qualification is his dedication. Applying internal improvements proactively, he has been generous with his time; for example, overcoming the challenges of remotely on-boarding a new Educational Specialist during the pandemic.

Roth has also engaged externally to promote the Libraries within the community; when he took the lead in the EBSCOSolar program to install solar panels on the Libraries, he was instrumental in every aspect of the initiative, from the grant application to taking measurements of the Evansdale Library roof. The care Roth has taken in all that he has done improves the Libraries’ sustainability, contributes to the well-being of librarians and their students, and equally exemplifies each point of the Libraries’ Strategic Goal to be collaborative, innovative and effective.