Ada Emmett


Ada Emmett
  • Acting University Ombuds

Contact Info

Dole HDC, Suite 3079

Biography

Ada Emmett became the Acting University Ombuds in January 2021. She joined the Ombuds Office as the Faculty Ombuds in July 2019, serving the university community of students, staff, and faculty.

Ada has been at KU for over 19 years and is a tenured member of the faculty in the library. Starting at the assistant level, Ada was tenured in 2008, to associate, and in 2016 to full librarian, (full professor equivalent).

As a member of the faculty, Ada held several faculty governance roles, including the Library Faculty and Professionals Assembly governance chair (2009-2010); library governance executive board; and served three years as a faculty senator to the University Faculty Senate, (2008-2011) as well as a year on its executive committee, FacEx, (2009-2010). She served on numerous university-wide committees over the years. Her primary work and research in the libraries focused on the scholarly publishing system and equity and access issues related to that system.

Ada concluded a meaningful sabbatical in the Fall 2018, “Sophisticated Forms of Cooperation”, that shifted her professional focus to how communities and diverse groups can come together to solve complex, dynamic, so called, “wicked” problems. One branch of her sabbatical work focused on training to support individuals in their communities to resolve conflict.

As a result of her sabbatical explorations, she completed the State of Kansas approved training in Core Mediation at Johnson County Community College and Restorative Justice training in June 2019; and in October 2020 completed the International Ombudsman Association’s Foundation Training for new ombuds. She continues to explore alternative dispute resolution and coaching practices in her new role as ‘Acting University Ombuds’, and is an active member of two university ombuds discussion and practice teams that partner together to support university ombuds across the Midwest.

Education

M.S. in Library and Information Science, University of Michigan
B.A. in Linguistics, University of Michigan