This grant is from the Illinois State Library and Illinois Office of the Secretary of State. Projects are funded using general revenue funds allocated to the Secretary of State/Illinois State Library specifically for Open Education Resources. Governor Pritzker allotted about $3 million dollars to the Illinois State Library so that the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois (CARLI), which the Benedictine University Library is a member of, will get to take advantage of the grant resources. Benedictine University Library was awarded $132,716.00 in grant funds that will cover five Benedictine University faculty course projects to convert, revise, or create course materials into open sourced textbooks and ancillary materials for general education 1000 courses, including College Algebra, Writing 1101, World History before 1600, Islamic Literature, and Introduction to Business. This allows our students to not worry about the cost of course materials for these courses, which can be considerable. The grant stipulates that the courses must be taught with the newly adopted course materials by Spring of 2026, and then taught for a subsequent 3 years after that.
“The Benedictine University Library is very pleased to be awarded this Illinois State Library grant that is being administered through our library partner, CARLI. We hope that by 2026, the cost of a textbook is one less barrier to academic success for our incoming students. I’m grateful for the hard work of the faculty in the College of Science and Health, the College of Business, and the College of Liberal Arts who are dedicated to using quality open sourced materials for our courses.”
– Joy Matteson, University Librarian and Academic Support Center Director
