Today Gary Shaffer successfully defended his dissertation titled Leading Through Triple Bottom Line Sustainability: Five Companies Show Public Libraries The Way. Shaffer receives his Ph.D. in Managerial Leadership in the Information Professions from Simmons College in Boston.
For his dissertation, he interviewed sustainability practitioners at five Fortune Most Admired Companies to learn their best sustainability practices. He then interviewed four public library directors and one deputy director at five Library Journal Libraries of the Year, to see how those practices resonated with them and whether they had similar practices. He identified 12 practices public libraries could employ to begin their sustainability journey.
Shaffer's committee was chaired by James Matarazzo, Ph.D.. Other committee members were Toby Pearlstein, Ph.D. and Monica Colon Aguirre, Ph.D..