From Activism to Archives: Remington Gillis' Unconventional Path to LSU School of Information Studies
July 17, 2025
When Remington Gillis decided to join LSU’s School of Information Studies (SIS), she wasn’t just enrolling in a degree program — she was continuing a lifelong journey marked by bold choices, global curiosity, and an unrelenting drive to do meaningful work. From studying in Germany as a teenager to archiving prison records in Louisiana, Remington’s path to SIS is anything but conventional — and it’s precisely what makes her story so compelling.
Remington's educational journey began in Texas where she grew up, but it quickly took an international turn when she decided she wanted to do something unconventional. In high school, she spent a year studying abroad in Germany through the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange program. The experience sparked a love for global education and independent learning, even though she ended up being held back a year in the U.S. because her German academic credits weren’t accepted. “The German 101 credit really doesn’t count,” she joked, “even if you take it in Germany.”
That didn’t slow her down. After high school, Remington joined the inaugural class at Duke Kunshan University in China — a brand-new international collaboration between Duke University and Wuhan University just outside of Shanghai. “They literally flew us out to convince us it wasn’t a scam,” she laughed. As part of the founding class, she helped shape the campus culture, start clubs, and even rewrite policies. In 2022, she graduated with a dual degree: one accredited in the U.S. and one in China.
When COVID-19 disrupted life in China, Remington returned to Omaha, Nebraska, where she threw herself into documentary filmmaking during the 2020 George Floyd protests. She began volunteering as a street medic, offering first aid to protesters, and later used her media background to document local civil rights stories — stories she felt weren’t getting told. “I became close with the family of a protester who was killed,” she said. “We created a private documentary together to preserve their memories and challenge how he was being portrayed in the media.”
That experience — working closely with marginalized communities, navigating historical archives, and amplifying unheard voices — planted the seeds for her eventual turn toward information studies. “I had to dig through newspaper archives and local museum records to understand Omaha’s history of racial violence,” she related. “That’s when I realized the power of archives.”
In 2022, Remington moved to Baton Rouge to teach elementary school as part of Teach for America, which eventually brought her to LSU as a graduate student. Teach for America pays for your master's degree program, and while this is usually to encourage teachers to get their master's degree in education, Remington had other plans. “I didn’t want a degree in education. I wanted something that aligned with my research interests and allowed me to keep playing rugby,” she stated. “The SIS program made that possible.”
She enrolled in LSU’s Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) program with two additional graduate certificates, juggling full-time teaching, graduate coursework, and competitive rugby. “The asynchronous structure of SIS was the only way I could make it work,” she said. “I’d wake up at 5:30, go teach, get home around 4:30. Then, rugby practice from 7 to 9, and somewhere in between, I’d study.”
Despite the schedule, she excelled. Her work in the program deepened her passion for information systems and archival research, helping her connect the dots between her documentary projects and academic pursuits. “SIS gave me the tools to understand and preserve records in a way I never could before,” she stated.
One of Remington’s most powerful projects as a SIS student was her summer internship with the Angola Prison Museum, guided by SIS Interim Director Dr. Edward Benoit, PhD. After attending the Angola Prison Rodeo out of curiosity, Remington struck up conversations with incarcerated men through a penpal program and learned the museum's archive was in disarray — boxes of records unsorted and inaccessible.
“I contacted the museum and offered to help. You learned a lot about archiving in this program, but it can be difficult to get hands-on experience when you're working full time. So I took the opportunity and it was amazing. I did the best that I could and it was an extremely useful experience.”
With Dr. Benoit’s support, she conducted inventory, digitized VHS tapes, and — most importantly — built a relationship with an incarcerated museum worker. “He helped me identify people and places I never could have figured out on my own. It changed the way I think about power dynamics in archiving,” she said.
Her work raised important ethical questions about working with incarcerated individuals in museum contexts — questions she found are rarely addressed in the academic literature. With SIS faculty like Dr. Benoit and Dr. Thiele backing her research, Remington explored the boundaries of archival ethics and the responsibilities of those who manage historical narratives. “They believed in me," she said smiling, "even when I didn’t know what direction to take.”
Amid all of this, Remington also played for the LSU women’s rugby team, helping them win the Lone Star Conference in 2024. Her work there earned her a spot as a player for the Lone Star Armadillos, a select team from the conference, and they won the 2025 All-Star 7s National Cup tournament. As a forward, she played through injuries — including a fractured tibia she didn’t notice until weeks later — and balanced sports with academics and work. “It’s like football, but harder,” she explained. “No pads, no breaks — just 80 minutes of nonstop effort.”
Now retired from play, she’s joining the team’s coaching staff next season, continuing to contribute to the sport she’s grown to love. With her MLIS completed, Remington is now setting her sights on law school, hoping to merge her archival knowledge with legal training. When asked about where she sees herself far into the future, nothing is too high a goal for the girl who can do anything she sets her mind to. "I could see myself one day working for Doctors without Borders," she said. "My experiences and time abroad has really left me wanting to help people, so I would love to one day do that".
No matter where Gillis ends up, she is thankful for the skills taught to her through SIS's programs.
“This degree has built the foundation for how I'm going to conduct my research in the future and how I access and think of information, no matter what career I'm in. Right now I'm an elementary school teacher and this degree supports the work that I'm doing in education. I am definitely planning to go to law school and I think that having knowledge in archives will help me a lot. I'm very much looking forward to having the MLIS side of things like the records, information management knowledge going into law and being able to not have to have my hand held through what records management is. I'm like, no, I got this.”
Throughout every chapter of her life — from international education to frontline activism, from teaching third graders to archiving prison records — Remington Gillis has remained grounded in a singular mission: preserving truth, empowering people, and asking tough questions. At LSU’s School of Information Studies, she found the flexibility, mentorship, and academic rigor to connect her diverse interests and prepare for what’s next.
About the LSU School of Information Studies
The LSU School of Information Studies (SIS) provides a 100% online prestigious education in library & information science. It is the home of the Master of Library & Information Science, which is the only program accredited by the American Library Association in the state of Louisiana. SIS also offers a dual degree with the Department of History, an undergraduate minor, and three graduate certificate options. SIS is a member of the iSchools, a group of Information Schools dedicated to advancing the information field. SIS is part of the LSU College of Human Sciences & Education.
Visit the School of Information Studies website.