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Thursday, January 24th; 4:30 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. Ballroom D-E
Special Session: “What of Diversity? (Always the Beautiful, and Essential, Question): An Ignite Session on Ideas You Can Use To Advance Diversity”
- Co-sponsored by the ALISE Diversity Statement Task Force & ALISE Multicultural, Ethnic, and Humanistic Concerns SIG
Moderator: Shari Lee, Member, ALISE Diversity Statement Task Force, St. John’s University
Presenters:
Renate Chancellor, Catholic University of America
Clara Chu, University of North Carolina Greensboro
Sam Hastings, USC
Ricardo Punzalan, Maryland
Howard Rodriguez-Mori, Florida State University
Loriene Roy, Texas-Austin
Mega Subramaniam, Maryland
ABSTRACT
Background
While the Multicultural, Ethnic and Humanistic Concerns SIG celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2010, guidance does not yet exist from ALISE to its membership on how it is to address diversity in relation to research and teaching in the library and information field. The ALISE membership does, however, have guidance on ethics with the adoption of the ALISE Ethics Guidelines Statement in 2010. ALISE has appointed a task force to pursue the development of an ALISE diversity statement. Input was obtained at the 2012 ALISE conference in a dialogue session to vet the Task Force’s draft diversity statement. The session examined how to define diversity, what should be encompassed in a diversity statement, and the role such a statement is expected to have on ALISE and its membership.
An Ignite Session
This year the Task Force will present the diversity statement for approval, and it is often the case that such statements are an exercise of word crafting but do not result in implementation. We propose a session that will move the statement from merely words to action, to be comprised of two parts: (a) introduction of the ALISE Diversity Statement and next steps, and (b) an “ignite” session on diversity action that one can readily implement in the classroom, scholarship or institution. The Ignite approach provides participants five minutes to speak about their topic, accompanied by 20 slides. Each slide is displayed for 15 seconds, and slides are automatically advanced. A Q&A session will follow the presentations.
We are asking participants to present a DIY idea/activity/plan that will advance diversity across the curriculum, research, composition of faculty and/or students, administratively and other areas of LIS education. Oftentimes faculty or administrators do not feel they have the background or expertise to advance a diversity agenda individually or at their home institution, this session will address this gap by having each presenter share an idea that is straightforward and readily implementable. Each presentation will be recorded so the slide show and the presentation will be available on the web for ALISE members and LIS faculty at-large to use after the conference. They will constitute the initial set of diversity resources that the Task Force will propose ALISE to continue to expand.