karen sobel and zachary newell - academic libraries as centers of equity on campus - bobcatsss 2017
TRANSCRIPT
Academic Libraries as Centers of Equity on Campus
BOBCATSSS 2017 Conference / Tampere, Finland
Karen Sobel / University of Colorado Denver, [email protected]
Zachary Newell / Salem State University, Massachusetts, [email protected]
KarenDenver, Colorado
ZachSalem,
Massachusetts
1972 miles apart!
Our belief
Academic libraries have tremendous potential to create greater equity and social justice. Libraries can work to create an environment where students openly share thoughts and needs and connect with each other. By supporting this openness and these connections, we support their success in education and in life.
Learning Outcomes
1) Learn about and discuss theoretical concepts of third space, social justice, and equity.2) Share examples and ideas related to supporting students through concepts of third space, social justice, and equity in their home libraries.3) Identify groups within their own universities’ student populations that would benefit from greater support of third space, social justice, and equity.4) Each participant will make a detailed plan for one action that his or her library could take in order to increase equity toward a particular student group. Interested participants will be invited to share results with the group in late Spring 2017.
Bibliotheca AlexandrinaAlexandria, Egypt
Let’s Talk About It: Muslim Journeys
Collaborations Through Library
• Programming around Islam• Lectures, Discussions
• Model from First Year Reading Experience (FYRE)• Reading circles, Master classes
• Integrating dialogue into class• Teachable moments—research and resources
External Collaborators (Reaching Out)•Rotary Club of Marblehead•Guest speakers—Rotary and our library•Establishing clubs in Iraq
• Friends Forever• Programming through our library•Building Peace• Israel/Palestinian Youth
Task Force on Comprehensive
Internationalization (2014-2015)Charge: advance students' intellectual,
personal and professional growth through the expansion of global awareness and engagement.
Focus: curricular and co-curricular activities, student and faculty mobility, international partnerships, and the recruitment, retention and engagement of international students and scholars.
International Task Force:Research/Creative Activities•Co-Chair: Comprehensively explore opportunities and barriers for international research and creative activities among student, faculty and staff
•2016: Culminated in First Internationalization Strategic Plan
•Ten-week summer program—June 28, 2015 through September 6, 2015. Institutions interested in hosting must submit a proposal to host scholars in one of the following disciplines:
•TEFL/Applied Linguistics: Applied linguistics and teaching of English as a foreign or second language.
Glimpses and a Closer Look
Context and participants
•Iraqi “Junior scholars”
•Multidisciplinary team
•Campus and community members
CU Denver’s ESL Academy
•CU Denver has students from 130 countries enrolled.
• The ESL Academy provides English language immersion prior to beginning a degree program.
• The library provides instruction in research methods during the English language immersion program. Needs have emerged over time.
CU Denver’s Auraria Library
Salem StateNew Library and Learning
Commons
Creating Space (Third Space)
•Develop ways of working with increasingly diverse populations in increasingly dynamic contexts
•Space of cultural, social, and epistemological change •Environment must be rich in inquiry rather than one dominated by process
Critical Literacy
Paulo Freire – Critical Literacy and Information LiteracyWorking with Cultural Differences
• Critical literacy assumes that teaching of literacy is never neutral but always embraces a particular ideology or perspective.
• Critical literacy supports a strong democratic system grounded in equity and shared decision-making.
• Critical literacy assumes that the literacy instruction can empower and lead transformative action
Terrain of the Third Space
“It is in this space that we will find those words with which we can speak of Ourselves and Others. And by exploring this hybridity, this ‘Third Space’, we may elude the politics of polarity and emerge as the others of our selves.”
Homi Bhabha, 1994. The Location of Culture.
Mentoring
•Personal•Applying to Graduate Programs• Initiation into the University and Research•Ex: Credible and Incredible: Manufacturing of messages through language
•Teaching
Negotiating Identities
•Power is different between two or more cultures
• Identities undergo extreme flux
•Must constantly be negotiated and re-negotiated
•“Misreadings” and “misappropriation”
Understanding and Opportunity
“where the local and the global can co-mingle and new understandings can emerge”
“although the global/local interface constitutes a zone of tension, it can, in the realm of education, become an area of creative opportunity.”
(George and Lewis. 2011)
Making Plans
Questions to answer on your own:
•What group am I helping?
•What are specific goals or problems that I want to approach?
Making Plans
More questions to answer on your own:•What do I need to learn in order to make plans?•Who do I need to talk with?•students or others in the group I’m helping•colleagues•experts on campus or in my workplace
•Is there anyone who needs to give me permission?
Making Plans
Work with your group to:•Help each other to come up with ideas & to answer the above questions.
•Make a plan for checking in and supporting each other. (Decide how you want to communicate!)
•Come up with a beginning timeline. Plan to make significant progress by early May. We will check in halfway in March, and then again in May.
Making Plans
Share ideas with the full group.
What themes are emerging?
In Early March…
•Please plan to write up a page or so on how your project is progressing. Include notes on anything that you need help with.
•Post your document to ______. We will meet synchronously at _______ on _______. If you would like to verbally share your progress and/or ask for help, please let Zach and Karen know ahead of time.
In Early May…
•Please plan to write up a page or so on how your project is progressing. Include notes on anything that you need help with. We intend that projects will be completed or almost completed by this time. However, if you have decided to go even farther with your project, or if you just need more time, that’s fine! Let’s talk about it. Please share any results that you’ve achieved so far.•Post your document to ______. We will meet synchronously at _______ on _______. If you would like to verbally share your progress and/or ask for help, please let Zach and Karen know ahead of time.
Keep in Touch!
Support each other through our Facebook group at:
Email Karen ([email protected]) or Zach ([email protected]).