|
Cheery Friday Greetings!
As you may know, this past summer I was contacted by Cornell professor Dr. Jennifer Majka regarding a capstone course, AEM 3015--Developing Racial Equity in Organizations. Her students were required to work with a community partner on a project involving diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice—and she wanted to know if we’d like to participate. "Absolutely!" had been my response. She'd been pointed my way by a member of a local belonging/antiracist group.
After initially meeting with the group of four students and presenting several options for projects (also asking for their ideas), they decided to take on the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Self-Assessment Audit for Library Systems, which was initially adapted from Dr. Kawanna Bright’s instrument by SCRLC’s DEIJ Advisory Committee.
Some members of SCRLC's Board of Trustees, staff, and DEIJ Advisory Committee had beta-tested the instrument over the summer. The beta test revealed that there was still much work to be done to make it a truly useful, clear instrument, and participants had provided great feedback. One of our Board members, Dr. Gaby Castro Gessner, Director of Cornell University Library’s Assessment and Planning, added her expertise to the mix and met with us, as well.
The students' first recommendation was to remove the word “audit” from the title—too imposing and scary! They broke down and re-articulated any of the questions that were ambiguous, confusing, leading, etc.; eliminated the ratings scale where yes/no would suffice; and developed a glossary, e.g. what do we mean by “internal” or “external?”; or, who is "administration" and "leadership?" Board? Director? Department managers?
This past Monday, after a semester of late afternoon Thursday Zoom meetings, we all were finally able to meet in person at their capstone project presentation to their classmates, faculty, and community partners. The students were wonderful to work with and brought great ideas to the table. I am going to miss working with them.
The next step will be to share their recommendations with the DEIJ Advisory Committee, make any further tweaks, and try the survey again. Ultimately, we expect that it is going to be a useful assessment tool for library consortia, and also adaptable to individual organizations, though I would still recommend Dr. Bright's instrument (especially for academic libraries) and the ALA equity scorecard.
Yours in partnership,
Mary-Carol Lindbloom
Executive Director
| 
