Emporia Diversity Initiative:

Improving Access to Underserved Populations

EDI students in the MLS program are encouraged to tailor assignments in their classes (e.g. 802: Diagnosis and Customization; 811: Analysis of Information Needs and Evaluation of Services; 833: Services to Special Populations) to enable them design, implement and evaluate services to under-served groups in their communities.

These groups could be minority racial, ethnic and/or linguistic communities, international students or people with disabilities.

These assignments may also be undertaken as independent studies under the supervision of faculty and professional librarian mentors.

It is expected that such projects would be written up by the students and their mentors and jointly presented at the EDI Leadership Institute, and state or national conferences.

The EDI is designed to recruit and educate minority librarians for service in Kansas, Colorado and Oregon in a bid to increase the capacity of libraries in these states to meet the needs of their increasingly diverse populations. The EDI seeks to adopt aggressive retention strategies to stem the attrition rate of minority librarians in these states, using the “grow your own” approach recommended by their own state library studies of local staff needs.

The EDI has 10 unique features:

•  Non-traditional student friendly : Students can retain their library jobs and attend classes at weekends. Attempts are made to coordinate their class and job assignments to enhance translation of theory into practice under the tutelage of faculty and librarian-supervisor mentors.

•  Academic support services : Almost 83% of the IMLS grant is devoted to students' academic and professional support, including intrusive advising and counseling services, peer tutoring and coaching, and language, academic writing and IT training workshops as necessary, as well as attendance at professional conferences and leadership institutes.

•  Convenient class delivery site and format: Classes are delivered within the students' home state during weekends, supplemented with web-based interactions, and coordinated with library work experience, including services to a traditionally under-served community.

•  Learning communities : Student cohorts at each site provide them access to a learning community, as well as retention of familial, social and professional support systems in their home states.

•  Mentorship program : Each student is paired with one faculty and one librarian-supervisor mentor who monitor the academic and professional growth and challenges of their wards and provide requisite support, and recommend remedial coaching and training to ensure retention and graduation.

•  Outreach services to under-served communities : Each MLS student is required to tailor one class assignment to design, implement and evaluate an information service for a traditionally under-served group in his or her library's community.

•  Leadership training : All EDI students will participate in an annual Leadership Institute, among other learning opportunities, as well as undertake projects in traditionally under-served communities. The outcomes of these experiences will include joint conference presentations and journal publications with their mentors.

•  Assessment: The evaluation program uses quantitative and qualitative approaches to assess longitudinal changes in students' academic and professional knowledge, skills and attitudes, with opportunities for remediation where necessary.

•  Workforce retention : EDI students who are library staff sign assurances to work for their employers for at least two years after graduation, while non-library staff undertake library internships in partner libraries, and commit to serve for at least two years in any library in the EDI tri-state region after graduation.

•  Placement : A placement system would secure library employment for non-library staff and a faculty position for the doctoral graduate who would in turn assist in recruiting and mentoring a second cycle of minority students.