Diversity in LIS Education: Continuing the Conversation

Our project is an investigation into the present state of diversity content in LIS curricula. This investigation is a reflection of our interest in engaging with the field and how we and future graduates of MLIS programs have been shaped by both our educations and the world around us. We wish to engage in this conversation because LIS professionals are embedded in their communities at a level that requires a working knowledge of how to work comfortably and competently with diverse populations. While LIS programs do an excellent job of ensuring that their graduates have the technical skills and educational background necessary to cope with the changing technologies in their chosen profession, the interpersonal side of the curriculum often falls by the wayside due to the time constraints inherent in graduate degree programs, lack of funding, and number of core courses required to complete the MLIS degree. We have chosen to limit the scope of our project to a survey and interviews at the top five schools with LIS programs in the United States, according to the 2013 US News and World Report. We intend to interview at least one relevant person at each of the schools which we have selected for our study. We will consolidate this data to produce a comprehensive overview of the gaps in coverage of diversity, as we see it, with reference to the University of Oregon???s diversity definition: The concept of diversity encompasses acceptance and respect. It means understanding that each individual is unique, and recognizing our individual differences. These can be along the dimensions of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, age, physical abilities, religious beliefs, political beliefs, or other ideologies (http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~asuomca/diversityinit/definition.html ). We plan to present a poster discussing our goals, research methodology, study questions, and preliminary results of our information gathering. The curriculum II.3.4 responds to the needs of a diverse society including the needs of underserved groups (This is from the ALA accreditation standards for LIS programs).Ope