Members of the ARL Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee and their designees have chosen 15 master of library and information science (MLIS) students to participate in the 2018–2020 Initiative to Recruit a Diverse Workforce (IRDW) as ARL Diversity Scholars.
Funded by ARL member libraries and EBSCO Information Services, the IRDW offers financial support to program participants as well as leadership development through the ARL Annual Leadership Symposium, a formal mentoring program, career placement assistance, and a site visit to an ARL member library. This program reflects the commitment of ARL members to address the historical underrepresentation of many racial and ethnic groups within the research library and archives workforce. The IRDW helps create a diverse professional community that will better meet the needs of researchers, students, and other constituencies whose demographics and perspectives are quickly evolving.
“I am ecstatic about the selection of the 2018–2020 IRDW cohort of Diversity Scholars,” said Erik Ponder, African studies librarian at Michigan State University and member of the IRDW selection committee. “This cohort comprises a dynamic group of students with tremendous personal achievements. The future of the academic library profession looks exceedingly bright!”
The 2018–2020 ARL Diversity Scholars are:
- Christina Denise Bush, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Ben B. Chiewphasa, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Helen Y. Chu, Rutgers University
- Reza Davallow Ghajar, University of British Columbia
- Hadeer Elsbai, Queens College, CUNY
- Natalia Estrada, Kent State University
- Patrice Green, University of South Carolina
- Joan Hua, University of Washington
- Phillip Thomas MacDonald, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- Milton Ricardo Antonio Machuca-Gálvez, Rutgers University
- Jamie Lee Morin, University of Toronto
- Regen Le Roy, University of Michigan
- Janis Joyce Shearer, St. Catherine University
- Zakir Jamal Suleman, University of British Columbia
- Nam Jin Yoon, University of Washington
For more information about the IRDW, visit the ARL Initiative to Recruit a Diverse Workforce website.
About the Association of Research Libraries
The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) is a nonprofit organization of 125 research libraries in Canada and the US whose mission is to advance research, learning, and scholarly communication. The Association fosters the open exchange of ideas and expertise, promotes equity and diversity, and pursues advocacy and public policy efforts that reflect the values of the library, scholarly, and higher education communities. ARL forges partnerships and catalyzes the collective efforts of research libraries to enable knowledge creation and to achieve enduring and barrier-free access to information. ARL is on the web at ARL.org.
