Leslin H. Charles, from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, and her colleague Lily Todorinova spoke about their project to support graduate students in the university. They wanted to hear from graduate students, who are often both students and staff at the institution. They wanted to understand what inclusion looked like from their perspective, and anything that hindered inclusion. It's impossible to tackle bias in AI without reflecting on bias in the profession. Rutgers University is situated in New Jersey, and is a very diverse institution in terms of students, but not in terms of staff.
Leslin and Lily wanted to employ a participatory research approach to centre LIS graduate student voices, and model inclusive practices. They wrote positionality statements to express their own backgrounds, which is one step towards recognising diversity of voices. There were three phases to the study: a survey, reflections on critical online readings and interviews. Key findings are that students who had experienced critical pedagogy had a stronger sense of belonging. Inclusion fell on the students themselves, rather than this being built into curricula characterised as "sink or swim". Effective instructors created environments that were approachable. Students said that librarians need to acknowledge the past, and that diversity, equality and inclusion must be integral to librarianship. There needs to be more opportunities for librarians of colour to succeed. Incusivity and critical pedagogy must be embedded into LIS programmes, and inclusivity must be included in institutional frameworks.
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