 Diversity programs and leadership initiatives appreciating the past and looking to the future remarks by Mark Puente at the 160th ARL membership meeting convened by Nancy Baker. This afternoon Mark Puente who you all know ARL's Director of Diversity and Leadership will share some information with you a review that we've done on the ARL diversity programs, the accomplishments and future goals. For those of you particularly who are new I might point out that ARL's diversity program has been an integral part of ARL's agenda since 1990 and but the more formalized programs that most of you are familiar with were established in 1997 that was with the inaugural opening of the leadership and career development program and although there are many organizations that do diversity none have an emphasis on the strategic needs of academic and research libraries as the ARL diversity programs have done. I think you're going to hear from Mark that the impact of the programs has been wide and far-reaching and just as large complex research libraries tackle all the issues that we've been talking about at this meeting so ARL's efforts to serve as an exemplary program for the diversity recruitment and leadership development and research in academic libraries I think if not for the profession in general and that's one of our of course overriding goals. This afternoon's program is really very timely as the leadership and excuse me diversity and leadership committee is going to be looking to the future and come to you with an important goal for continued success which I'll talk about a little bit later after Mark's gone through the information that we want to share with you. So here's Mark. Thank you Nancy if I forget to forward any slides please someone shoot off a flare or something. So thanks for not going to Michigan Avenue and buying shoes I kind of wish I were there doing exactly that. I had hoped to kind of begin today's presentation with some interesting provocative story something with an interesting maybe you know some intrigue in there but of course with that unexpected funny punchline in other words something right out of Jim Neal's playbook from that school of oratory and declamation or maybe it's the Jimmy Neal school of oratory and declamation I'm not certain but anyway it's a real place. But lastly my creative juices just weren't working today but I would however like to begin my presentation just with a small personal story a little bit about me. I hope many if not all of you know by now that prior to my life as an academic librarian as a music librarian I lived in San Antonio, Texas. I was raised there I lived most of my childhood and much of my adult life there. San Antonio is a tremendously colorful city in every respect it's extremely diverse very rich food high content high fat content food but it's also highly integrated with respect to the racial and ethnic communities that live and thrive there. It was first reported in 1990 that the Latino and Hispanic population of San Antonio for the first time surpassed the percentage of those in the population who identified as white or Caucasian whatever classification you prefer. But you know just much earlier than that during my childhood it was really quite clear then that the majority population was was really reaching out and integrating and in fact adopting a lot of the traditions of the Latino community. It was not unusual for example for me to attend a birthday party for one of my friends who was not Latino or Hispanic and low and behold they would have piñatas. Does everyone know what a piñata is I hope yeah so excellent so yeah so there would be you know a bunch of us not all Hispanic just beating the hell out of this piñata with the promise of the payoff of a lot of candy that was stuffed in there and of course having to contend with invariably some of the melted chocolate candy that came out because we were in Texas after all. So all of that just to give a little bit of to frame things a little bit and I'd like to begin with just a brief look at where we stand and what I mean by we of course is the United States with respect to racial and ethnic representation here. Since the goal for for these programs in on one level has been to accurately mirror the communities that we serve. This is a very lofty goal. I'm not certain that we're ever going to get there as a profession but it's certainly worth pursuing. I'm certain many of you aware of these demographic statistics that are represented here and probably where we're headed again as a nation in the U.S. but I don't know I would venture to say that perhaps our neighbors to the north are probably headed to a similar makeup. Of course I'm also certain that many of you might be aware of the fact that those who identify as Hispanic or Latino and I'm not just saying that because I'm one of those but that we are by far the fastest growing minority group in the U.S. But it's also interesting to note that the one other quickly growing the burgeoning population is in fact can can well I'll just tell you it's those who identify as mixed racial or multi racial. It's a very quickly growing demographic so I think it's going to have some interesting implications just all around but we're quite aware of that. If you were wondering with where we are with respect to racial and ethnic representation in institutions of higher learning those statistics that pie chart looks remarkably similar to that of the general population right now or at least it did in 2009. Of course here the one difference in here and I don't mean to dwell on you know the Latino population but the Hispanic population here is about half of what it is in the general population due in large part to the fact that it is a much younger demographic and again the implications for institutions of higher learning in 8 to 10 years I think are immense. So in case you're not aware of where we are as a community and again these are reports from U.S. ARLs this is what we look like. We stand at about 14.2 representation as of the 2010-2011 salary survey. That percent the 14.2 is actually better a higher percentage than ALA than the Society of American Archivists then the Medical Library Association or ACRL with the one admission here that of course the methodologies for reporting those data are a bit different for those institutions associations they self-report and we tend to gather that those data. I might also point out that it we have been more effective as of late of recruiting those of Asian descent into our programs and into professional jobs in our organizations. This is something that I am actively addressing with respect to outreach efforts to African Americans to the Hispanic and Latino community and of course those from native are indigenous communities. So just a little bit of history about all of this and all of our programs are diversity programs specifically and Nancy mentioned a few things about this. This these efforts came out of again that need to mirror the the communities that we are serving. It is connected to our strategic plan specifically more related to the transforming research library roles agenda and portfolio where it calls for ARO to develop a diverse and growing body of professionals prepared and developed to take on new roles and work in new modes. So ARO claims to articulate promote facilitate and the expanding roles for ARO libraries that support enable and enrich transformations that are affecting research and research intensive education. So embedded in ARO's guiding principles are the goals of encouraging and supporting members as they strive as I've said to reflect society's diversity in their staffing and their collections in their leadership and in their programs. Increasing representation of racial and ethnic minorities and member libraries has been a goal of these programs as Nancy said since their inception in the early 1990s and efforts became more formalized with grant funding that was secured a bit later when the work of diversity centered around collections and workplace climate at that time was woven into the operations of OMLS although I think back then it was called OMS I think. The landscape of ARL libraries was not terribly different than it is today but it was at about 10.6% representation of those targeted groups in member libraries. So a little bit more history in 1999 a formal pitch was made to the board by my predecessor a couple of folks ago Deetta Jones and by the then chair of the ARL diversity committee who lo and behold was Nancy Baker to establish a member funded diversity recruitment program. So the program the proposal was accepted and over the course of the next three years or so 52 ARL member libraries stepped up and donated $10,000 each to establish a fund. So raised a bit over $500,000 in support of this diversity minority recruitment program that I'm guessing did not have a name immediately or perhaps soon thereafter. The first of three IMLS grants were awarded in 2003 and I'll say a little bit more about that in just a little bit. So just this little historic view here. So it was the leadership and career development program that began in 1997. The initiative to recruit a diverse workforce was established with that fund in 2000. The research library leadership fellows program about which I'm really not going to say a great deal today. But that first cohort was established in 2004. We received another IMLS grant in 2008 in support of another minority recruitment program the career enhancement program and our last success was just last year when we were awarded an IMLS grant in support of the ARL and the music library association diversity and inclusion initiative. I'll try to deconstruct what is I guess kind of a sort of alphabet soup of acronyms here for all of you as we go along. I know even some of my committee members get a little bit confused with all of the with everything but we'll try to explain that a little bit further as I go along. And just you know for some general information also under the diversity and leadership portfolio we have the ARL career resources website. We have a job announcements database a residency database a student residency excuse me a student resume database which some of your HR people avail themselves to on occasion when they're in recruitment processes for particular positions. The leadership symposium formally called an institute which was normally just attached to ALA midwinter but it's a three-day leadership symposium and most of our diversity programs participants take advantage of that but that symposium is actually open to all MLIS students. The national diversity and libraries conference the last event that we had was in 2010 and that was hosted by Princeton University and Karen trainer. We cancelled that event this year because of the joint conference of librarians of color conference that's actually being held in Kansas City in September. And then also our diversity publications which to date really only includes an online newsletter that we have but we are working and we have a VPO in place who is helping us to develop those areas further. So to dive into this a little bit more and with respect to what we've been able to do with that initial investment and many subsequent investments by IMLS this is what we've been able to do for the initiative to recruit a diverse workforce. We have been awarded over the course of years 1.4 million dollars in three IMLS grants awarded in 2003 2006 and 2010. We've supported or are currently supporting about 156 students to date and a little over a third of them are from STEM academic backgrounds. The 2006 grant was focused on recruitment of students with academic backgrounds in natural or applied sciences and also information technology or computer science but at that time we were having a bit of difficulty recruiting students with that academic profile into the program. So a decision was made by the then diversity working group boy you've called this just about everything haven't you Nancy? Yeah so the diversity working group made a decision to tap into the those funds the five hundred and twenty thousand dollar fund just to fund other students with academic backgrounds in the humanities the social sciences fine arts etc and I'll show a graph a little bit later to show you where those expenditures went. I think an important piece of well it's more than just anecdotal information but if I can quote Marianne Gaunt who has served on the selection committee for the initiative for for quite a few iterations is that the applicants for this program are getting increasingly more sophisticated as time goes by. Last year for example we had two PhDs in the program one a PhD in material science from MIT another a PhD in optics from Rochester. Both of those folks are currently working in ARL libraries in spite of their rather shabby academic credentials. This year we have two JDs in the program both of them with undergraduate degrees in natural sciences just as an example and I do have to take just a little bit of a diversion here to say that I think one of the things that makes the initiative to recruit a diverse workforce a truly unique experience is the annual visit to the Purdue University libraries that is completely underwritten completely funded by Jim Mullins and the good folks at Purdue and we'll speak a little bit later to some of the the the outcomes for for that and it's it's truly a remarkable experience. So where are they now? Past diversity scholars this graph represents where they stand now where we stand now with respect to the former participants currently working in various libraries. This is only an estimate I have to tell you these figures are based primarily on a survey that was conducted in 2009 of all former diversity scholars. That was conducted by Alana Aiko Moore and myself Alana is at UC San Diego. We had about a 72 percent response rate in that the total population of about 126 then and also it includes some data about what I know now what we know now with respect to placements since since I came on board in 2009. I know you're all going to be very shocked to hear this but our survey instrument our questionnaire was just a little bit flawed so you'll see there that there's that eight percent that identified as working in special law health sciences and corporate libraries and it's highly likely that the eight percent represented there are also many of them connected to ARL institutions. Again based on self-reporting and easily verifiable information about recent placements of initiative scholars and of course our CEP fellows and I'll talk about that program in a little bit. It is I'm pretty certain that we have reached the halfway point in terms of the number of ARL institutions who have been able to recruit these good folks into their programs into professional positions and that by the way does include a handful of Canadian institutions. Another way to look at this I think is helpful is that the overall increase of minority hires in ARL libraries in the last 13 years amongst them there have been 314 minority hires since then since that salary survey and over a fifth of them I think actually closer to a quarter of them by now have gone through our programs and again I think these estimates are somewhat conservative. So you know the 34.2 percent who are working in other academic institutions certainly we aim to do a better job about recruiting more of them into our organizations ARL organizations but I think that 34.2 percent is still quite positive it helps build the case with respect to IMLS continued IMLS funding. They are quite keen as you heard from Susan just a little while ago at funding projects that have a broad impact reaching multiple constituencies, diverse audiences and on a national scale and I really think that just bolsters our argument about the impact of the program on the academic library community at large. So we embarked upon a different a slightly different approach in 2008 with the career enhancement program which is essentially a minority fellowship program also again funded by a very generous IMLS grant when the threshold back then was still a million dollars but and also funded by by contributions from eight partner ARL libraries. What happens for the career in the career enhancement program is that the partners host these MLIS students for paid summer internships at those institutions for periods of about six to twelve weeks. In most instances the CEP fellows relocate to the geographic area of the host partner institution and they engage in project work that's been defined based on many conversations between them and the program coordinators at the respective partner libraries. The partner libraries also create other programs for the fellows in order to provide them with an inside look at the operations of those organizations. Frequently they're invited to attend committee meetings and participate in other programs that are designed specifically for them. The grant was written to support the participation of 45 students in the CEP and I'm very delighted to report that upon the conclusion of the grant in June of this year we will have provided the experience to 61 students total and that's largely because I'm really cheap. But here too we have seen success with respect to placement actually a great deal of success with respect to placement in ARL libraries keeping in mind here that about 29 percent of the CEP fellows are still currently enrolled in MLIS programs we've been able to place about a quarter of them 44 excuse me 24.5 percent into positions in ARL libraries. So this program the CEP really represents a slightly different approach to minority recruitment for ARL. It's the aggregate experience of the program in this iteration including support to attend the ARL leadership symposium, a formal mentor program, tuition support, a paid internship of course in one of the eight ARL partner libraries on this project. So many of the components of the initiative to recruit a diverse workforce but with the added benefit of that paid internship. So that's two of the three diversity recruitment programs I'm sorry I didn't realize I was going through puberty I'll try not to squeak. I was telling Heather earlier it wouldn't be this would be much easier if I could sing it honestly that's true. So the leadership and career development program the goal of this program is to prepare and develop mid-career librarians from traditionally underrepresented groups to take on to take on leadership roles in academic and research libraries. This program was created out of an expressed concern from ARL ARL director some years ago about the low numbers of minorities and leadership positions in our institutions. Since its inception in 1997 111 libraries have been supported through this fellowship and that does not include by the way the current class of 18 who'll be graduating graduating in June of this year. So the design and the curriculum of the program have really changed a great deal over the course of the years with a current emphasis on the ARL strategic directions. The only comprehensive study of past past LCDP fellows was completed in 2008 by Teresa Neely from the University of New Mexico. Teresa published an article in the Journal of Library Administration and in her study she reported that 40 percent of former LCDP fellows reported career advancements that they attributed directly to their involvement and training in the LCDP five at that time had moved up to director positions but in non-member libraries. I think it's certainly time to take a hard look at this program again and develop a methodology that will gather the type of data that we need to see where we're going with this program but we are certainly seeing anecdotal evidence of our progress. We have Denise Stevens who's here the first of our LCDP graduates to actually take on a leadership role maybe twice I think in an ARL member library. We have a growing contingent of AULs small but growing contingent of AULs who are participating in the RLLF which I think is positive. I will also say about our current class of LCDP fellows slated to graduate in June that we have had five already who have moved up into leadership positions management positions four within their own institutions and one who has actually gone on to a different institution so I think that's quite telling. Regarding the benefit from the fellows perspective I think as we've seen with our extensive review of the RLLF program it's really the qualitative data that tells much more about the value of this program for the participants. From the fellows perspective they express that they have increased self-awareness of leadership styles and behaviors as well as self-confidence. We need self- confidence or develop self-confidence to pursue leadership roles. They experience greater awareness of the strategic issues and trends of research libraries and institutions an increased awareness of the importance of scholarly output and the value that that brings to leadership. The network and opportunities provided through the program with luminaries in the profession with high level high level campus administrators with AOL directors many of whom serve as career coaches for the program and then of course the relationships the significant relationships and friendships that come out of the experience and the support networks that are developed. And again similar to the RLLF the directors who have supported their staff through this program see a payoff and with the increased knowledge on the part of their fellows about pressing strategic issues on their campuses and in their libraries and of course the increased confidence for leading initiatives and are leading important dialogues on these issues. So the last program that I'll review very quickly for you is the most recent program that was developed a collaborative project with the music between AOL and the Music Library Association. So with respect to minority representation in MLA MLA is in fact the least diverse professional organization in the LIS field that is compared with all of those organizations that I mentioned previously. Certainly that there is there is an advantage of me having come out of that community and having connections with the association and of course having some expertise with respect to the field but most importantly if you're wondering well why MLA the important thing to remember is that this program stands as an experiment in design more than anything else. What we're attempting to do with this program is to take the best elements that are part of the initiative to recruit a diverse workforce the most significant being the generous tuition stipend funding and then the practical work experience that's offered through the career enhancement program through the CEP and kind of combine them into a singular recruitment program really in the attempt to come up with I guess a best practice a most effective strategy for diversity recruitment. Of course the other innovative part about this is that it is in partnership with a library association that operates on a national and international scale. So the jury is still out on this project. We've just started we're just getting our musical ducks in a row so we're just launching and in case you're wondering about employment prospects for the 15 students that we propose to recruit as part of this program there have been in the last three months anywhere between five to seven music and performing arts positions available in the last the last three months or so in ARL libraries so I'd also might mention that I think that there's a growing contingent of former music librarians that are actually ARL directors I think we need a formal study about that and this represents the pie chart reflects the 2009 demographic of the music library association. Okay excuse me I'm a little bit out of so that's sorry so with respect to the the benefits of these programs the program outcomes I mean obviously beyond the improved demographic representation that we have there are so many benefits to participants benefits for the institutions that are involved in these projects and benefits to ARL. I mean naturally we've already discussed the issue awareness for our minority recruitment programs that training comes largely through the leadership symposium and then also through the Purdue library visit that I mentioned a little bit earlier those opportunities to view the operations and expectations for for securing jobs in ARL libraries and then also for being retained and perhaps for advancing once they get there. For program participants this change perception of the employment opportunities and roles that they might engage in in ARL libraries and of course especially for the CEP fellows and we hope for the MLA participants the gaining a practical experience and skills development. Again the development of a community a community of people who support one another who share information about opportunities for professional advancement for funding publication and these sorts of opportunities amongst the cohorts of diversity scholars and CEP fellows. As far as benefits for the institutions it has been expressed by a couple of our CEP partners that they're really their organizations have so little diversity that in fact the CEP fellows when they're on campus for six to twelve weeks that is the only exposure that those organizations have too much diversity to any diversity. Naturally the CEP fellows contribute a great deal to projects on those campuses be it in archival processing be it in research that's in support of other projects being developed and that sort of thing. Many people who are engaged with our CEP fellows and our initiative scholars express very frequently express a sense of professional renewal as they engage with our scholars and CEP fellows as either mentors as supervisors at those host institutions and that sort of thing. And then also just the exposure to a new and energetic crop of MLIS professionals and the various skills that they bring not only the professional skills but their social networking skills and this sort of thing. So there are many benefits with respect to the benefits of it to ARL again it's what we signal to the collective regarding our commitment to these efforts and to make our profession more diverse and then also again the persistent engagement with a new LIS workforce. So looking ahead why should these programs continue? Why should our these programs continue to be developed whatever they look like in the future? Well because the population trends that served as an impetus for these initiatives continue and in fact are intensifying. I'm certain you're all aware of estimates of the U.S. Census Bureau again with my apologies to our Canadian colleagues that predicted minority groups will comprise slightly less than 50 percent of the total U.S. population by 2050. In fact the NCES predicts that by 2020 44 percent of enrollment in institutions of higher education will be from underrepresented groups. I have a feeling that this is likely to happen a lot sooner. And I cite these statistics perhaps with just a little bit of irony because I've long advocated for looking beyond beyond mere representation excuse me as justification for continuing these programs. I mean if we look at the work of the folks that the folks are doing in climate qual at ARL with their protocol and the correlations that are being drawn between institutional commitment to principles of diversity and inclusion and customer satisfaction levels I think we find a great justification. In my stump speeches as I go throughout the country oops excuse me sorry about that I frequently cite the work of Dr. Scott Page at the University of Michigan. He is the author of a book entitled The Difference How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups Firms Schools and Societies It's an excellent read and he's done extensive research on groups and their abilities to solve complex problems and what he has found that the more deep diversity that is represented in the group the more effective they are at problem solving. So notwithstanding the other successful programs like the spectrum scholarship program there is simply no other program or group of programs that emphasizes and develops program participants around the issues that are unique to research libraries and research institutions that seeks to develop their skills and align those with the work that the modern research libraries are doing. So I encourage all of you to look at the agendas that are posted on our website agendas of the leadership symposium that was held last January and also the agenda of the Purdue libraries visit a component of the initiative since 2005 because they serve as key examples of how the design and curricula of these programs are not quite like any other. Pardon me. Okay. So lastly and I think this is going to segue into a few things that Nancy might have to say. I just wanted to review not only the history of the programs but the history of funding for these programs by ARL. As you can see here I'm not going to dwell on this too much but there were modest dues increases and portions of which were allocated to diversity in 1994 and 1998 and then again in 2000 with a small amount allocated to the LCDP in the 2005 strategic planning due support for diversity was reduced by 50% at that time. This represents the just a small portion of the expenditures from the $520,000 that we collected in 2000. So these reflect these bars reflect expenditures in the various categories from about 2008 into 2011. Some of this is a little bit misleading because some of that does include large amounts of money that were both collected that were passed through for the National Diversity in Libraries Conference in 2008. So but we're happy to be happy to provide additional information if anybody is interested. So regarding the future of the programs and the future funding I don't want to step I don't want to steal any of your thunder here Nancy but we are going to be looking at a multi pronged approach at redeveloping our resources for our efforts here for diversity efforts. Nancy alerted you a little bit earlier today she's going to say a little bit more about a fundraising plan that's being developed a proposal that we're developing to solicit volunteer contributions from member libraries. Of course we're going to continue to pursue federal grants through IMLS through NSF through anybody who is willing to throw money our way and yeah we'll just explore any opportunities through any funding agencies that we can. We hope to build our fundraising capacity internally by searching for opportunities through other funding agencies through other through foundations perhaps through corporate grants and also perhaps through building strategic partnerships with others who are committed to this work but again with the understanding that no one quite does it or has done it in the way that we've chosen to do it with the focus on academic and research librarianship and with the focus on all of those developmental components that have led I think to a great deal of success for diversity programs. I just want to say first that when we did this 12 years ago I have to honestly confess I never thought this money would last this long. We've leveraged this money incredibly well and as I was listening to our lunch speaker all I could think of was when she said I know we haven't funded many of your programs and I thought perhaps not in terms of dollar amount but in terms of the actual success of these programs I mean we could not have done all of this without IMLS and knowing that we're going into a period where nobody quite knows what the story is going to be in terms of funding that always makes me a little bit nervous but we're at a point where obviously we're going to have to do something else and the committee has been putting together some kind of a proposal that we ran by the board and that we're going to tweaking a little more before it comes out to all of you but we're going to be looking for just a funding mechanism as Mark indicates because I think these programs have been really more successful even than some of us thought they would be and I think it's particularly noteworthy that we started this with for all practical purposes with the programs itself with Deetta Jones who's I can see and Deetta Jones Young and also with Jerome and now with Mark and each one of them has been able to just kind of pick up the ball and carry it on over the course of these 12 years so I think that even speaks more to being able to have it leverage that money so well so if you have any questions I'd be able to answer we wanted to do this program because we pulled this information together I think it's pretty impressive actually how these programs have developed and what's been coming from them if you of course talk to anybody that's in the programs you know they'll tell you how good they think they've been but we're going to have to begin to look for a new another way to keep this going and I just want to also add I got a little discombobulated my notes got out of order but one of the points that I was going to make was that we have raised between the three IMLS grants in support of the initiative to recruit a diverse workforce the one for the CEP and we did reapply in December 15th for a second iteration of the CEP fingers crossed that it will get funded there was also another recruitment program called the ARL Academy for which it was not a diversity program but it was a recruitment program for which ARL was awarded a grant in about $900,000 so over the last the course of the 13 years we've been able to raise almost $3.5 million but it's all been federal funds so we need to to rethink that strategy which of course always makes me a little nervous particularly these days but on the other hand if you're like me in a state agency each year you sort of wonder if this is going to be the year you know that really clamps down and being by nature an optimist I've you know you keep going along thank you for listening music was provided by Josh Woodward for more talks from this meeting please visit www.arl.org