You and your co-presenters will be given one of the panel presentation sessions which run 75 minutes with 60 minutes for speakers and a 15-minute Q&A.

As a reminder, the Institute will take place on Friday, May 20, at Brooklyn College in Brooklyn, New York. We offer conference speakers a reduced registration rate of $20. Registration will launch in early March and a final program will be distributed in mid March.

The pool of submissions was highly competitive, and we have several proposals on a waiting list in case of declines or withdrawals by presenters. Because of this, it would be very helpful if you and your co-presenters could confirm your attendance at the Institute by Monday, February 29. At that time, please also let us know if you would like to make changes to the title of your talk.

Feel free to get in touch with any questions. We are very excited about the program for this year's Institute and the contribution your session will make to the theme and the day’s discussions.

Look forward to hearing back.

jean amaral
LACUNY Institute Planning Committee Chair
assistant professor/outreach librarian | BMCC/CUNY | S410D | 212.220.8000 x5114

From: LACUNY <Kenneth.Schlesinger@lehman.cuny.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, January 13, 2016 9:30 AM
To: Jean Amaral
Subject: LACUNY Institute Proposal 2016
A proposal from: Amy Beth, Colleen Cool, Wilma Jones, Julie Lim, Kenneth Schlesinger <Kenneth.Schlesinger@lehman.cuny.edu>

Name(s): Amy Beth, Colleen Cool, Wilma Jones, Julie Lim, Kenneth Schlesinger
Presenter title: Beth, Jones, Lim, Schlesinger are Chief Librarians at Guttman, CSI, Law School, Lehman, respectively.  Cool is Director of Queens GSLIS.
Affiliation: Beth, Jones, Lim, Schlesinger are Chief Librarians at Guttman, CSI, Law School, Lehman, respectively.  Cool is Director of Queens GSLIS.
Format: Facilitated dialogues
Proposal Title: Roundtable on Diversifying the Library Profession
Abstract: Four CUNY Chief Librarians and the Chair of Queens College’s Graduate School of Library and Information Studies will engage in an interactive discussion around the following framing questions:
•       What can we as library leaders do to promote diversity within CUNY Libraries – so our faculty and staff reflects more of New York City’s population?
•       How do we embrace mandates of affirmative action in order to make our Search pools more diverse, dynamic, and challenging?
•       How can we best encourage, motivate, and facilitate library support staff attending library school?
•       How should we embrace the strengths of a diverse profession?
•       How can CUNY Libraries take the lead in becoming an inclusive national model changing the future face of the profession?

Community College
When engaging in the hiring process, library leadership has an obligation to work in deep partnership with human resources, budget offices, compliance staff, and hiring committees.  It takes a firm commitment and willingness to muscle through additional pathways to proactively build appropriately identified hiring pools and see the commitment to diversifying the profession all the way through the hiring process.

It is imperative that we proceed as a professional community in collaborative expanded practice by transitioning out of longstanding patterns and practices that don’t improve the "who" of libraries.

Senior College
Since implementation of affirmative action, increasing diversity of faculty and staff continues to be a priority for many higher education institutions.  However, while we recognize the value of having a diverse workforce, we need to pay more attention to recruitment and retention activities that would yield better results in outreach and opportunities for underrepresented-excluded groups who wish to become part of the library profession.

How can CUNY library leaders help develop an inclusive environment:  one conducive to retention of a diverse workforce, starting with the role of Search Committees, to mentors within and outside the library, to diversity professional development for senior library faculty?

Law School
As the only New York City law library director who is not Caucasian, the presenter will discuss recruitment and retention of minority law librarians.  Given New York’s diversity, we will explore ways to promote retention of minority law or academic librarians.

Library School
The presenter will offer some strategies for encouraging a more diverse population to apply for library school in general and Queens GSLIS in particular.  First, we need to instill in members of our target population the value and feasibility of librarianship as a profession for people of color.  This means holding recruitment activities at CUNY community and senior colleges, as well as bringing in the abundance of resources available from American Library Association’s Office for Diversity, Literacy, and Outreach: http://www.ala.org/offices/diversity

We also need to undertake some research with potential MLS students, including those working in paraprofessional positions in CUNY libraries, to determine perceived obstacles to attending library school.  Reaching out to potential students with course offerings in alternate locations throughout NYC with a mix of online, hybrid, and face-to-face modalities could respond to needs of students with various working and parenting schedules.