Mentoring List | SLIS Diversity Action Plan, 2008

The Diversity Leadership Group is a volunteer group composed of practicing library professionals and students at the School of Library and Information Science.  Activities of the group include: sponsoring a program on recruitment, retention, and advancement of African Americans in libraries for a conference of the South Carolina Library Association; organizing a mentoring network for students and practicing professionals from under-represented populations; and writing and presenting faculty/staff and student diversity plans for the school which were adopted by the faculty and posted to the school’s web site.  The group recently sponsored the diversity pre-conference at the South Carolina Library Association Annual Conference in October, 2009.   

The Group's initial focus was issues surrounding recruitment and retention at its meeting in 2004-2005. This culminated in a presentation on recruitment and retention by Dr. Arthur Gunn, former Dean of Clark Atlanta University's Library School , at the annual conference of the South Carolina Library Association. In 2005-2006 the focus was on mentoring and setting up a mentoring network for the students at SLIS. Plans are to maintain a list of library professionals interested in actively mentoring the SLIS students from underrepresented populations.

During the 2006-2007 academic year the Faculty/Staff Diversity Plan and a Student Diversity Plan were created. They were adopted by the Faculty of the School in 2008 and will be implemented by its administration.