EDI Certificate Requirement

Core Competency Guidelines

Students will be required to submit an additional artifact (assignment) that is directly related to the EDI certificate. As such, the artifact must come from one of the 4 courses that students are counting towards the EDI certificate - i.e. the four courses listed on the Program of Study for the EDI Certificate.

Reflective Essay

1. How this assignment is representative of the knowledge and skills they’ve gained from completing this certificate.

2. How they will take their knowledge and skills and apply them in a real-world, specific way.

3. How completing this certificate has impacted the way they view/approach their role in the field (related to the point above but a bit different in nature).

Work sample

Reflective Essay

In this assignment, I used a variety of skills and knowledge acquired throughout my diversity, equity, and inclusion-focused courses to create a grant proposal. The proposal includes a community needs assessment, proposed programming and activities, collection development, goals and objectives, a budget, a timeline, and evaluation methods all for the purpose of improving support for and education about LGBTQIA+ people. Practicing each of these helped me to increase my skill level and my confidence, but what made this project particularly useful was completing it through a lens of equity, diversity, and inclusion. In my community assessment I focused on pulling forth a historically marginalized community; sharing data on how LGBTQIA+ people experience being students, patients, and healthcare providers. I focused on finding evidence, barriers, and solutions researched, created, or shared by LGBTQIA+ people or organizations to amplify the community's voice and perspectives further. 

I selected a graphic novel grant proposal since that platform already has a strong connection with the queer community as a place for LGBTQIA+ people to share their stories - often counterstories, resistance stories, and concealed stories. The programming and activities were similarly constructed to create safe spaces to elevate LGBTQIA+ voices and learn about their experiences from their perspectives. The extended programming also allows for relationship building between community members, creating opportunities for a deeper understanding between those with differing experiences and teaching collaborative skills for allyship. Ultimately, this proposal shows my ability to assess the library and community for gaps or misalignment, center a population or community need, learn about it from experts who experience it, and, relying on experts and relationships, build up library services to better include that community or support that need. It is a process that I will perform repeatedly throughout my career, applying it to a range of different groups and needs, and customizing it as needed. 

A key element of the process is a willingness and ability to ask what might be missing, incorrect, or inequitable in the library. Completing the courses for this certificate has reinforced my urge to question everything and my skills to find the answers. I will continue to ask what the story is telling me, who is telling the story, who is missing from the story, and why. These questions apply not just to books but to the library's staff, policies and practices, services, and so on. Equally important is listening to the answer and paying attention to who answers. It is critical that marginalized voices are listened to and respected as authorities of their own experiences. By listening, I have learned the importance of prioritizing collaboration - active support and intervention - over allyship. For example, performative or signifying measures, like rainbow flags or Black Lives Matter banners, are still useful tools to communicate support for a population or a movement. However, actionable changes like hosting a Drag Queen Story Hour, decolonizing the recommended list of course texts, and updating hiring policies to include experience alternatives for degrees, will far more effectively create a diverse, equitable, and inclusive library.