On July 28^th, 2021, 27 members attended the Lambda Chapter of Beta Phi Mu’s initiation and business meeting via Zoom. Dr. Rhonda Taylor was the speaker at the event and spoke on “Self-Education for Understanding Diversity.” Dr. Taylor relayed to attendees that when they leave behind the learning environment and academic requirements of a degree, they should create a Professional Development Plan (PDP), and this plan should include goals to develop a better understanding of diversity. Dr. Taylor stressed that “Preparation for this profession has emphasized the necessity not only for your service clienteles, but for you, to commit to lifelong learning”. She offered four strategies to help fulfill the diversity goal within a professional development plan: 1) Become very familiar with the support provided by your professional organizations; 2) Every day, the news’ broad coverage of issues presents vocabulary and topics related to diversity, and those terms and topics should be ticklers; 3) Enrich your own leisure reading and information seeking by adding diversity; 4) Connect person to person. Dr. Taylor went on to say “Understanding diversity is not some sort of add-on to this profession—it is fundamental to this profession. So start out admitting that you will make mistakes, that there will be setbacks and challenges, that you will be uncomfortable at times, but commit to continue.”

The Lambda Chapter of Beta Phi Mu welcomed the following new members from the Class of 2021 who attended the initiation ceremony: Kady Bernhardt, Caitlin Cundiff, Tyler Franklin, April Harden-Akbas, Loren Hinton, Ia Bull, Shelby Nivitanont, Zane Ratcliffe, Jonathan Self, Courtney Shelley, and Jamie Walt.

Two new board members were also welcomed: Melodie Pennington (Vice President/President Elect) and Sonja Settle (Secretary). Melodie is a Library Media Specialist at Jenks East Intermediate School. Sonja is a librarian at the OSU College of Osteopathic Medicine at the Cherokee Nation. While it is always exciting to welcome new board members, we also sadly say farewell to Lisa Haldeman (Secretary), who will be exiting the board. Beth Jones will remain on the board as Past President. The contributions by Lisa and Beth to the chapter, such as a diversity scholarship and mentoring program, are much appreciated.