The key attributes of this fellowship are representing underrepresented voices, collaborating with departments inside and outside the library, and bridging the gap between students and the library administration. This role gives you a lot of freedom and flexibility to decide what kind of projects you want to do.
- Jasminder Bains, Diversity Fellow
This fall, the University Library launched a Library Diversity Fellowship program. This fellowship grew out of our desire to expose students from diverse backgrounds to librarianship and to give undergraduates the opportunity for professional-level work in a library setting.
Fellows work with various units within the library on a variety of projects related to diversity, inclusion, and libraries. The program is funded through the generosity of 32 donors to the 2018 SCU Day of Giving campaign.
We are pleased to welcome our first diversity fellow, Jasminder Bains '20.
Jasminder is pursuing her undergraduate degree in psychology at Santa Clara, and has experience working as a member of a research team, as a volunteer teacher’s aide, and as a student journalist and writer. Jasminder has brought these skill sets, and energy, dedication, and curiosity, to the diversity fellowship.
In her first quarter in this role, Jasminder has designed a number of assessment approaches to examine the representation of diversity in our popular reading collection. She developed and conducted a student survey, interviewed faculty members, and researched new books to add to the collection. Jasminder also interviewed the speakers of our fall Book of the Quarter event, The Desegregation of Public Libraries in the Jim Crow South, to produce an article for this newsletter.
Over the course of the year, Jasminder is also interested in working on special events featuring diversity-related topics and working with our special collections on projects related to inclusiveness and SCU history.
In December, Jasminder will be joined by a second fellow, Yesenia Magdaleno.