Dear Councilors:
As Presiding Officer, I wanted to add more information about the report from the Committee of Accreditation (CoA). Dr. Athena Salaba, Committee Chair, shared the extensive work that has been done on the ALA Standards for Accreditation of Master’s Programs in Library & Information Studies. As outlined in CD# 30, CoA has prioritized Equity, Diversity and Inclusion within the updated Standards.
In Fall 2022, ALA convened a Joint Working Group with ALISE (Association for Library and Information Science Education) to guide LIS faculty and program administrations on leveraging strategies within the field related to EDI. The ALA Executive Board has requested that the Working Group being chaired by Dr. Nicole A. Cooke and Dr. Lisa O’Connor have the opportunity to collaborate and to positively affirm the content and context of the language in the Standards. This is being done with the goal of strengthening the Standards through the perspective of EDI.
This means that CoA will bring final Standards to Council in January 2024 for your approval. Because of the urgency, if this work is completed this Fall, we will explore convening a special session of Council to review the Standards.
Thank you all for your extensive work and continued support of ALA’s core values.
Best,
Emily
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Emily Drabinski
Critical Pedagogy Librarian
The Graduate Center, CUNY
She/Her/Hers
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