The American Library Association hosted a spring retreat for the Spectrum Doctoral Fellows on April 5-7 at the iHotel and Conference Center on the Illinois campus. Assistant Professor Nicole Cooke co-planned the event, which was sponsored by the American Library Association’s Office for Diversity, made possible by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.
The Spectrum Doctoral Fellowship Program seeks to reinforce and expand efforts to recruit racially and ethnically diverse individuals to the LIS professorate.
“I was a 2008 Spectrum Doctoral Fellow at Rutgers University and without this program I would not have earned my PhD,” said Cooke. “Spectrum is a gift to the library profession and has done unparalleled work in terms of diversifying the field of librarianship. It is an honor and a pleasure to be able to continue working with and giving back to the program as the new cohort of Fellows begins their doctoral journey.”
During the retreat, the Fellows enjoyed conversations with a number of GSLIS faculty and staff, including Assistant Professors Emily Knox and Kate Williams as well as doctoral student Karla Lucht.
GSLIS doctoral student and Fellow RaShauna Brannon attended this year’s retreat. Brannon’s research interests include digital literacy, digital inclusions, and diversity issues in libraries. Before pursuing her doctorate, she worked in a number of library and educational settings including school, public, and academic libraries serving diverse communities.
“The Spectrum PhD retreat was an affirming time,” Brannon said. “We had valuable discussions with GSLIS faculty about managing transitions from being practitioners to researchers and beyond, and the presentation on frameworks of marginalization was enriching.”