Reflections on Diversity and Organizational Development

As director, the author's role has been largely behind the scenes: supporting the formation of this team, providing time for all staff workshops, and helping manage both internal and external requests for the team's time and assistance, all with the goal of building an inviting, sustainable, reflective, and intellectually challenging approach to doing this work throughout the library. For her, this has also been about more intentionally aligning her long-standing commitment to teaching and learning with social justice theories and practice. She believes that the efforts to build capacity and deepen the collective understanding of diversity within the contexts of higher education and the campus community have strengthened the instruction and public-service offerings significantly, fostered a deeper engagement with these issues among staff, and positioned to contribute more fully to campus diversity committees and programs. As director, after more than two years of doing this work very intentionally, she feels that her understanding of how to align the expertise with campus diversity initiatives has increased significantly.