Anti-Racism Assessment Working Group

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Anti-Racism Assessment Working Group

The Anti-Racism Assessment Working Group (ARAWG) monitors the current progress on the Library’s Anti-Racism Action Plan and provides the framework and recommendations needed to further the progress toward these goals. ARAWG is also responsible for gathering and sharing information from groups involved in implementing the action plan and building transparency between library employees and administration.

King Library Anti-Racism Action Plan
Following the events after George Floyd's death in the summer of 2020, the SJSU King Library sought to develop an anti-racist culture and workplace. After various virtual DEI and anti-racism training sessions and discussions, library administration solicited employee input on improving library policies and fostering an anti-racist library workplace via an anonymous survey. The results from the survey came to be known as the Library's Anti-Racism Action Plan. ARAWG is one of two groups developed as a starting point to carry out the items on the Library’s Anti-Racism Action Plan.

ARAWG Committee Members

Members of the ARAWG Committee volunteered for service in response to an open call made to SJSU King Library employees in April 2021.

2021 - 2022 Members

Past Members

• Erika Johnson, Institutional Repository & Digital Scholarship Coordinator, 2021 - 2022
• Lesley Seacrist, Project & Communications Analyst, 2021 - 2022
• Justin Villena, Student Computing & Media Services Coordinator, 2021 - 2022
• DeeAnn Tran, Senior Assistant Librarian, 2021 - 2022
• Karen Schlesser, Resources and Analytics, 2021 - 2022

Recommendations & Accountability Dashboard

Our dashboard tracks the progress of the SJSU King Library to implement recommendations on the following six key areas:

1. Budget
2. Leadership
3. Recruitment
4. Retention
5. Security
6. Student Assistants

The next committee will be charged to prioritize and provide next steps.

Updated 6/20/23

Recommendations	Area	Project Status
Create clear procedures and guidelines for employees to report all incidents, including but not limited to racist incidents (TBD). Policy and guidelines to be directly linked on the library website and/or training portal. Approach Library Admin, HR and direct work lead/immediate supervisors to create guidelines.	Retention, Training & Learning
Promote existing Anti-racism and Diversity Equity Inclusion and Accessibility (DEIA) training and/or create new training when needed. Enable and encourage all library employees to take Anti-racism and DEIA training. Follow training with a group discussion for attendees to reflect and share learning outcomes. Diversify the options (advancement in knowledge through film, books, Spotify playlists, TedTalks, podcasts, etc.) Employees can submit a response and it can then be acknowledged in evaluations. [Reasoning: Training may be less effective when mandatory.]	Retention, Training & Learning
All employees should be encouraged to participate in at least one Anti-racism or DEIA training session per semester. Create the user registration form.	Retention, Training & Learning
Provide compensation or incentives for participation in diversity recruitment and outreach endeavors (DEIA or antiracism conferences, committees, coalitions). Save user information in the database.	Retention, Training & Learning
Provide mentors for all employees, emphasize reach to employees from underrepresented groups, compensate mentors. Create email confirmation for users after signup.	Retention, Training & Learning
Other professional development tracks to be posted in a centralized location/LibScoop (i.e. public speaking, data management). Implement landing page design.	Retention, Training & Learning
Participation in professional development, mentorship, Anti-racism training, DEIA training, and other training should be acknowledged in performance evaluations. Create conversion funnels and dashboards in Google Analytics.	Retention, Training & Learning
Professional development request procedures, metrics, and funding allocations should be posted on the LibScoop annually (or other centralized location) for all employees. Re-evaluate the current professional development metric or rubric and budget to ensure equity among all employees, i.e. include transparency of the record of reviewer(s). Reviewers should have at least one faculty member and one staff member on the committee. If senior employees and administrators use a different metric, that should also be posted on LibScoop. Funding/grant awards, rubric and budget allocations towards RSCA should be published on LibScoop (or other centralized location). Any current professional development metric to be published on LibScoop or other centralized location to ensure equity among employees	Retention, Training & Learning
Publish a list of internal and external funding and grant award recipients on LibScoop to support employees in learning about potential grants. Create design assets for campaign.	Retention, Training & Learning
Provide or inform employees of grant and proposal writing resources. This information should be shared on the LibScoop page. Add blog posts introducing the campaign.	Retention, Training & Learning
There should be clear guidelines used to make the part-time employee retention process transparent. Launch marketing campaign driving traffic to landing page.	Retention, Training & Learning
A committee should be organized by the Associate Deans and Supervisors to make decisions regarding part-time employee retention and the criteria for retention should be shared with part-time employees	Retention, Training & Learning
Part-time employees should be offered mentorship and should be informed of RSCA opportunities. Even when budget restrictions are in place, part-time employees should be able to find service desk coverage or swaps to attend conferences.	Retention, Training & Learning
Incentives should be in place for employees for additional responsibilities such as mentorship, service, or time spent in professional development. This may include monetary compensation, informal time off, etc.	Retention, Training & Learning
Salary equity should be reviewed and addressed by administration on a frequent and regular basis.	Retention, Training & Learning
Create a formal mentorship program that is open to all employees. Provide Professional Development and training opportunities for mentors and mentees. Post mentorship program information in a centralized location.	Retention, Training & Learning
Acknowledge work and learning styles. Provide flexibility for work/learning styles by asking employees during the onboarding process and/or biannually at team building trainings or library trainings.	Retention, Training & Learning
Provide a clear path for employees to understand how to advance monetarily within the system. Currently the information about salaries, promotions, and raises is opaque.	Retention, Training & Learning
Provide clear information as to why a raise/promotion is denied.	Retention, Training & Learning
Yearly audit of retention, training, and learning policies, actions, and statistics.	Retention, Training & Learning
Library and University provides budget updates and communication when new positions are posted and how hiring will affect the retention and support of current positions.	Retention, Training & Learning
Enlist a library DEIA representative to advocate and support people when racist incidents occur in addition to the campus Office of Diversity Equity and Inclusion.	Retention, Training & Learning
Provide all employees training opportunities for dealing with difficult patrons and support employees through difficult interactions including but not limited to Poverty simulation and mental health training. Library administration could also look into problem-posing methods of critical pedagogy in order to draw out patrons' struggles against oppression and to help build strong and lasting solidarities with patrons (from the article In Pursuit of Antiracist Social Justice: Denaturalizing Whiteness in the Academic Library)	Retention, Training & Learning
The library should determine CBA compliant methods for emphasizing DEIA objectives and efforts on performance reviews and in individual employee goal setting.	Retention, Training & Learning
Supervisors should be able to substantiate employment decisions and share their decision making process with employees.	Retention, Training & Learning
Policy details should be in an easy-to-read FAQ format and should be documented in a centralized location, i.e. LibScoop.	Retention, Training & Learning
Conduct a survey that is available to the intended audience and provide questions in relation to awareness of the policy.	Retention, Training & Learning
Get SJSU to approve a budget for an Anti-racism/ DEIA representative.	Retention, Training & Learning
Allocate funds and create an annual budget for DEIA and antiracism training programs.	Retention, Training & Learning
The hiring committee shares SJSU King Library’s diversity statement with candidates.	Recruitment
Is the Library diversity statement discoverable on the Library website?	Recruitment
The hiring committee members should be recommended to complete DEIA workshops. Workshops review topics like explicit vs implicit bias, microaggressions, cultural awareness and perspectives/attitudes. Training materials should be available on a centralized website i.e. LibScoop	Recruitment
The Working Group or Advocate will evaluate the diversity of recruitment committees at the end of each year and report out to the library.	Recruitment
Encourage applicants to share antiracism or diversity work during the application or interview process.	Recruitment
Make sure the application and or advertisement contain inclusive language. For example, avoid using he or she.	Recruitment
The library should highlight the diversity of SJSU University in advertising and share this information with candidates during the hiring process. Emphasize the library’s commitment to have employees that mirrors the diversity of our campus.	Recruitment
Evaluate terminal degree requirements for all positions.	Recruitment
Redact school information on applicants' cv, resumes, and applications to eliminate assumptions.	Recruitment
Non-Faculty positions- Provide an equivalency of education to years of experience that is appropriate for the position.	Recruitment
Advertise career development and mentorship.	Recruitment
Identify how often the recruitment procedure and policy is reviewed.	Recruitment
The library should hire or appoint a trained anti-racist/ DEIA advocate or representative to assist employees with racist and DEIA complaints, reports, etc.	Recruitment
For Dean search committees: Committee members should agree to participate in a search that is represented by faculty and staff and diverse in culture/race so that the committee accurately reflects the SJSU community. Note: Senate Article 1.3.2 of S16-8 needs to be updated. Approval for additional staff member to be added to Dean search committee have been approved on May 10, 2021 https://www.sjsu.edu/senate/docs/S16-8.pdf;	Recruitment
All hiring policies documented in a centralized location, i.e. Libscoop.	Recruitment
Evaluate all current job descriptions and revise for inclusive language.	Recruitment
Advertise jobs to a set list for all employee positions. (Completed list to be determined, i.e., include associations as American Indian Library Association, REFORMA, APALA). Provide funding for positions of all classifications to be posted to a wide and diverse set of locations, especially those targeting BIPOC candidates. Publish to LibScoop the list of locations used to advertise job postings. Indicate what classifications or positions are posted to which location.	Recruitment
The library should advocate with faculty affairs to reduce the application burden for faculty positions by reducing the research plan to 1 page and considering to allow new graduates to submit a research interest document as an alternative.	Recruitment
HR/admin monitors committee training for faculty and staff and MPPs.	Budget
Leadership should create and share a budget primer. The primer should be incorporated into the onboarding process for new hires.	Budget
Leadership provides bi-annual or annual awareness via open forum/presentations about the library budget, potential changes and budget decision-making.	Budget
Leadership references the library budget when impactful decisions are made to illustrate the rationale and approval.	Budget
The library should create an internal organizational chart with additional information relevant to understanding roles and classifications. This is in addition to the external organizational chart available on the library website.	Leadership
It is important for all employees to understand their role and contributions to the success of the organization in meeting our library mission. It is fundamental to belonging and being an inclusive, diverse organization.	Leadership
Supervisors review library org charts within their department and have conversations to improve the understanding of each role within their unit and ensure an overview of other units while acknowledging our diversity profile and ways to practice being an inclusive organization.	Leadership
Employees that take leadership roles and responsibilities should be accurately acknowledged in the organization.	Leadership
Potential leadership roles should be communicated to the entire organization to ensure equal opportunity.	Leadership
Provide mentorship and professional development opportunities to all library employees (administration, faculty, staff and student assistants) as outlined in the Retention framework, to provide upward mobility access.	Leadership
Library security incident reports should be recorded, collected and analyzed to identify what happened, how and why it happened. Analysis should include library and security employees responses, and what can be done to reduce the risk of future recurrence.	Security
Library administration along with University Police Department should investigate the potential of adding roving non-security personnel to address non-violent behavioral issues rather than relying on uniformed officers. Funding for this may be partially diverted from traditional security funding.	Security
CSOs should receive routine anti-racism, DEIA and intercultural communication training.	Security
Library administration and University Police Department should explore the potential of hiring social workers to assist patrons in need and made available to patrons; social workers may also be available for consultation and training to CSO personnel.	Security
Library should ensure direct and frequent communication with CSOs regarding upcoming events and programming. Invitation to Team Tuesday may help communication flow as they will hear announcements.	Security
The library should reach out to SJPD and UPD to understand what anti-racist or DEIA programs or training is available for CSOs to participate or collaborate in. This should include collaboration with the entire community (SJPL, downtown associations, county law enforcements and organizations, etc.)	Security
Evaluate recruitment of student assistants to ensure diverse pools, equitable hiring/promotion opportunities, and best retention practices. Student positions should be posted on the library’s website, student organizations, student success centers and colleges/departments	Student Assistant Retention, Training & Learning
Student assistants should be included in department activities and professional development opportunities as long as it does not interfere with work responsibilities.	Student Assistant Retention, Training & Learning
Advertise/promote and provide professional development opportunities	Student Assistant Retention, Training & Learning
Advertise/promote professional growth through development opportunities, evaluations (learning outcomes, desired outcomes), department activities.	Student Assistant Retention, Training & Learning
Reassess student assistant interest and student professional outcomes, responsibilities, goal, and learning outcomes yearly.	Student Assistant Retention, Training & Learning
Create mentorship program student assistants.	Student Assistant Retention, Training & Learning
The library should offer a Student Assistant job fair yearly	Student Assistant Retention, Training & Learning
The library should consider ways to increase compensation for student assistants, potentially comparable to other student assistant positions on campus. There should be a process to request and provide pay increases for performance or experience.	Student Assistant Retention, Training & Learning
Student assistants and supervisors should be recommended to complete training around discrimination, harassment, anti-racism, equity, diversity, and inclusion.	Student Assistant Retention, Training & Learning
Student assistants should have an advocate within the library to assist them with reporting issues of discrimination harassment or anti-racism.	Student Assistant Retention, Training & Learning
The library should create feedback forms and surveys to capture the student voice in regards to how they learned about the positions, their experience working at the library, student training experiences, etc.	Student Assistant Retention, Training & Learning
Promote existing training around effective communication, leadership building, and team building to student assistants and supervisors.	Student Assistant Retention, Training & Learning