In August 2020, Copley Library at the University of San Diego (USD), a private Catholic university, formally created the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) Committee in response to the Black Lives Matter movement, #MeToo movement, and the repeated, violent attacks on people from marginalized groups on our campus and in the larger society. This standing, action-oriented committee's founding membership includes a racially and ethnically diverse group of six library faculty and staff members representing various departments within the library. The three tenure-line faculty members of the committee formed a research-oriented subcommittee to support the work of the committee and share it with the scholarly community.
Our first project was to conduct two surveys, one internal to examine the current climate of DEIA at our own institution, and one external to capture librarian perspectives and the DEIA climate of their libraries at Catholic-serving institutions. This presentation will share the experience of forming the DEIA committee and how the committee's work relates to the DEIA initiatives that may be present or not in the broader campus community. Presenters will also share the results of their recently completed research project, and next steps for both the committee and the research subcommittee.
