Online/Virtual Event

Wednesday, July 20th 2022 from 4:00pm to 5:00pm

See a recording of this webinar here.

Based on the top three topics selected by registrants in a survey, this Choose Your Own EDI Adventure webinar focuses on achieving cultural competence and cultural humility in our work, including the importance of understanding privilege and bias in the workplace and the role that assessing for EDI can play. This webinar introduces the concept of the cultural competence continuum and how to move forward on the continuum towards cultural humility, through concrete actions that include addressing privilege and bias and the application of EDI assessment practices.

Viewers will:

• Understand the concepts of cultural competence and cultural humility and how they impact library work.
• Introduce the cultural competence continuum and actions that can be taken in libraries to move up the continuum.
• Recognize issues with privilege and bias in libraries and how to combat those issues.
• Identify areas where applying EDI assessment practices can improve cultural competence efforts and provide libraries with concrete knowledge about their EDI efforts.

About Our Presenter:
Dr. Kawanna Bright is Assistant Professor of Library Science at East Carolina University. Dr. Bright earned her PhD in Research Methods and Statistics from the University of Denver in 2018. Prior to earning her doctorate, Dr. Bright worked as an academic librarian for twelve years, with a focus on reference, instructional services, and information literacy. She earned her MLIS from the University of Washington iSchool in 2003. 

Dr. Bright’s current research focuses on assessment in libraries, equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) in libraries, the application of research methodology to the study of library and information science, and the importance of the liaison librarianship role in academic libraries. Her work with Dr. Amy VanScoy (University at Buffalo) to investigate the reference and information services experience of librarians of color received a 2014 ALA Diversity Research Grant and was awarded the 2017 Beta Phi Mu-Library Research Round Table Research Paper Award.  

Dr. Bright is also a co-PI on a recently funded IMLS grant project that will utilize survival analysis to determine when and why BIPOC librarians are likely to leave the profession. Dr. Bright is a 2021 recipient of an ECU College of Education Profiles in Diversity Award and a 2021 recipient of a 2021 NCLA Round Table for Ethnic Minority Concerns’ LIS Instructor Roadbuilder Award.