Kathleen Pickens-French organized a panel discussion on assessing diversity climate on campus. The event had a large turnout and received local media coverage. Follow-up emails from participants expressed that it was an enlightening experience that continued the important dialogue around issues of language, race, and discrimination. One participant noted they learned a lot and it reminded them of previous controversies surrounding similar topics. Overall, the discussion was seen as a success in bringing the community together around interdisciplinary issues of cultural history and diversity.

1. Presented By: Kathleen Pickens-French
Public Services Librarian, Miami University Hamilton

2. Assessing the Diversity Climate on your Campus
Survey Summarize

3. Going Outside the Library
•Related University Faculty & Staff Committees
•Relevant Offices
•Marketing Personnel
•Student Organizations
•Resident Advisors
•Community Resources

4. Familiarity with your Collection

5. • 67% of foster care youth who
enter college drop out before
graduation
• Less than 2% of foster care alumni
complete a bachelor’s degree,
compared with 20% of the general
population

7. Rentschler Library, MUH Statistics
Blog
70, 498 hits in 2010
9,439 just in April 2011
Website
11,675 Unique Visitors in past year
33,860 visits last year (avg. 92.51/day)
Facebook
413 “Likes”
Newsletter
Published 2 x’s /semester

9. Catching Current Events …
While they are Current
Current Event Diversity Issue
1/2010: Haiti Earthquake Latin America & The Caribbean
4/2010: Arizona Immigration Law Human Rights, Immigrants, Discrimination
9/2010: Tyler Clementi’s suicide GLBTQI
2/2011: Alan Gribben replaces “n-word” Language & Race
with “slave” in revised version of
Huckleberry Finn

10. Know Your Purpose
•What do you hope to achieve?
•How would you describe it?
•Who is your primary audience?
Discussion
INTERDISCLIPLINARY issues
cultural HISTORIC semantics Slavery
Pop culture Rap Music Censorship
opinions Slippery Slope freedom Mark
Twain “n-word” other ethnic/racial slurs Other
writers who use the vernacular American
Classic Racism

11. Traditional Strategies

12. “Nontraditional “Strategies

15. Katheen,
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to participate on the panel yesterday. It was truly enlightening and
wonderful experience. I firmly believe there needs to be more opportunities to engage in dialogue and discussion such as
yesterday. Wow I am impressed with the local coverage we received. Karen
Hi Kathleen
Thank you so much for inviting me. Last night, Tom and I were talking and he was like "wow, Kathleen did such a great job
putting that together!" I could not believe that turn out. I think that the discussion could have continued to go on and on.
Cheers to a great event!
Katie
Kathleen
Thanks so much for inviting me to participate. I thought it went very well, and kudos to you for coming up with the idea. It
was really a great thing to bring to fruition.
I love it when the community takes an interest in what we do at the university.
Thanks again.
Best, Oleta

16. ove it when the community takes an interest in what we do at the university.
anks again.
st, Oleta
Hi Kathleen,
It was a very interesting discussion. I learned
a lot. I kept thinking of the uproar that an
NAACP discussion about Agatha Christie’s
play “Ten Little Indians,” Originally titled “Ten
Little N’s” caused a few years ago. There
was a fierce backlash against the head of the
local NAACP.
Thank you for putting this together,
Cheers,
John