Following Brown vs. Board, calls for academic support services, such as writing centers and library research support, highlight deficit thinking and racialized assumptions of the need to uplift students of color. Libraries and writing centers, while legally open to all, operated under systems and processes of colonization. It is this legacy of colonization that undergirds these spaces and services today, and has major implications in our daily work. However, the silence about this legacy is extremely problematic, as systems and processes that are assumed to be “neutral” continue to be advanced today. How can we grapple with that past, and work to dismantle structural inequities in higher education? In our presentation we will discuss readings, resources, and actions that support anti-racist work and decenter whiteness in the library and writing center.

Click here to access the recorded presentation

Click here to access the presentation slides

Erin Durham – Reference and Instruction Librarian, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Erin Durham, Reference and Instruction Librarian at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, teaches information literacy sessions and provides research support to the English, Modern Language, Music, Theatre, and Dance departments. She graduated in 2018 with an MA in History and MLIS from the University Maryland College Park, and started working at UMBC in the summer of 2018. Her research interests include critical theory, open educational resources, and the intersection of libraries and writing centers. She seeks to create space in the classroom to engage in conversations about information accessibility and algorithmic bias. She was the recipient of an ACRL 2019 Early-Career Scholarship, and she most recently shared critical pedagogy ideas in her presentation “Tune up your #critlib toolkit” at the virtual LOEX 2020 conference.

David Kelly, Jr. – Writing Services Coordinator, University of Baltimore
David Kelly, Jr. is the writing services coordinator at the University of Baltimore, where he received his MS in Negotiations and Conflict Management in the spring of 2018. As a graduate student he volunteered in the writing center, he discovered intersectionalities between conflict management scholarship and writing center studies. Focusing on writing as a conflict in systems and institutions of higher education, particularly towards minoritized students, David works to transform students’ relationships with writing through: advocating writer autonomy; student-centered collaboration; and development of critical and rhetorical awareness. The mission of the writing center at UB is to preserve the writer’s voice within the context of their discipline and help them see the value in their individual experiences and their place within a discourse community.

Allison Jennings-Roche – Reference and Instruction Librarian, University of Baltimore
Allison Jennings-Roche is a Reference and Instruction Librarian at the University of Baltimore. She graduated with her MLIS from the University of Maryland in December 2019, where she specialized in Diversity and Inclusion. She previously earned a MA in Legal and Ethical Studies and a BA in English Literature and Political Science. Allison has a broad professional background in student affairs, yoga and group fitness, public libraries, and academic library services. Her research interests include critical theory, andragogy, the intersection of statistics and information literacy, the ethics of citation practices, and the role of relationships in information-seeking behavior. Allison’s interdisciplinary background informs her expansive view of librarianship as she seeks out opportunities to promote information literacy beyond institutional barriers.

Elaine MacDougall – Director of the Writing Center; English Lecturer, University of Maryland Baltimore County
Elaine MacDougall directs the Writing Center and teaches various writing courses, including the Internship in Tutoring Writing course, at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. In her four years as director, she has presented at several writing center conferences, as well as the 2019 Western States Rhetoric and Literacy Conference and the 2020 Writing and Well-Being Conference in Tucson, AZ. Elaine also helped organize the first Baltimore Metro Writing Centers Association conference entitled Communicating Resistance: Advocacy, Activism, and Tutoring in Baltimore Writing Centers. Additionally, she was honored to present with three library colleagues at the 2019 TCAL Conference. Her research focuses on writing and well-being, storytelling and trauma, tutor self-efficacy and agency, and the rhetoric of silence. Elaine also teaches yoga classes in the Baltimore area, focusing on trauma-informed yoga for Veterans.