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Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Yasmine Abou-El-Kheir, Committee Chair

COMMITTEE MEMBERS

• Yasmine Abou-El-Kheir, Chicago Theological Seminary, Chair
• Daniel (Bonggun) Baek, Vancouver School of Theology
• Evan E. Boyd, United Lutheran Seminary
• David Kriegh, Saint Mary’s College of California
• Alice Song, Fuller Theological Seminary
• Donna Wells, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary
• Gillian Harrison Cain, Staff Liaison

YEAR IN REVIEW

The 2019–20 year for the Atla Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Commit-
tee was spent building and expanding upon the groundwork from 
previous years. The committee continued to contribute to the DEI 
Series on the Atla blog. Six blog posts were written this year high-
lighting different diversity, equity, and inclusion themes and how 
members can bolster their collection and meet the needs of vari-
ous constituencies in their institutions. These themes covered the 
following topics:

• “Transgender Day of Remembrance, November 20” by Evan 
Boyd.

• A guest post by Tomoko Shida, the recipient of the 2019 Atla 
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Scholarship, on “‘Hospitality’ in 
Archival Collections Related to the Study of Religion.”

• Reflections by all DEI Committee members on the meaning of 
diversity, equity, and inclusion.

• “African Americans and the Ballot Box: Countering Disinforma-
tion Campaigns with Social Media Literacy” by Yasmine Abou-
El-Kheir.

• A guest blog post by Sheryl Stahl, director of the Hebrew Union 
College-Jewish Institute of Religion, discussing “Yom ha-Shoah 
(Israeli Holocaust Remembrance Day).”

https://www.atla.com/blog/transgender-day-of-remembrance/
https://www.atla.com/blog/hospitality-archival-collections-diversity-scholarship-2019/
https://www.atla.com/blog/hospitality-archival-collections-diversity-scholarship-2019/
https://www.atla.com/blog/dei-meeting/
https://www.atla.com/blog/black-history-month-voter-suppression/
https://www.atla.com/blog/black-history-month-voter-suppression/
https://www.atla.com/blog/yom-ha-shoah-dei/
https://www.atla.com/blog/yom-ha-shoah-dei/


Committee & Task Force Reports  5

• “Asian Pacific American Heritage Month (APAHM): A Rich 
Mosaic” by Daniel (Bonggun) Baek.

In 2020, the Atla Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Scholarship received 
15 applications from eligible candidates from ALA-accredited 
programs in the United States and Canada. The 2020 recipient is 
Ezra Jiseok Choe, an MLIS student at the University of California, 
Los Angeles. As a Korean-American Catholic, he brings a Thomis-
tic understanding of the role of diversity in all things, holding a 
particular interest in exploring how this is put into practice through 
librarianship. He sees this scholarship as an opening to a productive 
partnership with Atla, helping him to realize his goal of becoming a 
theological librarian, bolstering the encouragement of his peers at 
Biola, where he currently works as a library assistant. 

A request was submitted to the Atla board to consider awarding 
a secondary scholarship to Marian Ekweogwu, a lapsed Nigerian 
Catholic who identifies as a non-binary queer person. The request 
was approved, and a second Atla Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion 
Scholarship will be awarded. Marian is a student at UIUC’s School 
of Information Sciences and is currently enrolled in the Theologi-
cal Librarianship class with Carisse Berryhill. In the fifteen years 
between their undergraduate education and entering library school, 
they served in a variety of roles: an investigator of police brutality for 
the Civilian Complaint Review Board in New York City, a barista for 
a queer-run café, and a ranger for the Bureau of Land Management. 
In these diverse responsibilities, they put their thoughts on diversity 
into practice, encouraging the underserved and marginalized to take 
a greater role in their community. They hope that this scholarship 
will permit them to attend and present at upcoming Atla conferences.

The DEI Committee is currently working on a DEI LibGuide hosted 
by Atla that will offer members resources and toolkits for facilitating 
conversations around DEI issues as well as current best practices and 
policies for libraries. Information on the legal frameworks governing 
DEI as well as existing DEI policies for higher education and librar-
ies in particular will be shared. The DEI LibGuide is anticipated to 
become available for members in Fall 2020.

In the wake of the wave of protests following the deaths of George 
Floyd, Ahmaud Arberry, and Breonna Taylor, the DEI Committee 
approached the Atla Board to issue a formal statement. The Atla 
Board passed a resolution on June 5, 2020, acknowledging the trag-
edy of racism and xenophobia as problems that conflict with Atla’s 

https://www.atla.com/blog/asian-pacific-american-heritage-month/
https://www.atla.com/blog/asian-pacific-american-heritage-month/


6  A NNUA L Y E A RBOOK

core purpose “[t]o promote worldwide scholarly communication in 
religion and theology by advancing the work of libraries and related 
information providers” by marginalizing some voices and perspec-
tives. The resolution further affirmed Atla’s Organizational End 3.1 
and commitment to ongoing training so that “[l]ibrarians and infor-
mation providers demonstrate competencies in diversity, inclusion, 
equity, and antiracism.”

For the 2020 Atla Annual in Detroit, the DEI committee planned 
to offer members a pre-conference excursion to the Arab-American 
National Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. A guided tour followed by 
dinner at a local Lebanese restaurant was planned. Also scheduled 
for the conference was a workshop facilitated by the Michigan Round-
table on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion on best practices, standards, 
and practical guidelines. The one-hour session was going to touch on 
areas of bias, communication, and cultural awareness. Unfortunately, 
the reality of COVID-19 meant that both the excursion and workshop 
needed to be cancelled.

This coming year, the DEI Committee will continue its work devel-
oping a survey of Atla members on existing DEI practices and needs 
within their libraries and institutions more generally.


