Emerging Voices in Diversity and Inclusion Leadership: Applications of the Strategic Diversity Manifesto


The International Journal of Information, Diversity, & Inclusion, 2(4), 2018 
ISSN 2574-3430, publish.lib.umd.edu/IJIDI/ 

Emerging Voices in Diversity and Inclusion Leadership: 
Applications of the Strategic Diversity Manifesto 

Bharat Mehra, Guest Editor 

Keywords: diversity and inclusion; emerging leadership; strategic diversity manifesto 

Publication Type: editorial 

Editorial 

his special issue of IJIDI (vol. 2, no. 4) spotlights select student work of library and
information science (LIS) graduates in the “Diversity Leadership in Information
Organizations” course (INSC 590) that I taught during the spring of 2018 at the School of 

Information Sciences, University of Tennessee. The course was designed to prepare future 
information professionals to develop inclusive services to underrepresented populations based 
on race, ethnicity, color, national origin, gender, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, 
physical or mental ability, veteran status, education, income, age, geography, and religion, 
amongst other factors. 

The work of four emerging voices from the class, showcased in this collection, serves as a test-
bed for applying the framework of the Strategic Diversity Manifesto (SDM) (Mehra & Davis, 2015) 
to the critical analysis of existing information responses to diversity in the organizations where 
students worked or volunteered. These thoughtful pieces propose a range of strategies that 
advance cultural competence, inclusion, and effective leadership in the diverse workforce 
environment (Gay, 2018). The insightful evaluations include a variety of existing information 
responses (e.g., collections, services, programs, resources, policies, and best practices) to 
ensure the equality-equity of representation, inclusion of underserved populations, access, and 
the information use of diverse stakeholders in a community-centered organizational setting of 
choice.  

As part of the coursework, acting as reflective practitioners (Schon, 1984), all students in class 
developed a strategic diversity action plan for their chosen information organization, identified 
future directions of progressive growth and professional practice, and created a Diversity & 
Inclusion ePortfolio (D&I-eP) using Wordpress. This ePortfolio publicly represented their analysis 
while they were still in touch with their respective organizations (see http://insc-
diversity.cci.utk.edu/). A combination of personal and work-related factors accounted for four 
students continuing to develop their projects beyond the course, ultimately turning them into 
publishable peer-reviewed articles. This issue of IJIDI builds on these students’ articles that have 
been peer-reviewed and reworked for the general audience of IJIDI readers. 

Diversity and inclusion are an integral reality of the 21st century life experience. They are 
threads that weave the fabric of the world in which we live. We are all also part of diverse 

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http://insc-diversity.cci.utk.edu/
http://insc-diversity.cci.utk.edu/


Emerging Voices in Diversity and Inclusion Leadership 

The International Journal of Information, Diversity, & Inclusion, 2(4), 2018 
ISSN 2574-3430, publish.lib.umd.edu/IJIDI/ 

workforces and communities we engage. However, the LIS profession has struggled with 
developing systematic and meaningful approaches to integrate cultural competence in leading 
our organizations to become more inclusive and respond effectively to the diverse challenges 
and opportunities available to us in our complex and interconnected society (Jaeger, Bertot, 
& Subramaniam, 2013). Similarly, there is a lack of solid, well-developed practice models in 
our fields related to diversity, inclusion, and assessment (Jaeger, Sarin, & Peterson, 2015). 
The SDM provides one possible and systematic approach. It is operationalized in students’ 
critical theory-to-practice applications that not only integrate a social justice agenda in LIS 
curricula but also advance diversity and inclusion as an instrument for promoting positive 
organizational change (Mehra, Rioux, & Albright, 2009; Rioux, 2010). The pedagogy of 
embedding SDM for developing a research-based and reflective organizational assessment of 
diversity and inclusion responses is focused, concrete, systematic, and intentional. As an 
applied example of “diversity by design” (Dali & Caidi, 2017), it provided an opportunity for 
emerging leaders working in information settings to contribute to both prof essional practice 
and the published body of scholarship, and to extend the relevance of classroom experiences 
into the workplace environment. 

The four articles included in the collection present a variety of information responses in 
different organizations, demonstrate the merit of classroom assignments for addressing real-
life diversity questions, and strengthen diversity conversations between academia and the field 
of practice. Based on education-field collaborations, they were successful because the authors 
and organizational contacts were involved in ongoing communication and because 
organizational collaborators saw value in the contribution of librarians-in-training to assess the 
state of diversity in their workplaces (Mehra & Elder, 2018). A spirit of inclusion appropriate 
for the discussion of diversity in workplaces was the connecting thread in the published works. 

Laura E. Smith’s article “Diversity and Inclusion at East Tennessee State University’s Archives 
of Appalachia” holistically applies the SDM through a top-down approach in order to understand 
diversity and inclusion that impact the archives at both university and departmental levels; 
the article focuses on local/regional communities and LGBTQ communities. The next 
contribution, entitled “An Exploratory Case Study of Transgender and Gender Nonconforming 
Inclusion at a Metropolitan Library in the Southeastern U.S.” by Liz Movius, is eye -opening in 
its analysis of information challenges experienced by this marginalized population; it discusses 
six action steps to foster inclusion for transgender and gender nonconforming individuals in an 
anonymized public library. Joseph Winberry’s article “Shades of Silver: Applying the Strategic 
Diversity Manifesto to Tennessee’s Knox County Office on Aging” creatively implements the 
SDM in a case study of a non-traditional aging service that meets the needs of the fast-growing 
population of older adults; it examines how this organization can extend its information 
outreach to include more diverse communities of seniors. The last but not least is Olivia G. 
Forehand’s timely piece entitled “Efforts to Overcome Homelessness in the Pruitt Branch of 
the Nashville Public Library,” which discusses how a small branch of a large public library 
addresses homelessness in its rural community and how it can improve its services to the 
homeless people. 

A few concluding thoughts on creating course experiences that provided students with 
opportunities to develop peer-reviewed articles on diversity and inclusion for this special issue 
(Dow et al., 2015). The experience was challenging and exhilarating at once for both the 
students and myself. A major challenge was the structure of assignments and the pressure of 
semester deadlines vis-a-vis IJIDI submission deadlines. On my end, it involved difficult 
decision making about selecting the course content (what to include and what to leave out) 

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Emerging Voices in Diversity and Inclusion Leadership 

The International Journal of Information, Diversity, & Inclusion, 2(4), 2018 
ISSN 2574-3430, publish.lib.umd.edu/IJIDI/ 

given that the coverage of diversity and inclusion topics is so scarce across the board (Kumasi 
& Manlove, 2015). On the students’ end, there was a significant expectation for producing 
tangible results, be it D&I-eP (for all) and/or manuscripts for publication. That is in addition 
to ensuring effective communication between the students and the organizations they worked 
with; dealing with apprehension, reservations, and anxieties related to developing a 
publishable product for the first time; and so on.  

Significant positive factors included student enthusiasm and drive to learn and apply diversity 
and inclusion content to improve the work environments and public domain reports that 
showed accountability for their work and proposed actions. They sharpened their lens of 
critical analysis to deepen an understanding of the social, cultural, political, economic, and 
other historical dimensions of diversity and inclusion in the U.S. and of the problems, 
challenges, and opportunities unique to working with diverse populations in their localized 
community contexts (Marcinkowski, 2016). The value of engagement was two -fold: it was a 
contributor to both students’ personal growth and organizational improvement, by way of 
rectifying the power differentials associated with the information creation and dissemination 
within organizations as they applied to diverse and/or underserved constituencies (Turner & 
Gorichanaz, 2016). This assignment was an important exercise in sharpening leadership skills 
and integrating community engagement, social justice, activism, and human resource 
management to further diversity concerns and inclusion in the contexts outside of stud ents’ 
immediate milieu (Mehra, 2015).  

A much appreciated partnership with IJIDI has proven invaluable in giving students a chance to 
have their experiential work on diversity and inclusion published through a peer -reviewed 
venue. Nicole A. Cooke’s Information Services to Diverse Populations: Developing Culturally 
Competent Library Professionals (2017), as required course text, served as an excellent primer 
and guide for creating a “safe space” learning environment for students; it enabled them to 
engage in difficult conversations surrounding diversity and inclusion based on their experiences 
in their personal, professional, and/or community-embedded workplaces. The generosity of 
anonymous reviewers in providing timely and extended feedback on student work w as 
humbling.  

Reflections gathered in the process of making the LIS classroom relevant to mobilizing greater 
community impact will shape my continued pedagogical practices. I hope that insights raised 
in this issue will help IJIDI readers to think about their own teaching and mentoring as well. The 
types of engaged scholarship that draw connections from research to teaching to service (and 
their multidirectional intersections) will stay with me for years to come and serve as a guide 
in my future leadership roles. Experiential and embedded learning and mentoring, such as this 
one, presents important opportunities for faculty members to promote and build community 
around diversity and inclusion, community engagement, and social justice initiatives as part of 
the pedagogy and practice of our field. 

References 

Cooke, N. A. (2017). Information services to diverse populations: Developing culturally 
competent library professionals. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited. 

Dali, K., and Caidi, N. (2017). Diversity by design. Library Quarterly, 87(2), 88-98. 

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Emerging Voices in Diversity and Inclusion Leadership 

The International Journal of Information, Diversity, & Inclusion, 2(4), 2018 
ISSN 2574-3430, publish.lib.umd.edu/IJIDI/ 

Dow, M. J., Boettcher, C. A., Diego, J. F., Karch, M. E., Todd-Diaz, A., and Woods, K. M. 
(2015). Case-based learning as pedagogy for teaching information ethics based on the 
Dervin sense-making methodology. Journal of the Association for Information Science 
and Technology, 56(2), 141-157. 

Gay, G. (2018). Culturally responsive teaching: Theory, research, and practice (3rd ed.). New 
York: Teachers College Press. 

Jaeger, P. T., Bertot, J. C., and Subramaniam, M. (2013). Preparing future librarians to 
effectively serve their communities. Library Quarterly, 83(3), 243-248. 

Jaeger, P. T., Sarin, L., and Peterson, K. J. (2015). Diversity, inclusion, and library and 
information science: An ongoing imperative (or why we still desperately need to have 
discussions about diversity and inclusion). Library Quarterly, 85(2), 127-132. 

Kumasi, K. D., and Manlove, N. L. (2015). Finding "diversity levers" in the core library and 
information science curriculum: A social justice imperative. Library Trends, 64(2), 415-
443. 

Marcinkowski, M. (2016). Data, ideology, and the developing critical program of social 
informatics. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 67(5), 
1266-1275. 

Mehra, B. (Issue Editor). (2015). Introduction. Library Trends, 64(2), 179-197. 

Mehra, B., and Davis, R. (2015). A strategic diversity manifesto for public libraries in the 21st 
century. New Library World, 116(1/2), 15-36. 

Mehra, B., and Elder, A. (2018). Benefits to collection development librarians from 
collaborating with “community-embedded” librarians-in-training. Collection 
Management, 43(2), 120-137. 

Mehra, B., Rioux, K. S., & Albright, K. S. (2009). Social justice in library and information 
science. In M. J. Bates & M. N. Maack (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Library and Information 
Sciences (pp. 4820-4836). New York: Taylor & Francis. 

Rioux, K. (2010). Metatheory in library and information science: A nascent social justice 
approach. Journal of Education for Library & Information Science, 51(1), 9-17. 

Schon, D. A. (1984). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. New York: 
Basic Books. 

Turner, D., & Gorichanaz, T. (2016). Old skills and new practices mean radical change for 
library education. Journal of Education for Library and Information Science, 57(3), 
239-248.

Bharat Mehra (bmehra@utk.edu) is Professor in the School of Information Sciences at the 
University of Tennessee. Beginning January 2019, he has accepted an EBSCO Endowed Chair and 
Professorship in Social Justice at the University of Alabama’s School of Library and Information 

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Emerging Voices in Diversity and Inclusion Leadership 

The International Journal of Information, Diversity, & Inclusion, 2(4), 2018 
ISSN 2574-3430, publish.lib.umd.edu/IJIDI/ 

Studies. Dr. Mehra’s research focuses on diversity and social justice in library and information 
science and community informatics or the use of information and communication technologies 
to empower minority and underserved populations to make meaningful changes in their everyday 
lives. He has applied action research to further engaged scholarship and community engagement 
while collaborating with racial/ethnic groups, international diaspora, sexual minorities, rural 
communities, low-income families, small businesses, and others, to represent their experiences 
and perspectives in the design of community-based information systems and services. 

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