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Partnering with Black students to learn about their library and campus experiences

Emily Daly | Duke University Libraries

Slides: bit.ly/Orbis-2021

Hello! As Sagan said, I’m Emily Daly, and I’m delighted to be here with you today. I’m going to spend the next hour sharing information about the in-depth, mixed methods study of Black undergraduate and graduate students that the Duke Libraries’ Assessment & User Experience Department led in the fall of 2019.

I’ll start by providing a brief overview of the impetus for this study and our research questions, methodology, and analysis. Then I’ll walk through the findings, and I’ll wrap up with what we’ve done at Duke Libraries in response to what we learned through this study. I’ll pause between sections to take your questions, so please post them in the chat, and I’ll answer them at the end of each section. There should also be time at the end to take any general questions you might have. My slides are at bit.ly/Orbis-2021 if you’d like to follow along, and I believe they’ll be posted to the website for this series soon.

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To learn more, see full report:

bit.ly/BlackStudentReport

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BACKGROUND

Inspiration and methodology

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“Diversity strengthens us”

Duke University Libraries Strategic Plan, 2016-2021

First, our strategic plan. In addition to goals and strategic priorities, the strategic plan outlines 5 guiding principles that “define who we are and who we strive to be.”

One of these guiding principles is “Diversity strengthens us.” All library units and staff were encouraged to develop projects or consider how their work helps us “represent or support the broadest possible spectrum of cultures, ideas, and information,” to borrow language from our Strategic Plan.

The department that I’m part of, Assessment & User Experience or “AUX” as you’ll hear me say, is also guided by another principle, “We design and deliver user-centered services.” In AUX, we are committed to continually assessing our work and determining how we can more fully meet the needs of all users.

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COFHE STUDY

Reviewed 2015 COFHE Enrolled Student Survey findings
Noticed disparities in responses across user groups
Wanted to know more about underrepresented minority groups
Included this study in assessment goals we report to the University

In more concrete terms, my colleagues and I reviewed data from the 2015 COFHE Enrolled Student Survey findings. The Duke Libraries had a series of library-specific questions, and we were able to analyze responses by student demographic. We noticed that there were differences across user groups, namely for members of marginalized communities, international students, and first-generation college students. We were fairly limited by what we could learn from the survey data, but we knew something was going on, and we wanted to know more about how these particular user groups experienced the library. Why, for instance, do Black library users at Duke find study space very helpful 17% less than users of other races at Duke (54% to ~71%)? Why do twice as many first generation college student respondents not use study spaces at all compared to their non-1G peers? (7% to 14%).

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USER STUDIES

1G students

Black students

International students

2016-2018

2018-2020

2020-2022

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GETTING STARTED

Formed team

Five staff members, including two graduate student assistants

Reviewed literature

Researched what other universities and libraries are doing in this area

Scanned environment

Learned more about Black students at Duke and the support services in place

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RESEARCH QUESTIONS

Experiences on campus

To what extent do Black students consider Duke University to be inclusive?
What services and spaces help students feel supported?
Do Black students experience microaggressions in Durham, at Duke, or in the Libraries?

Experiences with the library

To what extent do Black students consider the library to be inclusive?
What library services and spaces do students find useful?
What changes could the Libraries make to ensure that Black students feel supported and welcome?

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STUDY DESIGN

PhotoVoice

2020 biennial survey

Discussion groups

In order to answer these research questions, we used three different methods and sources of data:

- Duke Libraries biennial student survey, which we conducted in Jan and Feb of 2020

- discussion groups, also referred to as “focus groups”

- Photovoice

we led a total of 5 discussion groups with 32 undergraduate and graduate students, which is a fairly high number of participants for this type of qualitative research.

Because discussion groups do not afford the opportunity to talk to a large number of students, we also wanted a way to reach a greater number of students. We did this by leveraging students’ responses to our biennial student satisfaction survey, which we developed ourselves and conducted in January and Feb of 2020. We compared Black students’ survey responses to those of non-Black students.

We had been able to compare responses between Black and non-Black students at the very high level of the COFHE Enrolled Student Survey questions, but we wanted to dig deeper and ask more questions in this focused library-specific survey.

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PHOTOVOICE

Qualitative community-based participatory research method originating in global public health
Participants take photos ahead of time in response to a series of prompts
In group discussion, participants view all photos, and conversation is driven by photo content, not a script directed by a moderator

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PROMPTS

What makes you feel supported, safe, or like you belong on campus? (and in the Libraries?)
What makes you feel unsafe or unsupported on campus? (and in the Libraries?)
What library services (e.g., study spaces, research materials, visits from a librarian to your class, workshops, and other programs) do you use and find helpful?

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SUBMISSIONS

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DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

Have you experienced microaggressions or bias in your time at Duke? Take a moment to write your thoughts about microaggressions or bias at Duke on the blank paper in front of you. Then we’ll discuss as a group.
Based on your experience, how might the library be more supportive, welcoming, or inclusive of Black students?

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PEER MODERATION

Problem

Did not want to have White people lead the discussions
Our dept has no Black staff
We didn’t want to ask other library staff to spend extensive time on project

Solution

Recruited Black graduate student moderators with experience in qual research
From Psych & Neuroscience, Sociology, Cul Anth depts
Peers x 2: Duke students and Black
Very successful!

In addition to thinking about our research questions and study design, we gave a lot of thought to who would moderate the five Photovoice and discussion groups.

CLICK - PROBLEM:

Duke library staff trained in moderating qualitative discussion groups are all white; additionally, it detracts from an unbiased discussion to have library staff in the room. We knew students’ conversations would not be as rich or candid if moderators or note takers were white people or library staff, so we explored ways around this.

CLICK - SOLUTION:

At the recommendation of a faculty member at a nearby institution, we hired two Black Duke graduate students to moderate the discussion groups, and we asked our AUX graduate student assistant, who is herself a person of color, to take notes. Recruiting Black graduate students to moderate was extremely successful.

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RECRUITMENT

Undergraduates

Graduate students

Direct email

Duke Institutional Research

International House, student group listservs

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INCENTIVES

And yes, we offered incentives to our participants -- $10 Amazon gift cards for discussion group participants, and $20 or $35 Amazon gift cards for PhotoVoice participants, since those studies required more time on the part of the participants. We asked undergrads and graduate students what they felt a fair incentive would be, and these were the dollar amounts they suggested, so we went with them. We provided drinks and snacks during the discussion groups and also gave each participant a handwritten note thanking them for their time, which was a suggestion from one of the grad students we asked.

We had one graduate student request an incentive from a place other than Amazon, and we gladly obliged by providing a gift card to the Duke University Store.

We also paid our two graduate student moderators at the same rate that we pay the graduate student assistant in our department.

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ANALYSIS

Graduate moderator analysis

Staff research team analysis

Graduate student moderator’s report: https://dukespace.lib.duke.edu/dspace/handle/10161/20251

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ANALYSIS

Transcribed discussion groups
Reviewed analysis and report by graduate student moderator
Affinity mapping by team
Developed findings based on mappings and Pamela’s report

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QUESTIONS & OBSERVATIONS

?

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FINDINGS

Based on report and affinity mapping

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To what extent are Duke University and Duke Libraries viewed as inclusive spaces?

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Duke is a historically White space

Campus culture, curricula, and spaces center White experiences, history, and values
Systemic bias in the classroom
Students experience microaggressions constantly
Bias reinforces the idea that their belonging at Duke is qualified

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Overall positive view of Libraries

Libraries meet diverse learning needs
Numerous services and resources are valued
Some negative interactions with students/staff
Some aspects of library spaces are unwelcoming, particularly those that center White history and culture

Overall, participants have a positive view of the Libraries. Black students largely view the CLICK Libraries as inclusive spaces in the sense that they meet their diverse learning needs. When asked whether they feel safe, welcome, and supported at the Libraries, CLICK students listed numerous services and resources that they value. CLICK They reported some negative interactions with library staff and with peers in the Libraries. CLICK They also perceive aspects of library spaces to be unwelcoming, specifically because they center White history. They recommended improvements, especially for our physical spaces, and shared valuable insights that can help library staff understand what it means to be Black at Duke and ways that the libraries can make our spaces more welcoming and help ease the burden that Black students feel on a daily basis.

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Duke and DUL, while not perceived as actively hostile or racist, are complicit in their silence

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What does it mean to be Black at Duke?

To walk invisible, to speak for all

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It’s like I have to prove something to somebody: I’m here for the same reason that you are.

“

As indicated by this quote, the validity of Black students’ presence at Duke is constantly challenged. Black students are hyper-aware that most Black people on campus are staff rather than faculty or students. Many discussed how demoralizing it is when White people make the frequent assumption that they were admitted to Duke as part of an athletic program or tell them that they were accepted to Duke as part of a racial quota instead of on the same academic merits as other students. At the same time, Black students are often unable to fade into a crowd and are forced to be perennially conscious of their race identity in a way that White students at Duke, and in general in our country, are not.

It also takes a toll on Black students not to see their backgrounds and experiences represented in the faculty. Currently, Duke’s faculty is significantly less diverse than the study body at only 5% Black. Students know the exact number of Black faculty and administrators in their academic programs, and the numbers matter.

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What does it mean to be Black at Duke?

Being Black at a predominantly White institution

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Students don’t take it upon themselves to get educated about the Other. The only time my classes are predominantly Black is if it is an AAAS class. But I walk into my AAAS classes and I see people who already know what’s going on...People who do need this class, they aren’t going to take it. They don’t care.

“

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What does it mean to be Black at Duke?

Duke Libraries and Duke as complacent and complicit

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I don’t see an active attempt to make it welcoming. Depending on...what your experience has been like as a Black student on campus, I think there would need to be a purposeful and very explicit attempt to make it welcoming. Not to say there’s a malicious attempt to make it unwelcoming.

“

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SURVEY DATA

The 2020 Libraries student survey asked students whether they feel safe from discrimination, harassment, and emotional and physical harm at Duke Libraries and at Duke University. There are stark differences by race among the 2,600 students who responded. Black students do not feel as safe from discrimination, harassment, and emotional and physical harm as White students, either on campus or in the Libraries.

only 34% of Black students “strongly agree” that they feel safe at Duke University, versus 71% of White students. A quarter of all Black students do not feel safe on campus to some extent, versus only 7% of White students. More Black and White students feel safe in the Libraries than on campus in general, but fewer Black students “strongly agree” with the statement than White students (89% of white students strongly agree with this statement vs 71% of Black students).

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What does it mean to be Black at Duke?

Microaggressions at Duke and in Durham

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There are subtle reminders everywhere you go. It’s not intentional, but it’s all the time. Or that maybe you got here because you’re Black and they are trying to meet a quota.

“

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Systemic injustice perpetuated through the curriculum

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We were absent in the scholarship. Not just Black people – any people of color. And when it was there, it was highly problematized...Every time people of color are mentioned, it’s in some kind of negative context. We’re deficient in some sort of way.

“

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In my program, we are often looking at regressions in which race is a factor. And the way that professors interpret the coefficients on that is lazy, or sloppy...Being Black is related to other variables in the regression like education, wealth...My program is [a high percent] international students, a group of people who don’t have exposure to Black people, and they will just receive this as ‘Black people means less X, Y, Z.’

“

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How spaces and services help students feel supported

On white and Western dominance of physical spaces

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GOTHIC READING ROOM

PhotoVoice caption on image of Gothic Reading Room: “concentrated white dominance”

Physical spaces communicate priorities, expectations, and cultural values both implicitly and explicitly. They do this via architecture, materials in the spaces such as books, art, signs, and decorations, and social groupings within spaces. Students across discussion groups listed example after example of spaces at Duke – including many libraries – where art and architecture cause physical spaces to feel exclusionary.

One example provided by a student in a photovoice session was the library’s Gothic Reading Room, in which many portraits of former Duke leaders are hung. The student submitted a photo of the space with the caption “concentrated white dominance.” in the discussion they said: “When we walked in, I literally looked at my friend and told her how uncomfortable I felt.” This student went on to say that when she studies in this room, she always sits in the corner where she feels the white portraits aren’t looking at her.

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In the library at the [professional] school, there’s this room…A bunch of huge paintings of old White guys...It means something...the absence of other people being represented in this school says a lot. If they wanted to do something about it they could...There have been people of color who’ve been through Duke and have gone on to do great things.

“

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PHOTOVOICE

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...There is not a Black studies library here, or a section [in one of the libraries]. That’s something that is definitely missing and is conspicuous by its absence.

“

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How spaces and services help students feel supported

Affinity spaces are critical and signal what Duke values

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AFFINITY SPACES

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I think rental textbooks are really nice...Thinking, ‘oh no I have to buy this $200 math book online – no, you can rent it from the library until you know whether you’re even supposed to be in that math class.’ Knowing that I can get through the first part of the semester without having to worry about textbooks is big.

“

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How spaces and services help students feel supported

Person-to-person interactions make a difference

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First semester sophomore year when I was [at the library] really late, there was this one security guard who I saw just going around and around, and each time he would wave. Then I was studying there just two nights ago, I just saw him again and he waved, and it just felt really good.

“

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The staff is very nice and very welcoming...They’re always cracking jokes, or just always there to help me. That’s what makes me feel like I belong.

“

Participants discussed many positive interactions with library staff, exemplified by the comment here. Participants value friendliness and good customer service, as well as subject expertise. Discussions highlighted the fact that initial impressions and experiences are critical, and if a student’s initial interaction at the service desk is negative, they are likely not to come back. In particular, there is a delicate balance between our roles as teachers and as service providers. While many library staff are trained to teach research skills, students often approach the service desk expecting staff to help them complete their task as quickly and efficiently as possible. Efforts to teach them how to complete the action by themselves when they have not asked for instruction (instead of just assisting them) can be interpreted as patronizing, or as a rebuke for having “bothered” staff, or as poor customer service.

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QUESTIONS & OBSERVATIONS

?

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RECOMMENDATIONS

Based on findings

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RECOMMENDATIONS

Increase diversity of Duke University Libraries staff.
Dedicate a library space to Black scholarship. Include art, photographs, or exhibits related to Black culture and history – at Duke or in Durham, or internationally. Highlight library resources from Black scholars.
Develop library security staff orientation: provide information about the important role security staff members’ behavior plays in students feeling welcome or unwelcome.

The research team developed recommendations that fall into four general categories: Spaces, Services, Library Staff, Marketing Opportunities. The first item in this list, “Dedicate a library space to Black Scholarship,” was the primary recommendation suggested by the research team due to the number of times this topic came up during our five discussion groups. Students did not suggest this as an affinity space where only Black students would be welcome, but rather as a study space open to all, containing collections related to Black studies and art or exhibits related to the Black experience. This would be similar to two popular library spaces at Duke -- the East Asia Reading Room and Nicholas Family International Reading Room, which are heavily used study spaces that highlight materials from East Asia and around the world.

I’ll pause so you can read over the others

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RECOMMENDATIONS

Charge a group to further explore use of library spaces by fraternities.
Increase portraits, artwork, photographs, or other visual representations of people of color to balance the number of portraits of White people in library spaces, including the renovated Lilly Library.
Work with Black students and faculty to develop more exhibits and events that highlight Black students’ experiences and Black scholarship.

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SHARING FINDINGS

Duke Libraries staff discussions
Conversations with campus stakeholders
Presentations at local and national venues
Implementation team charged to move recommendations forward

So what have we done since we completed this study?

�We shared the report first with library staff and campus partners last April.

And then last summer, after George Floyd’s murder, we were motivated to post our report to Duke’s Institutional Repository and begin promoting this study more broadly, through national listservs and, again, with campus partners.

Those posts generated a lot of interest and led to numerous sessions with Duke libraries staff and campus stakeholders to discuss the Black Student Study recommendations. These groups include undergraduate academic deans, Student Affairs Senior Leadership, the Academic Advising Center, and Campus IT leadership.

In these discussions, we’re encouraging our campus colleagues not to replicate this study (and that question has been asked) but rather to build on our recommendations and use what we learned about students’ experiences on campus and in the library to develop their own recommendations. I’m pleased that some of these campus groups have already adapted programs or services in response to what we learned through this study. (For example, Student Affairs used our report to inform their orientation programming for all first-year students, and Academic Deans used the findings to re-think aspects of the undergraduate curriculum in their areas.)

�We’ve also shared this work with the library and information science community through a number of presentations like this one.

Finally, we formed an implementation team of 6 library staff to consider and move forward the nearly 40 recommendations that came out of this report and the follow-up discussions.

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NEXT STEPS COORDINATING TEAM

Six staff members, led by member of AUX and the research team
Informed by workshop groups
Charged to review and implement recommendations
Identified campus and library partners

We called this the Next Steps Coordinating Team to acknowledge that following up on what we learned through this study is the work of the entire library, not just a single department or team.

Our colleagues accepted this responsibility. Last July, 17 library staff participated in workshop groups to discuss findings from this study and from Black students’ survey respondents. They reviewed our recommendations, developed new ones, and then prioritized those they feel will have the highest impact on users.

We then had 5 staff from across the library volunteer to serve on the Next Steps Coordinating Team, led by a member of the AUX dept and also a member of the research team that led this study, to further review and prioritize recommendations, work with other library departments and units to implement recommendations, and then conduct further research and planning as needed.

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ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Diversifying scholarship in the curriculum
Increasing visual representation of BIPOC in the Libraries
Developing policies to report harassment
Conducted research to support other recs
Conversations with campus leaders re: fraternities’ use of our spaces

The Next Steps Coordinating Team worked through most of the 2020-21 academic year and accomplished a lot before wrapping up this month.

Again, because they are a coordinating team and not meant to do all of the work themselves, they helped charge several new groups to address specific recommendations.

CLICK

For instance, a “Diversifying Scholarship in the Curriculum” group is working on ways the libraries can provide curricular support for faculty interested in bringing diverse scholarship to their courses

CLICK

An “Increasing visual representation of BIPOC in the Libraries” group is developing and implementing a plan to use special collections materials to better visually represent diverse racial and cultural histories, achievements, and perspectives in library spaces.

CLICK�

A small team was charged to develop library-wide policies around how users should report incidents of harassment if they were to occur in library spaces.

CLICK

Team members conducted background research needed to address many other recommendations, from documenting anti-racist reading groups on campus so we understand how the libraries can meet needs in this area, to researching existing campus affinity spaces and talking to consortial peers about how they have supported spaces dedicated to Black scholarship and culture within their libraries.

CLICK

Meanwhile, library leadership has had conversations with Duke’s relevant Deans and campus offices about fraternities’ use of the libraries, and we’ll continue those discussions as the libraries reopen more fully this fall.

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IMPROVEMENTS

I’m pleased to say that, as part of our reopening work this past academic year, we implemented some improvements based on what we learned from this study. Duke is notorious for not marking buildings or providing sufficient wayfinding signage, and unfortunately, the library tended to follow suit. When we reopened library buildings last August, we knew we needed better signage to help users navigate library spaces, which are more complicated this fall due to requirements to maintain physical distancing and restrict some areas to library staff only.

We now have more signs to direct users through our building than we’ve ever had before, and we’re working with our security staff to ensure they are friendly and inclusive of all. We are also consistently referring to them as security *staff* rather than *guards,* and we even asked the contractor we work with if security staff can wear polos instead of uniforms that resemble police uniforms. We weren’t able to do that, but we’ll continue to work with our staff to create a friendly, welcoming presence, especially since in some cases, security staff are the only adults students interact with when they visit the library this fall.

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IMPROVEMENTS

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ACCOUNTABILITY

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THANKS!

More info about this study or other user studies:

Emily Daly, emily.daly@duke.edu

bit.ly/BlackStudentReport

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QUESTIONS & OBSERVATIONS

?