LLAMA President’s Program will explore ways for leaders to handle EDI conflicts

How do you as a manager or library leader handle incidents of discrimination, micro-aggression, and interpersonal rejection in your library? How do you build a culture that reduces the likelihood of equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) conflicts erupting? The Library Leadership and Management Association (LLAMA) will present “How do I respond to that?” as its 2019 President's Program on Saturday, June 22, 10:30 am – Noon, in the Washington Convention Center, room 158-AB. 

This panel discussion for library managers and leaders will focus on how to effectively manage challenging EDI issues as they happen. Many programs help library employees develop EDI sensitivity and implement EDI initiatives within libraries, but when a work situation occurs that involves these issues, managers often freeze and do not know what to do - forgetting basic managerial approaches to handling staff and patron conflicts. The panelists of this program will describe how they would respond when presented with EDI-related scenarios based on actual events.

After a welcome by LLAMA President Lynn Hoffman, Jon E. Cawthorne, Dean of the Wayne State University Library System and School of Information Sciences, will offer an introduction on recent efforts to build library cultures that genuinely embrace diversity, equity, and inclusion.

The program will be facilitated by Don Crankshaw, Equity and Well-being Officer, Evansville Vanderburgh Public Library. 

Panelists are:

• Jon E. Cawthorne, Ph.D., Dean of the Wayne State University Library System and School of Information Sciences;
• Nicole A. Cooke, Ph.D., Associate Professor and Program Director for the Master’s of Library and Information Science, School of Information Sciences, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign;
• Derrick Jefferson, Associate Librarian, American University;
• Jason Kucsma, Acting Director/Fiscal Officer, Toledo Lucas County Public Library;
• Cyndee Landrum, Ph.D. Candidate (Simmons University) and former CEO/Director, Evansville Vanderburgh Public Library;
• Skye Patrick, Director, Los Angeles County Library; and
• Deb Sica, Deputy County Librarian, Alameda County Public Library