Thursday, June 26: Spectrum Institute

Note: In case you don't know, Sunshine refers to me - Alma, the author of these posts. Now, on to the Institute....

Our first session was called "Tracing the origins of the Spectrum Scholarship," and featured four women who played a dramatic role in instituting the Spectrum Scholarship program within ALA.

Spectrum is now in its 11th year, but when it was first introduced to ALA by Elizabeth Martinez (currently the Director of the Salinas, CA Pub. Lib.) it was met by heavy resistance. She wrote the ALA policy of equity in the 1980's, under the presidency of E.J. Josey, but equity was not forefront in ALA's mind during those turbulent times.

In 1997, Elizabeth proposed having ALA use $1.5 million of their $12 million in unallocated funds to help recruit librarians of color. This created a storm of protest, controversies and council splits. However, at the end of the storm, ALA gave its approval to fund 50 scholars for a period of 5 years. Elizabeth spoke eloquently and passionately about those early times, and showed the current scholars how hard it was to fight a bureauracracy. My favorite quote was "organizational politics will bring us to our knees, but that's ok because it brings us closer to the earth, where we came from, and closer to prayer...remember librarianship is not just a career, it's a calling...we have a cause, not a career."

Following Elizabeth, we heard from Betty Turock, former ALA president and newly-retired Rutgers GSLIS professor. Betty was president of ALA when Elizabeth finally got the go-ahead to run Spectrum, and she invested much time, money and effort to getting the program off the ground - despite continued opposition. Since ALA refused to fund it past 5 years, she set about getting fundraising committees organized. Her quote of the day was "the life of a librarian is never dull - especially if one is inspired to lead."

Next we heard from Sandra Rios Balderrama, former REFORMA president and former ALA Diversity Officer during these early days. She currently has her own consulting firm. Sandra had to fight negativity and challenges from people putting their own ideas and perceptions into what they constituted "ethnic." The Spectrum program is a recruitment tool to librarianship as well as a scholarship and leadership program. It is a model for other programs to emulate. She reminded us that "our culture, our heritage and our identity is a strength, not a detriment."

Finally, Dr. Mengxiong Liu, Engineering librarian and part-time professor at San Jose State's GSLIS program, spoke. She served on the early Spectrum Steering Committee in 1997 and discussed the many ways the committee tried to use promotional materials to get out the word about the program. Time was of the essence, as in its first 3 years it was important to let people know about the program for it to succeed. She read words from past scholars who noted "becoming a Spectrum Scholar is not just financial assistance, it's receiving support...it's a network of people and opportunities...one becomes part of the Spectrum family."

Gwendolyn Prellwitz, current Director of the Office for Diversity, ended the program by reminding us that the fight is not done. The Spectrum Program does not have a budget from ALA, despite ALA having an endowment of over $22 million. The scholars from the past few years have been funded from an IMLS grant written by the past Diversity Director Tracie Hall, but it expires in 2011.

The yearly ALA ProQuest Bash funds 10 scholars, but that only came about on her insistence that the funds be allocated. She has involved various organizations like the Medical Libraries and others to fund 2 or 3 scholars. However, at $5000 per scholar, and expenses like the Institute, more monies need to be forthcoming. She urged us all to do what we can to spread the word about Spectrum and to get others involved in keeping the dream alive.

Note: In the 11 years since the program was established, we have about 500 former scholars in the world of librarianship. That is just a drop in the bucket, and we have a long way to go. For more information on the Spectrum Scholarship program, go to the ALA Office for Diversity website.