Students of color and marginalized-identifying students have more sophisticated critical information literacy skills across all dimensions compared to the comparison groups, reflecting greater cumulative awareness of: Journalistic/editorial best practices, Author expertise, Type of work (genre), Source research/evidence, Methods, Local sourcing, Diverse voices. Looking at specific dimensions of information literacy, Students of color and students who approach the research task as an opportunity to defend their own culture more frequently described the importance of including local voices in news reporting, compared to the comparison groups. Students of color and marginalized-identifying students more frequently critically evaluated the research/evidence of their sources than the comparison groups. Maginalized-identifying students more frequently considered authors' expertise when evaluating sources than mainstream-identifying students. Key Findings: 1. Students who self-identify as marginalized are better at critically assessing information than students who do not. Many approaches to assessment of student learning, even those that seek to operationalize critical approaches and an equity framework, persist in centering the deficiencies of marginalized students as a starting point, seeking to bring these learners “up” to what is perceived as “normative.” This finding reveals that marginalized students can also be the standard-bearers. 2. Interviews can be sites of meaning-making. Alternative assessment methods (in this case, interviews and grounded-theory methodologies) provide opportunities for educators and students to mutually engage in revealing assets of learners and meaning making that can help us (students and instructors) extend beyond/breakthrough academic conditioning. 3. Interviews offer opportunities for asset-based, anti-racist assessment. Alternative assessment methodologies may have particularly powerful implications for the development of learning outcomes that center the assets of students who are under-represented in the academy. The theme of “defending own culture” can be extrapolated to information literacy skills such as: Recognizing bias, Invoking one’s power as a producer of information, Countering stereotypical narratives.

This session grew out of conversations between two art librarians working in close proximity at different institutions, centered around the idea that while the needs for art and design students require a different type of academic support than others (Hemmig, 2009), this approach to learning and information lends itself to critical pedagogy and takeaways for other disciplines. Dismantling the paradigm that positions librarians in the role of the sage, critical pedagogy establishes more of a horizontal line of support from the student to the librarian. Those students whose academic work is rooted in creative practice operate on a continuum that does not culminate in a single research paper or study. Instead, they may work on a piece in their first year and continue to iterate until their thesis show. Therefore, it is critical to consider how we teach and support students that we work with holistically. Art and design students especially “need to learn how to find their voices, which in turn becomes liberating, allowing them to fully engage in their own intellectual and educational process” (Reale, 2012, p. 85). This session explores strategies for supporting students working in creative disciplines for the entirety of their academic stay and beyond, and what takeaways there may be for librarians working in other areas. For example, Grimm and Meeks (2017) address critlib and social justice in visual literacy—how library practitioners may address inequity and racism in representation, teaching students to look (and make) critically. While visual literacy naturally lends itself to art and design library users, it is equally vital that students in other areas gain the skills necessary to grapple with and decode the visual media that surrounds them inside and outside of the classroom. Centering the idea of holistic student support, these two librarians began to think about what it means to apply critical pedagogy to art librarianship. Studio art and design pedagogy align with the tactics and motivations of critical librarianship and pedagogy; by attempting to recreate the studio environment through activities emphasizing collaboration and critique, this session will demonstrate how librarians can critically engage with students in the long term in any discipline.

Instructors who embrace critical pedagogy work to create inclusive learning environments and dismantle barriers to education. Ironically, one such barrier can be the formal accommodations process that was created to ensure equitable access for student with disabilities (only a fraction of students with disabilities request needed accommodations). In order to better serve students with disabilities, many instructors have adopted Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and a proactive approach to accessible course design. Instructors implementing UDL often focus on the accessibility of course materials and using varied and inclusive pedagogical strategies. However, instructors may overlook the central role course policies play in accessibility. In fact, many common accommodations are a direct response to instructor policies. For example, instructors may be asked to grant an extension for a due date if a student experiences exacerbation of a chronic illness; however, this accommodation only exists as a standard accommodation because of instructors’ often inflexible policies around attendance and deadlines. In this talk, I identify course policies that create barriers for students with disabilities and show how instructors can adopt more flexible course policies that support inclusion and student success while decreasing the need for formal accommodations. Reference: Dolmage, Jay Timothy. Academic Ableism: Disability and Higher Education. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2017.

As you may recall, the 2020 Critical Library and Pedagogy Symposium instituted an open peer review process—not masking submitters’ names and other identifying information—to review proposed sessions. This decision came after the committee noted a lack of diversity in accepted sessions using a closed review process. Using open peer review allowed the committee to balance accepted proposals and offer a diverse range of views and experiences among presenters. This hour-long facilitated discussion will examine bias and power structures inherent in peer review. It will be an interactive session that allows participants to critically examine their views and previous experiences with peer review, and begin to reimagine it. What can opening peer review do to create more equitable scholarly spaces? What problems does opening peer review improve, and what new challenges does it present? Note that this session will be interactive, and will use the Zoom breakout room feature as well as Google Docs for collaboration.