A new fellowship for Black students pursuing a Master of Information Studies is being jointly offered by the McGill Library and the School of Information Studies. Fellows will receive a tuition award for two years of their training, beginning in Fall 2023, as well as a 15-hour per week paid position in the McGill Library during each academic term.
Prospective students have until 5:00pm (EST) on March 31, 2023 to submit their completed applications in order to be considered for the fellowship.
Initiated by the Library's leadership team, the School of Information Studies was more than happy to participate in offering this joint fellowship. The issue of a lack of black representation in the library profession is a concern that the School of Information studies takes seriously and is currently addressing via a diversity audit, which is currently ongoing, and which they hope to be complete by this Fall.
"Black students are underrepresented in library school programs across Canada, including our own school," says Professor Kimiz Dalkir, Director of the School. In undertaking a diversity audit, the school hopes to better understand how they can address this underrepresentation amongst students, as well as the lack of black Information Studies professors in academia.
"Interviewing all stakeholders in our community [ensures] there is diversity, equity, and inclusivity in everything we do, not just in our curriculum' says Dalkir.
Diversity is an important core value that the School of Information studies hopes to instill and reinforce throughout their Master programs; after establishing a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion committee a few years, co-chaired by a Faculty member and student, the School, the School has taken action in modeling the sorts of values and professional behaviours they want their students to embrace.
In receiving this fellowship, black students looking to pursue a MISt in Library Sciences will hopefully be part of a snowball effect.
"They will be visible role models who can inspire others to follow this professional path," says Professor Dalkir. "This was one of our success stories with our Indigenous program where one of our student participants ended up inspiring young members of a First Nations community to pursue careers as knowledge managers and community archivists."
The fellowship is a unique combination of academic courses and the ability to apply what is learned in an actual work setting. This not only equips students with the needed knowledge, skills (and especially soft skills) but also serves to populate their CVs thus placing them in an excellent position to successfully transition to their professional working lives.
More information on the fellowship and MISt program can be found here.
For any questions relating to the fellowship, contact the McGill Library at edi.library [at] mcgill.ca, the School of Information Studies at sis [at] mcgill.ca or via their website at https://www.mcgill.ca/sis/programs/mist, or McGill's Black Student Affairs Liaison Antoine-Samuel Mauffette Alavo at antoine-samuel.mauffettealavo [at] mcgill.ca.