Overall, the involvement of people of all colors at the doctoral level can be fairly characterized as minimal. The need for immediate response is acute (Turock, 2003, p. 493).

Doctoral fellows serve as the nucleus of energy for continued recruitment of a diverse doctoral student population. Attrition through graduation will extend the diversity to the LIS professoriate. Future generations of librarians are educated by the professoriate (Bonnici & Burnett, 2005, p. 125).

As is demonstrated in the larger field of librarianship, there is a serious dearth of minority scholars in the Library and Information Science (LIS) professoriate (Davis & Hall, 2006). The Spectrum Doctoral Fellowship Program is well on its way to producing 12 such candidates. This is an admirable start, but more needs to be done and more minority candidates need to be recruited, promoted, and funded through PhD programs.

During her tenure as the President of the American Library Association (ALA) (1995), Dr. Betty J. Turock, in collaboration with then ALA Executive Director Elizabeth Martinez, spurred the creation of the Spectrum Scholarship Initiative, which was designed to recruit and fund members of underrepresented minority populations through graduate programs in library science. Believing that the country was rapidly changing, Turock felt that the field of librarianship should be changing as well – libraries can only be responsive to their diverse clientele if their staffs are equally diverse. Minority populations in the United States are quickly becoming the majority, and librarianship, long known for being a primarily Caucasian and female field, has not done a good job of being reflective of and responsive to these changes. Turock credits friend and mentor E J Josey with the impetus for the Spectrum Initiative; expressing frustration and “disgust” for the lack of diversity in the library profession, Josey stated that ALA only recruits one minority librarian per year and thinks that’s progressive (personal correspondence with Dr. Turock, May 7, 2009). Determined to change this trend, Turock decided that ALA should recruit at least 50 minority librarians per year. And so Spectrum began.

Turock’s initiative was not a welcome one, and if not for her tireless effort, the Spectrum Initiative would not have come to fruition, as she faced significant resistance from the field and from members of ALA, whose support was needed to pass the initiative. Some library constituents were not interested in promoting Spectrum and its goals; this was perhaps more of a negative response to the discussion of diversity the initiative would generate, and not as much a response to the initiative itself. As Sandra Rios Balderamma (2000), the first director of ALA’s Office for Diversity, discusses, diversity inspires different reactions in different people, and instead of having difficult and revealing conversations, it is easier to stifle and ignore new ideas and initiatives, such as Spectrum.

Sometimes the definitions and visualizations are sharp and explicit: racism, white privilege, homophobia, heterosexual privilege, inequity of access, institutional racism, organizational barriers, apologies and reparation, “illegal” aliens, non-English speaking, non-white, non-user, old boys’ network, and old girls’ network. Sometimes the definitions and visualizations are easier on the senses and perhaps more elusive: celebration of difference, internationalism, intellectual diversity, global village, multiculturalism, organizational cultures, pluralism, diversity of work style, and diversity of learning styles. At times the term is simply empty and unfulfilling and has not earned its credibility (p. 195).

As long time LIS educator and University of Buffalo faculty Lorna Peterson discussed in her 1999 article, issues of diversity are often perceived as threatening by the majority in the field (in this case, White females and some males), and are conflated with issues of race and racism. All related issues, they tend to inspire passionate responses and feelings of exclusion. Peterson states,

If diversity were as non-threatening a concept as the rhetoric of difference would lead us to believe, then expressions of anger would not occur when practices to readdress past discrimination are enacted. “No one helped me to get here!” is their cry, but they don’t recognize that there was no barrier either. Expressed resentment means diversity may be about achieving equity (which means loss of privilege for some), but the scant evidence of progress may mean that diversity is not about equity at all. (p. 18)

Turock’s efforts were about “advancing social justice and human rights within organizations and the profession” and wanting minority librarians, and the populations they serve to not only survive, but thrive (personal correspondence, May 7, 2009). About Spectrum’s long journey to being, Elizabeth Martinez remembers,

It was a grand idea that we developed when I was Executive Director of ALA. At the time, I was frustrated that, after hearing for 20 years how much diversity was a priority for ALA and the profession, there still were no national scholarships for librarians of color. The ALA Council struggled with accepting the proposal, and past president Betty Turock shamed them to vote yes. It was later embraced and supported by library schools and the profession, and I am grateful that there are over 600 graduates. Today it is the largest and most prestigious ALA scholarship. (personal correspondence, May 20, 2009)

Begun with seed money from ALA, donations from every ALA division and personal donations, ALA’s Office for Diversity was created and the Spectrum Initiative launched, and now boasts a formidable number of alumni scholars who have gone through LIS masters programs and now work in the field. Ironically and sadly, despite having made a significant impact on the library profession (Whitwell, 1998; Roy, et. al, 2006; Kenney, 2005), and having benefited over 600 masters level scholars, and now 12 doctoral students, there is still resistance within in the field to support Spectrum and its work. In 2010 Turock launched a new campaign to raise $1 million dollars to continue Spectrum’s mission (to which she personally donated $100,000); when addressing ALA council members at a January 2010 meeting to announce the new initiative, she was met with lukewarm response. “It’s not clear that all Councilors will follow her example. After Councilor-at-large Pat Wand suggested that each Councilor make a donation, the applause was fairly weak” (Oder, 2010, para. 12). Despite these obstacles, the Spectrum Initiative remains “ ALA’s gift to the library education” and Turock’s bold promise to the profession continues to recruit professionals “who will act as bridges” between the understanding of cultures and knowledge and society at large (personal correspondence, May 7, 2009).

New bridges were initiated with the implementation of the Spectrum Doctoral Fellowship program in 2007. In 2007 and 2008, through the benefit of an IMLS grant, the University of Pittsburg and ALA’s Office for Diversity provided full fellowships for 12 Spectrum Doctoral Fellows to pursue advanced Library and Information Science degrees at accredited institutions around the country. The 12 Fellows represent the four underrepresented ethnic populations and are in various stages of study at Rutgers University, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of Pittsburgh, Simmons College, UCLA, and the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. The ultimate goal of this program is to increase racial and ethnic diversity among the profession’s next generation of LIS faculty and leaders.

The dearth and attrition of minority PhD students has long been a topic of discussion in the higher education literature, all disciplines face this challenge (Meacham, 2002; Manzo, 1994; Pruitt & Isaac, 1985). And this issue is even more acute in library and information science (Brown-Syed, et. al, 2008; Franklin & Jaeger, 2007; Reeling, 1992). A derivative issue of diversity recruitment and retention in LIS education (typically addressed in relation to masters level degrees) (Jaeger, et. al, 2010; Dewey & Keally, 2008; Stringer-Stanback, 2008; Winston, 2008; Neely & Peterson, 2007; Barlow & Aversa, 2006; Honma, 2005; Wheeler, 2005; Alire, 2001; Gollop, 1999), minority recruitment and retention into PhD programs deserves fresh and dedicated attention and study. The latest statistics available from the Association for Library and Information Science Educators (ALISE) indicate that the LIS professoriate continues to lack diversity:

Only 3.7% of the fulltime faculty members are Latino, as compared to 14.5% of the total population, while African Americans comprise just 5.5% of the fulltime faculty as compared to 12.1% of the population. In 2002 – 2003, of the 82 LIS doctoral degrees awarded, only two were awarded to African Americans and one to a Latino (Sineath, 2005). As a result, the faculty population in LIS has remained fairly stable in its level of diversity, with the percentage of African Americans and Latinos in LIS faculties changing little since the passage of the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s (Sineath, 2005, as quoted in Jaeger & Franklin, 2007, p. 21).

These rates parallel the rates of minority librarians working as practitioners in libraries. Jaeger and Franklin (2007) propose that a cycle be strengthened and perpetuated; the rationale is that increased numbers of minorities in the LIS professoriate will shape and transform LIS graduate curricula and programs, which in turn will impact and inform the next generations of minority librarians, who will then adequately and appropriately serve the diverse communities that patronize libraries. And hopefully, these minority librarians will model and inspire up-and-coming students to pursue librarianship as a career. This “virtuous” cycle underscores the dire importance of recruiting and retaining minority LIS PhD students and emphasizes the need for librarianship (at all levels) to be representative of the communities being served.

In the circular, self cycling style of education and librarianship, minority school and public librarians who serve as role models for minority children may inspire the children to go to college. In college, minority academic librarians and library school faculty may inspire them to go to graduate school to become librarians and role models themselves.” (Totten, as quoted in Jaeger and Franklin, 2007, p. 23)

A direct response to Dr. Betty Turock’s call for action, to address the “acute need” for minority LIS PhD students (Turock, 2003, p. 493), the tagline of the Spectrum Scholarship Initiative is the future is overdue. The continued recruitment and retention of minority PhD candidates will have a direct and lasting impact on the LIS professoriate and the field of librarianship as a whole.

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