New from ACRL – “Student Success Librarianship: Critical Perspectives on an Evolving Profession”（图）

ACRL announces the publication of Student Success Librarianship: Critical Perspectives on an Evolving Profession, edited by Melody Lee Rood and Olivia Patterson, examining this emerging position through a critical lens and providing insight and advice to help the profession work toward a positive evolution of this important role.

Learn more about Student Success Librarianship in this excerpt from the Introduction by the editors, © Melody Lee Rood and Olivia Patterson.

Melody

What does it mean to be a student success librarian? This question has persisted in my mind, even as I enter my fifth year in this role at UNC Greensboro’s Walter Clinton Jackson Library, a position I held before taking a job as the Director for the Miller Learning Center and Student Success at the University of Georgia. In the beginning, I adopted a “fake it until I make it” strategy, hoping to convince people that I knew what I was doing. Externally, I tried to exude positivity and connect with students, stakeholders, and colleagues. Internally, I grappled with the notion and fear that either (a) this role was purely performative, or b) I lacked a clear understanding of the impact I was meant to have—a concern I felt embarrassed to voice. The library’s diversity resident at the time expressed uncertainty about her own role, questioning whether the expectation was simply to “do diversity,” a notion that made us all laugh for how ridiculous it sounded. However, diversity residents sometimes are responsible for all library projects related to equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility, a burden that can lead to burnout and resentment.

As I continued to try and make sense of my position, definitions of student success didn’t always help. I encountered several administrative definitions that primarily focused on quantifiable metrics such as retention rates, academic persistence, achievement, and graduation rates within socially acceptable time frames. The task of serving as the library’s point of contact for contributing to these benchmarks seemed overwhelming. How could one person move the needle on all of that? Definitions of student success now often encompass elements like well-being, belonging, and a sense of purpose. This broader perspective has only intensified the challenge for student success librarians, making it even more daunting to consistently engage in emotionally taxing work that ideally should be addressed at a systemic level. After all, these concepts are inseparable from the influences of systemic oppression.

Olivia

One of the goals of this book is to validate the frustrations and triumphs that encompass the singular experience of working in this role. We additionally hope that this contribution to the LIS literature is illuminating for those who work with or supervise student success librarians.

Chapter Roadmap

Part I: Theory

To open the book, Paul Lai expertly holds a magnifying glass to the inherent messiness in attempting to articulate exactly what student success librarians do. In contrast to administrators’ often limited conception of student success, Paul advocates for a definition that encompasses the job’s many nuances.

In Chapter 2, Nate Floyd and Laura Birkenhauer apply the sociological concept of boundary work to student success librarianship, exploring how academic librarians differentiate or “other” this particular role. Boundary work provides a “framework for understanding how professional groups demarcate their areas of expertise and win support” from various entities.

Student success librarian positions are often situated in research and instruction or outreach departments, but how can we apply student success frameworks to special collections and university archives? In Chapter 3, Victor Betts shares how he leverages the archives as a location for student success, collective memory, and student belonging for BIPOC students at a predominantly white institution.

In Chapter 4, Amanda Glenn-Bradley uses a holistic perspective to explore how humanity and vulnerability are often crucial traits for student success librarians. Further, she casts a critical eye on this phenomenon to examine how such demands can lend themselves to vocational awe and burnout.

To conclude Part I, Haley Gillilan offers a personal essay reflecting on her experience navigating the start of her career as a student success librarian during the COVID-19 pandemic in Chapter 5. These conditions inspired a new approach to her outreach work that was grounded hospitality and community. Haley also provides examples of her outreach endeavors and how they were informed by her new philosophy.

Part II: Praxis

In Chapter 6, María Emerson shares how she utilizes a holistic conception of student success to provide innovative programs and services to students at a Big Ten university, including a student food pantry, a family study room, and a period insecurity drive.

Bringing her expertise from a previous career as a ’s level clinical psychologist, in Chapter 7, Dawn Behrend explores how she uses her current role as an outreach and instruction librarian to support first generation students’ mental health. Dawn additionally examines how such work can put librarians at risk for emotional burnout.

In Chapter 8, Brittany Champion and Carlos Grooms share reflective insights on the realities of student success roles at private institutions. Focusing on collaborative efforts with campus partners, Brittany and Carlos provide practical advice drawing on their experiences both professionally and personally, to create an environment of student-centered care.

Catherine Lachaîne provides insight into the challenges and opportunities of providing outreach support at a bilingual institution in Chapter 9. As the student success librarian at the University of Ottawa, Catherine examines how outreach efforts can sometimes lead to unintended linguistic inequities and encourages collaborative efforts with Francophone students, among other marginalized groups, to foster student success.

In Chapter 10, Candace Jacobs and Joanie Chavis provide reflection from professional and personal experiences as a mentee and mentor. Candace and Joanie use the lens of mentorship to examine how student success services improve when early-career librarians have the regular support of a more seasoned librarian. They also provide practical advice for both mentees and mentors.

Part III: Research

In Chapter 11, Sarah N. Hernandez and Harvey Long address the dearth of research published on the library’s contributions to student success at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) by conducting their own research, surveying thirty-one librarians at HBCUs across the country. They also provide analysis on the importance of an HBCU-based framework in the library and information sciences curriculum.

Mallory Jallas, Chad Kahl, Jennifer Sharkey, and Chris Worland analyze their findings from surveys and focus groups of student success librarians to identify recurring themes related to job scope, administrative support, labor, and more in Chapter 12.

In Chapter 13, Danilo Madayag Baylen, CJ Ivory, and Jenay Solomon-Doughtery conduct research by analyzing job advertisements of student success related librarian positions to explore the roles and expectations of student success librarians compared to other academic librarian positions.

In the final chapter, Mallory Jallas, Christine Fary, Rebecca Fitzsimmons, Susan R. Franzen, Sarah French, and Cassie Thayer-Styes walk readers through the vision and rationale for creating a library definition of student success that would reflect the Milner Library’s strategic goals in promoting student success holistically.

Conclusions

Olivia

The nebulous nature of student success librarianship results in a collectively murky understanding of the boundaries of the job, leading to increasingly high expectations and, ultimately, burnout. Between dozens of one-shot lectures each semester, student engagement endeavors that often require me to stay after hours or come in on the weekends, never-ending committee work, and the obligation to publish and present, I am in the constant pursuit of balance.

With so much of my time spent trying to meet annual goals, in addition to reappointment or promotion requirements, it feels as though I’m never able to fully sink my teeth into projects and ideas that I believe could make a marked difference in students’ lives. This is not unique to my institution but rather is symptomatic of the steady thrum of late-stage capitalism that permeates higher education. False scarcity of resources, manufactured urgency, austere state- and federal-level support, and an imposed sense of individualistic personal responsibility all meld together to create a high-powered, burnout-inducing pressure cooker.

I have to remind myself that I’m a librarian. At best, I am a Band-Aid on the gaping wound of institutional and systemic inequity and oppression. Operating within the neoliberal, capitalistic landscape of higher education in which students are reduced to customer and product is at odds with both my personal approach to student success as well as students’ actual needs. At times, the dissonance is staggering.

Melody

As the field of student success librarianship has continued to grow over the last five years, I’ve had the honor to speak with more and more people who are working in similar roles. Each of these conversations has brought me a sense of validation, and collectively, they bring me closer to a deep-seated truth that was always simmering below the surface—when the layers of “student success” in libraries are peeled back far enough, it is easy to see the capitalist framework at play. Existing in positions that place a considerable value on the indefinable, student success librarians are compensated with illusory job significance rather than stability. One can’t help but fear that student success librarians will only be deemed valuable when budgets are healthy enough to employ them. This shouldn’t suggest that I don’t see the importance of my role or that I’m ungrateful for my job. However, being in a position that is susceptible to skepticism (even amongst ourselves) will always include the labor of performative validation.

In truth, this realization saved my mental health. I was able to draw lines and force my job into a definition that suited me. I stopped being concerned with only delivering high-impact programming that was honestly above my pay grade, and I found peace in the small and quiet wins. I also removed the sense of urgency around the quantity of student connections I made and instead focused on building quality connections through patience and kindness. I realized that although a lot of the pressure I was experiencing was self-induced, it wasn’t necessarily my fault. If this resonates with you, I hope you know that it is not your fault either. A role designed to be everything and nothing is inherently flawed, and through conversations with student success librarians, I have been able to see our collective unrest. In a way, the purpose of this book is not only to offer some practical ideas and advice but also to share these conversations with the growing student success librarianship community, to channel the simmering existential questions about our role into collective validation and action.