TIE Webinar Wrap-Up: U.S. Newcomers in Academic Libraries

Posted on August 20, 2025 in Blog Posts, Webinars

In late July, Toward Inclusive Excellence (TIE) had the privilege of hosting Dr. Ana Ndumu, Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland, College Park’s College of Information Studies, for a deeply informative webinar on how academic libraries can best support immigrant communities, whether they are within institutions’ own campus populations of students, faculty, and staff, or in neighboring local communities. Dr. Ndumu was the perfect guest to lead such a discussion given her research and work directing the IMLS-funded LINA Project, which culminated in resources like the Improving Library Partnerships with Immigrants, and the Immigration and International Information Research Alliance, which examines immigrant information behavior and designs toolkits for immigrant empowerment. Accordingly, the hour-long session was full of practical and poignant insights.

Audience engagement was especially pronounced, with a host of questions that dug deeper into the topic at hand (see below for more). Since the start of the new year, immigration has been a subject at the forefront of national news, especially for institutions of higher education, which have witnessed travel bans or restrictions for international students and even ICE raids on college campuses. TIE contributor Sam Berry-Sullivan has even written two pieces about this dire situation, “International Students and Academic Libraries” and “An Update on International Students and Academic Libraries,” both of which were shared with participants through the course of the webinar. You can watch (or re-watch!) the webinar in its entirety on YouTube or skip ahead to the live audience Q&A, with links below. You may also access Dr. Ndumu’s helpful padlet, which was shared live during the webinar and compiles many useful resources, below.

We wish to extend our heartfelt thanks to Dr. Ndumu for putting together such a diligently well-thought-out presentation on an incredibly pressing and timely topic. Make sure to subscribe to the TIE newsletter for updates on upcoming webinars, blog posts, and resource lists!

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Watch Here

Audience Q&A

• In what ways can academic and public libraries in the United States more intentionally recognize and integrate the erased or overlooked cultural contributions of Afro-Hispanic communities, and how might this inclusion enrich the broader landscape of scholarship, cultural literacy, and community engagement? [43:08]

• Do you have particular recommendations for supporting [ESL students at community colleges], and have you encountered resistance to supporting this population of students because they’re not taking credit-bearing courses? [46:31]

• How does the fear of speaking one’s native language, such as Spanish, within academic library environments reflect broader challenges of identity and belonging for immigrant librarians? [52:04]

• Do you have information on immigration and financial aid/enrollment, and [whether] ICE [is] allowed on campuses? [56:12]

Access Dr. Ndumu’s Padlet

Academic Libraries // Immigrant Support Toolkit

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Interested in contributing to TIE? 

Email Fatima (fmohie-eldin@ala.org) at Choice with your topic idea.

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Header image is a detail of This is Harlem by Jacob Lawrence. Courtesy of Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. © 2021 The Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation, Seattle / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. For more information, click here.

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