Some Thoughts on Showing Up for Students and Overcoming Discouragement

I returned to library instruction this week bearing mixed emotions. On the one hand, I was excited to return to teaching after a pause between December and February that was replaced by other work priorities. I missed building connections in instruction sessions and individual consultations with first-year students and course instructors and navigating the library’s many materials and resources as a new employee. On the other hand, I returned with a great weight on my soul. The same December-February period has seen a series of assaults on information access that are too many to describe in just one post but include the scrubbing of data and resources from federal department and agency websites without notice and the downstream effect that government funding cuts will have on potentially impactful research. I mention this example not to revisit everything that has happened in Washington over the past several weeks but to say that I carried what was happening nationally in my mind and body.

The conflicted state I felt is one that many academic librarians across the country are very likely feeling. In these uncertain times, how we can best show up for our students and guide them toward becoming critical and responsible information users is a question that is more important and complex than ever. As a Black librarian, these questions are amplified by my concern for other students of color at my institution and my professional aim of creating a library space that is safe and inclusive—both now threatened by the undermining of DEI efforts on the federal level and increasingly in higher education nationwide.

As challenging as it will be with the brevity of one-shot instruction, consultations, and reference interactions, here are some ways I want to show up for my students this year:

1. Listen with intention and empathy: Having the patience to pay attention to what students are saying and the struggles they might face that are difficult to communicate.
2. Reinforce that I am a resource for different kinds of information: Remind students during classes, consultations, and more extended reference interactions that I can help them find things they need that are not just research-related.
3. Employ principles of trauma-informed teaching: Constantly be aware of stressful events and issues on campus and beyond that are potentially impacting my students and create a learning environment of safety, trust, autonomy, and support where appropriate and possible.
4. Model vulnerability and authenticity: Be honest with students about my struggles with research and library use and emphasize that I am growing like them.
5. Meet students where they are: Remember that, to borrow the focus of Dr. Carol Kuhlthau’s seminal research, the information search process will be different for each student and necessitates me working with them at the place they are at rather than pushing them to the “right” way of finding information first.

Whether I can meet even one of these goals remains as unclear as the direction of this administration. But even beyond the stress and nerves of teaching, two feelings I will likely struggle with this year are discouragement and disillusionment triggered by the state of the country and the fracturing of truth and fact due to mis and disinformation primarily online but also increasingly from unregulated artificial intelligence. In moments like these, it is vital to remind myself of the purpose of my role as a librarian–to support students in finding the information they need and equipping them with research skills they can use in college and life.

A few years ago, amid a challenging season of loss, a close artist friend of my partner and I named Soyoung Kim gifted us a watercolor sketch that we keep in our office. The sketch depicts a sailboat bobbing over blue waves with the following words on the bottom center: Advice for Discouraged Sailors 1. Stop 2. Steady Your Boat 3. Study Your Compass 4. Seek The Wind.

As we journey into the deeper, busier waters of this semester and the uncertainty of this year, as we meet discouragements, disappointments, and failures, may we remember to pause, refocus, return to what inspired us to work in academic libraries, and pay attention what this work is calling us to do in these times.