Introducing We Lead
We Lead is a personal and professional development leadership program for folks who work in libraries or archives and identify as Black, Indigenous, or People of Color (BIPOC). The program will be designed for folks interested in expanding or building leadership skills, regardless of their current positions, how much experience they have in the field, and whether or not they are currently or will soon be managers. We Here recognizes leadership skills are important in any and every position in different ways in a library ecosystem.
This is not your typical leadership program. We recognize leadership and management are two different things with their own bodies of knowledge, so with that in mind, we will not be teaching you how to become better managers. Instead, we hope to explore who gets to be a leader and why, understanding and wielding personal power and agency, and expanding our idea of what is possible within institutions. How can we change the way we work and lead to go beyond “the way things have always been done”?
Learning Goals/Outcomes:
Deconstruct conventional ideas around leadership
Understand the nuances of your personal and organizational context
Learn to utilize antiracist and anti-oppressive leadership frameworks in daily work
Build deep communities of praxis with Institute attendees and accountability partners
We are looking for 20-30 individuals seeking to build leadership skills from an anti-racist, critical pedagogy lens. Applications will open November 2025.
Meet the Facilitators
Jen Brown is an Undergraduate Learning & Research Librarian at UC Berkeley. Critical pedagogies guide her instruction, reference, and advocacy work, which includes serving as one of the community administrators for We Here. Find more of her work at jencbrown.com
Sofia Leung is a first-generation Chinese American librarian, facilitator, and educator. She is the co-editor of Knowledge Justice: Disrupting Library and Information Studies Through Critical Race Theory. You can find her at www.sofiayleung.com.