Stephanie Bennett, Candidate for Nominating Committee Member

BIOGRAPHICAL STATEMENT

I am the inaugural Collections Archivist at Wake Forest University's Z. Smith Reynolds Library Special Collections and Archives, where I have been for nine years. Previously, I worked in term positions at Iowa State University's Special Collections and University Archives and Boston College's John J. Burns Library. Before entering archives, I worked as a research analyst. I hold an English major with minors in Political Science and International Studies from Wake Forest University and an MLIS from Simmons University SLIS.

At Simmons, as president of the LIS Student Association, I worked to bring students together at events hosted by hosted by our group and others, from poster session how-tos to trivia nights. As a graduate student, it felt clear to me that knowing other LIS professionals was an asset to navigating our field and understanding all the facets of our work. Regional and state archives associations have been very important to me: my first conference presentations were done at the New England Archivists. Since moving to NC, I have served the Society of N.C. Archivists (SNCA) in various capacities: Member at Large (2015-2016), Education Committee Chair (2017-2019), Program Committee member (2020-2021), Vice President (2021-2022), and currently President (2022-2024).

As an early career archivist, I conducted a 2013 salary survey—though ad hoc, it was the first wide-ranging salary survey of archives workers since A*CENSUS in 2006. I am grateful for the conversations that it prompted in Association and field leaders at that time, and for the Women Archivists Section, which conducted a thorough survey in 2017 before a second A*CENSUS could be done. Once I had access to consistent professional development funding, I served on the Theodore Calvin Pease Award Subcommittee (2016-2017), the Issues & Advocacy Section Steering Committee (2016-2018), and Collections Management Tools Section Vice Chair/Chair Elect and Chair (2016-2018).

DIVERSITY STATEMENT (Each candidate prepared a diversity statement according to SAA guidelines.)

As a white cisgender woman, I first approached my inclusion and equity work by understanding my positionality. I have sought out training from groups such as the Racial Equity Institute, which was hosted by a local college pre-pandemic, to be able to speak about whiteness and to begin to notice my own and others' feelings and responses to white supremacy dynamics in my personal life and workplace. As a member of Z. Smith Reynolds Library's Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Committee, I worked on reviewing the library's policies through an equity lens and helped administer a climate survey for employees, although it was interrupted by the pandemic. Although I do not teach, I have also learned a lot from undergraduate students who work as processing and reference assistants: their backgrounds, norms, personalities, expectations, everything they share, and their boundaries around who they are at work and outside of work. Supervising a variety of new people every year has pushed me to be more adaptable, curious, and introspective about how I can make the archives a good workplace for all of them now and those yet to join our department. As a nominating committee member, I'm prepared to listen, seek understanding, speak up, and amplify as is helpful to the committee and to the potential candidates.

In my experience, it is up to worker efforts to begin to change our institutions and practices. The archives field and the institutions we work in are overwhelmingly white and reflect our white supremacist society. It's important that we continue to examine ways that we replicate harmful practices, both in the daily work that we do as archives workers and in how the association functions and is working to evolve.

I encourage SAA and us as its members to see and push for SAA to be a site for education on antiracism and trauma-informed practice; improving descriptive practices is the least of our work, if true inclusion is the goal of our archival recordkeeping and workplaces. SAA and its leaders, including committee members, must be clear about how we are working to create an inclusive environment where new perspectives and people who have been intentionally marginalized are welcomed; this is crucial to actually succeeding in inclusion that lasts more than an election cycle.

QUESTION POSED BY NOMINATING COMMITTEE

The Nominating Committee plays a crucial role in shaping the pool of candidates from which the elected leadership of SAA will emerge. What motivates your desire to become a part of the Nominating Committee? What traits and backgrounds do you consider important when selecting potential candidates? Share your strategies for inspiring members to participate, and discuss how you plan to create a candidate slate that enhances diversity and inclusion.

CANDIDATE'S RESPONSE

SAA and other archivist groups are a much needed resource for our profession—every step that I have taken in my career has been enriched by the work of the association and the Sections, even through casual connections that I have made through programs such as lunch buddies. The institution matters—we could not do our work without association staff's assistance and knowledge—but SAA requires our visions and actions as well. Much has shifted in the world over the last 5 years, and the association must work to meet archives workers' needs amid dynamic change. As a nominating committee member, I will be looking for folks who have and are open to novel ideas and approaches to our work and the institution.

SAA needs archives workers with varied backgrounds, doing varied work, and serving all kinds of constituencies to function best. I know many academic institution archivists are represented in SAA's members, but colleagues at public libraries, museums, religious organizations, corporations, freelance archivists—it's to our benefit that they are represented in SAA's leadership and our thinking, since rising to this moment means trying new approaches. Being transparent about the demands, the specific tasks, and the time commitments of the various positions will go a long way in helping folks feel prepared to accept the work they're being asked to consider doing.

Plenty of challenges arise in front of us, banal and existential. I believe SAA can support archives workers as we make our way through the world, and I know we have the skills and knowledge to do that together.

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