The GSLS Carnegie Scholars: Guests in Someone Else's House

During the late 1960s and early 1970s the University of Illinois took many risks in an effort to diversify the ranks of their student body. One such initiative was the Carnegie Scholars experiment; thirty minority students were recruited to the Graduate School of Library Science, twenty-nine graduated, and many went on to become leaders in their profession. The experiences of these Scholars, told through archival records, can inform current discussions about the recruitment and care of minority students in library and information science graduate programs, and in higher education in general. The program was described as “an unusual, flawed, but ultimately successful program to increase the number of disadvantaged students, primarily black and Hispanic, in the profession. The program was shortsighted, fraught with miscommunication and low expectations, and a definite product of the racial climate of the time.