This is a guest post from my awesome colleague Laurie Bridges. She’s been working hard over the last couple of years to expand and improve our outreach, instruction and programming for our very quickly growing international student population.
Laurie said that she had written up a lengthy description of her most recent innovation – a speed-friending event in the library that brings international students together with students from the U.S., so I asked her if she’d be willing to post it here. She was, so here it is.
Speed Friending!
Co-sponsored by the Valley Library & INTO OSU
Laurie Bridges (OSUL&P) and Mary Hughes (INTO OSU)
By Laurie Bridges, Instruction & Emerging Technologies Librarian
What we did
Approximately one year ago, I was passing through our University’s Memorial Union when I saw a poster advertising “Speed Friending.” The title, but none of the details, got lodged in my brain. Months later, while working with international students and listening to their stories, an idea popped into my head, “International students are in our library…maybe speed-friending would help them connect with domestic students.” I floated the idea by a few people, including Anne-Marie. Everyone I spoke with was supportive of the idea
(Note: it probably helped that our library’s strategic plan includes working toward “building community” within the library.)
To gather more information, and hopefully a plan, I contacted the Memorial Union to find out who had sponsored the speed-friending event the previous year. The staff looked through their calendar, and found no record of it. I then went online and googled “speed-friending” where I found a few mentions of the idea, some advertisements, but no information about how to organize and run such an event. Despite this setback, I mentioned the idea to a program manager at INTO OSU (our international English language program), Mary Hughes, and she was incredibly enthusiastic about the idea. We collaborated on the first event winter term, and held a second event spring term.
We plan to continue with one speed-friending event each term. In addition, the College of Business and the College of Engineering are meeting with Mary and I this summer, and may possibly host speed-friending events for their domestic and international students in the fall.
The most difficult part of the event is getting American students to register and then finding the “hook” to get them there; this is in large part why we offer free pizza and host the event in the evening around dinner time.
Why it matters
Libraries are often viewed as “safe” spaces on college and university campuses; they are spaces where students of all backgrounds come together to study and socialize. Libraries can and should have a role in helping students create an inclusive campus environment. We should all take steps to help prevent misunderstanding and create cultural bridges in our libraries.
After the jump
The rest of this post is my “brain dump” about the events, organizing, planning, and assessing. Hopefully this will help more campuses and librarians organize their own speed-friending events and improve on the format and structure we have created.
(And please, send any ideas you have for improvement: Laurie.Bridges @ oregonstate.edu).
Continue reading “Guest Post! Speed friending in the Library”
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