Friday, February 28, 12-2pm

Continuing Metro’s history as a “university without walls” and working to build robust relationships with the communities that we serve, we will gather at the East Side Freedom Library to learn about its resources, programming, and opportunities it has for community-engaged teaching, learning, and research. As it notes on its webpage, “the East Side Freedom Library (ESFL) has its home in the former Arlington Hills library, one of St. Paul’s historic Carnegie library buildings at 1105 Greenbrier Street, located in the Payne-Phalen neighborhood.The ESFL’s mission is to inspire solidarity, advocate for justice, and work toward equity for all. The library houses non-circulating research collections that appeal to interested general learners as well as scholars, with innovative databases and finding aids that make using the collections fun and vital.” With deep connections to East Side communities, the ESFL hosts extensive programming including workshops, lectures, performances, and study groups, and also houses the Hmong Archives.

At this event co-sponsored by the Center for Faculty Development and the Institute for Community Engagement and Scholarship, we will gather for a light lunch from an East Side restaurant, an introduction to the ESFL by its co-director Peter Rachleff, and a panel conversation with Metro faculty—including Sumiko Sitcawich, Margaret Vaughan, and Jacob Jurss—who have collaborated with the ESFL in a variety of ways. We will then have some time to explore its collection and get to know the space.