Professor, College of University Library & Learning Services

Biography

Teresa Y. Neely, PhD, MLS (her, hers, she) was born and raised in York, SC, and is Professor of Librarianship, Grants Librarian, and Special Assistant to the Dean for JEADI (justice, equity, accessibility, diversity, and inclusion) in the College of University Libraries and Learning Science (CULLS) at the University of New Mexico. Dr. Neely provides leadership and support for Grants, JEADI initiatives, and is the author/co-editor of eight books and conference proceedings, numerous scholarly and peer-reviewed articles, and other academic works. Neely received her MLS and PhD degrees in library and information science (LIS) from the University of Pittsburgh, and her research and scholarly interests include activism in diversity and leadership in LIS, 19th century banking practices and procedures, user designed data sets (Beyoncé protest lyrics; Native American and African American hip-hop lyrics), digital humanities and text analysis, assessment in research libraries and higher education, and spaces for people and paper in academic libraries. Reach her @hrhtyn on Instagram, TikTok, & Twitter.

Selected Scholarship:

• Neely, Teresa Y., & Margie Montañez, eds. Dismantling Constructs of Whiteness in Higher Education: Narratives of Resistance from the Academy. UK: Routledge, 2023.
• Montañez, Margie, and Teresa Y. Neely. “Introduction: Unmasking the Personal, Professional, and Intersectional Interstices of Whiteness in Higher Education.” In Dismantling Constructs of Whiteness in Higher Education: Narratives of Resistance from the Academy, edited by Teresa Y. Neely and Margie Montañez, 1-15. UK: Routledge, 2023.
• Neely, Teresa Y., and Jorge Ricardo López-McKnight, eds. In our Own Voices, Redux: The Faces of Librarianship Today. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield: June 2018.
• Neely, Teresa Y. “The Jackie Robinson of Library Science: Twenty Years Later.” In In our Own Voices, Redux: The Faces of Librarianship Today, edited by Teresa Y. Neely and Jorge Ricardo López-McKnight, 73-82. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018.
• Brown, Alexandria, James Cheng, Isabel Espinal, Brittany Paloma Fiedler, Joyce Gabiola, Sofia Leung, Nisha Mody, Alanna Aiko Moore, Teresa Y. Neely, and Peace Ossom-Williamson. “Statement Against White Appropriation of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color’s Labor.” WOC+LIB, September 3, 2021. https://www.wocandlib.org/features/2021/9/3/statement-against-white-appropriation-of-black-indigenous-and-people-of-colors-labor.
• Neely, Teresa Y., Assata Zerai, Evangela Oates, Elsa Zawedde, Brandi Stone (Discussant), and Mariann Skahan (Moderator). “From Reform to Restorative Justice: Decolonial African Feminist Perspectives Addressing Higher Education, Faculty Mentoring and Reproductive Sovereignty.” Panel presentation at the ICQI (International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry), May 17-20, 2023.
• Neely, Teresa Y. (Moderator), nicholae cline, Jorge R. López-McKnight, Isabel Espinal, LaKeshia Darden, and TeyAnjulee Leon. “Radical Practices of Love and Healing: Unmasking and Undoing the Personal, Professional, and Intersectional Interstices of whiteness in Higher Education.” Moderator for panel presentation at the JCLC (Joint Council of Librarians of Color) 4th National Conference, February 8-12, 2023.
• Zerai, Assata, Saajidha Sader, Teresa Y. Neely, Evangela Oates, and Ingrid Michele Bamberg. “Feminist Decoloniality as Care (FEMDAC): Black Women’s Narratives of Resistance in the US and South Africa.” Women’s Caucus Sponsored. 65th African Studies Association Annual Meeting 2022. African Urbanities: Mobility, Creativity, and Challenges, November 17-19, 2022, Philadelphia, PA.

Why Africana Studies

As the only credentialed tenured Black librarian at UNM for the past 18 years, my affiliation with Africana Studies has been a natural extension of my academic research career and a familiar social connection on campus. Although my main affiliation is with the CULLS, my work with Africana Studies initially focused on how my work in the Libraries’ and my expertise in supporting and mentoring graduate students could help those employed and enrolled there. More recently, my contribution has centered around the transition of Africana Studies from a program to a department. I have served on committees and teams, and published with faculty, and post-docs (past and present) in Africana Studies. I am committed to supporting and growing this department so that it can realize its vision of academic and inclusive excellence; and pledge to work with Africana Studies leadership whose dedication, patience, and hard work helped us realize this long overdue objective. In the midst of an increasingly hostile political and academic landscape, UNM’s support of and commitment to the Africana Studies department demonstrates it is not only critical to our students, faculty, and staff in Africana Studies, but to all of UNM and to New Mexicans across the state.