by Lily Natter
The David Kaser Endowed Lecture Series regularly invites an exceptional scholar to IU Bloomington’s campus to give a lecture relevant to the field of library and information science and meet with students and faculty. This year, Dr. Nicole A. Cooke presented on “The Competent Humility Model: Merging the Powers of Cultural Competence and Cultural Humility.”
The Competent Humility Model is focused on the development of two types of so-called “soft skills”: cultural competence and cultural humility. Dr. Cooke pointed out that soft skills such as these are vital and important, just as important as technical knowledge. To promote effective communication, collaboration, and mutual respect, it is essential to understand and navigate diverse cultural landscapes. These two concepts work in tandem to foster inclusive environments and bridge cultural divides:
Cultural competence: the ability of a person to effectively interact, work, and develop meaningful relationships with people of various cultural backgrounds.
Cultural humility: incorporates a lifelong commitment to self-evaluation and self-critique, to redressing the power imbalances, and to developing mutually beneficial and non-paternalistic partnerships with communities on behalf of individuals and defined communities.
The development of these concepts in Dr. Cooke’s updated Competent Humility Model is divided into two main categories: the pre-competence journey and the competence journey. However, the model is an active cycle individual to each person. Just because someone has achieved cultural competence and humility in one situation or community does not mean they have mastered it overall. It is a lifelong commitment and a constant learning process.
After the talk, Dr. Cooke answered several questions from both faculty members and students, ranging from how to deal with culturally incompetent colleagues, connecting to a new community, and preparing library and information science for the realities of their careers. The next day, Dr. Cooke was also the keynote speaker at the 2024 Doctoral Research Forum, where she gave a talk titled “Leaders Wanted,” and was focused on the doctoral education of information and library science students.
Dr. Cooke is the Augusta Baker Endowed Chair and a Professor at the School of Library and Information Science at the University of South Carolina. Her interests in teaching and research lie in the realms of human information behavior, fake news consumption and resistance, critical cultural information studies, LIS education, and diversity and social justice in librarianship. Now the founding editor of ALA Neal-Schuman’s Critical Cultural Information Studies book series, Dr. Cooke has published numerous articles and book chapters.