Yvonne E. Wilber, Ph.D., M.S.L.S.

About

Greetings! I am a librarian at Cal Lutheran's Pearson Library, overseeing student instruction. I have taught Religion and Organizational Ethics classes for the Professionals program, First Year Seminar, and (currently) Integrated Arts Pedagogy for the School of Education. I am a 12th-generation American on my father's side (England to Connecticut) and eleventh on my mother's side (France to Quebec). My ethnic heritage is of Western and Northern European descent, including ancestors from Scotland, England, Ireland, France, Germany, and Scandinavia. I celebrate the beauty of my ancestors even as I lament the harm some of them have caused as colonists. With the exception of my parents, all of my ancestors in the United States have been farmers (and occasionally soldiers), which is probably why I have deep connections to the land.

As a philomath (someone who loves learning), I have spent my life investigating all the worlds we have built and all the worlds we inhabit, including (and especially) the natural world. My first teachers and companions were the ash trees and the birds that lived in my childhood yard. My formal education and professional research interests are wide and interdisciplinary. Though my academic interests are broad, they seem to coalesce in what it means to be a person, and how we can live well with one another. These "anothers" include those we might lovingly call animal people, bird people, river people, plant people. and even rock people! 

My awe of mystery and love for knowledge, for creativity, for others, and for the natural world flow outward in my life and work as an educator and spiritual leader, and are visually represented in my explorations as an artist. A lifelong Southern California resident, you can often find me in contemplation at the seashore, or hiking and mountain biking the trails in the Los Padres National Forest and the Ojai Valley (Awha'y) where I live on the unceded, sacred land of the Chumash People. 

Education

PH.D. 2022
Humanities - Major in Philosophy
Faulkner University, Montgomery, AL
"The Who of Climate Change"

MASTER OF ARTS 2014
Intellectual Leadership
A.W. Tozer Theological Seminary
Simpson University, Redding, CA
"An Ecumenical Approach to Immigration Reform"

MASTER OF SCIENCE 2012
Library Science
University of North Texas, Denton, TX

BACHELOR OF ARTS
Global Studies
Capstone: An Ethnographic View of Religious Expression in the San Fernando Valley (Film)
University of Northwestern, St. Paul, MN

Expertise

Humanities: Western Philosophy and Theology; the Modern Human Subject

Visual and Creative Arts

Library Science and Information Literacy

Publications

"Aligning Practice with Belief: Bringing Antiracist Information Literacy and Writing Instruction to an HSI Lutheran University.” WPA: Writing Program Administration Special Issue: Black Lives Matter and Antiracist Projects in Writing Program Administration, vol. 4, no. 3, Summer 2021. pp. 162 - 168. (With Jolivette Mecenas and Meghan Kwast ).

“Antiracist and Faith-Based: Critical Pedagogy-Informed Writing and Information Literacy Instruction at a Hispanic-Serving, Lutheran Liberal Arts University.” Radical Teacher - A Socialist, Feminist, and Anti-Racist Journal on the Theory and Practice of Teaching, vol. 121, 9 December 2021. pp 14 -23 (With Jolivette Mecenas and Meghan Kwast ).

Grant Funding

2020 State of California Electronic Library Consortium (SCELC) COVID-19 Grant for innovation in virtual library instruction

2017 Pearson Library, CLU History Department: National Library of America & the National Endowment for the Humanities: World War I and America