CHAPTER TWO Library and Information Science Students In order to create learner-centered instruction, we must understand who our students are. This chapter takes a broad look at library and information sci- ence (LIS) students by presenting student demographic data, examining issues of diversity and equity in the classroom, and looking at the needs of specific groups of students, including first-generation, international, adult, and part- time learners (supporting students with disabilities is addressed separately in Chapter 4). The chapter concludes with a look at the growth in online learn- ing in library and information science. Diversity in the LIS Classroom As Table 2.1 illustrates, white women predominate graduate work in LIS. In 2015–2016, women earned 81.6 percent of master’s degrees and 59.3 percent of doctoral degrees white students earned 78.2 percent of master’s degrees and 55.6 percent of doctoral degrees. The absence of people of color extends to the profession as a whole. According to the 2017 Current Population Sur- vey, 79.5 percent of librarians are women and 86.3 percent are white. Archives and museums show a similar lack of diversity 61.4 percent of archivists, cura- tors, and museum technicians are women, and 80.2 percent are white (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2018). A minority in the classroom and often on the campus as a whole, students of color experience discrimination and bias on a regular basis (Lilly et al. 2018). Often this takes the form of microaggressions, “the brief and common- place daily verbal, behavioral, and environmental indignities, whether inten- tional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial,