The Power of Unlearning with Essraa Nawar

What a wonderful and inspiring conversation with my latest guest, Essra Nawar, Head of Library Development and Marketing and the Chair of the Arts, Exhibits and Events Committee at the Leathery Libraries at Chapman University. We talked about books, The poet Rumi, librarianship, change, and the power of unlearning.

About Essraa Nawar:

Essraa Nawar received her Bachelor’s degree in commerce with an emphasis in accounting from Alexandria University, Egypt (2002). She also holds an MBA from the American Management & Business Administration Institute, Cambridge, MA (2005), a Master of Arts in Organizational Leadership (MAOL) from Brandman University (2015), California AND a Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) at San Jose State University, California (2017). She plans to pursue her PDH in educational leadership.

Essraa Nawar has been the Development Librarian - Head of Library Development and Marketing and the Chair of the Arts, Exhibits and Events Committee at the Leathery Libraries at Chapman University, California, since 2009 where she helped raise over 5 million dollars in support of the Libraries at Chapman University. She co-curated the exhibits “Empowering Muslim Women”, “Egypt the Revolution Continues” and a “ A Country called Syria”. Over the years Essraa has studied, lived and worked in many places, including the Gulf area (Qatar), Washington D.C., where she worked for The Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia, and Alexandria, Egypt where she worked for Bibliotheca Alexandrina. In 2009, she moved with her husband and family to Orange County, California in 2009.

In June 2019, she is invited to speak to the MELCom International, the European Association of Middle East Librarians about her joinery as an “Accidental Middle East librarian” In Naples, Italy, and in October 2019 at the University of Austin, Texas to hold a workshop about diversity in academic libraries.

In July 2017, Essraa has received an invitation from the Egyptian Government to participate in this conference that took place in Cairo from the 2nd to the 3rd of July 2017. This conference came under the sponsorship of the Egyptian President H.E. Abdelfattah El-Sisi. The Ministry of State for Emigration & Egyptian Expatriates’ Affairs and the National Council for Women have included Essraa due to her strong academic and professional achievements. She was able to showcase the strength, power, and resilience of female Egyptian expatriates. In addition, she was honored as one of the top 30 Egyptian women abroad. Since then, Essraa has been working closely with the Ministry of State for Emigration & Egyptian Expatriates’ Affairs and the National Council for Women on initiatives that will benefit the Egyptian economy, tourism, interfaith understanding and status of women.

 

Read more about Essraa Nawar https://ischool.sjsu.edu/community-profile/essraa-nawar-we-need-diverse-librarians