Evangela Oates, Ph.D., is the Associate University Librarian for Student Success in the University Libraries at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. In her work as a library administrator, she strives to actively challenge how libraries and academe strategically devalue and minimize the ways of knowing of Black people. With a portfolio focused on student learning, affordability, student experiences, outreach, and community partnerships, she hopes to broaden narratives of how academic libraries connect and reflect the ways of knowing of lay persons as well as academicians. As an alumna of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (B.A.), North Carolina Central University (M.L.S), and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (Ph.D.), her degrees span music, library science, and the study of higher education. Using narrative inquiry, critical race methodology, and autoethnography, her scholarship is published in the Community College Review, Journal of College Student Development, Journal of International Students, along with numerous book chapters on topics of mentorship, racial battle fatigue, and communities of practice.