Strategic Vision for Equity 2021-2025
A Systemic Change Framework for Racial Equity
One result of surveying our institution’s equity efforts is that it surfaced the many strategies and interventions already in play at Foothill, and highlighted areas on our campus and within our organizational structure that are not being addressed. For instance, in conversations with faculty, staff and students about equity, people clearly connected Foothill’s ability to offer resources and improve student outcomes as the institution’s means and ways toward eliminating inequity. Yet, attempts to assess and revise structural policies, if needed, were infrequently mentioned. Furthermore, reflections on how the culture of our campus embodies an equity-mindset indicated an area of focus requiring more support and action.
It became clear that there was a need for an overarching framework as part of the plan to provide direction on how and where to move forward with our college’s efforts. A framework could increase collaboration between people and areas on campus doing equity work, resulting in greater reach and impact on our student population. It also allows the college to move away from individual and/or localized “random acts of equity” to the systemic approach required to address systemic issues.
The Equity-Driven Systems Change model[1] developed by California Tomorrow[2], a public organization formed around creating in-roads to equity and inclusion in a number of sectors across the state, including education, inspired the framework presented in this plan. While in existence, it worked extensively with community colleges to design a model for equity-based organizational change germane to the specific needs of the community college system. The Office of Equity found the Equity-Driven Systems Change model’s “dimensions of change” a fitting explanation for how the Foothill community identified the equity work they were doing. The notion of “levels of impact”, referred to within this document as areas of impact, helped to conceptualize a more holistic approach to our college’s equity efforts; one that avoided concentrating strategies in particular areas, like student outcomes. In its feedback, the campus community expressed frustration with an over-reliance on student outcome metrics as the only way to eradicate inequity, and there was agreement with the idea of employing comprehensive equity strategies to guide our work. The framework outlined in the next section sets the stage for strategic implementation of equitable, organizational change.
Dimensions of Change
In order to employ a shift toward racial equity, there are three dimensions of change our college must engage: structural, cultural, and individual. Structural change speaks to the type of change that (minimally) seeks to remove the college-wide barriers that uphold the disenfranchisement of low-income students of color, and speaks to the thorough investigation of Foothill’s policies, procedures, roles and responsibilities that govern how our college runs. Structure can include examining formalized practices within our divisions/offices, in classrooms, service areas, governance, and even at the district and state levels. The Equity-Driven Systems Change model explains that the dimension of cultural change uncovers and confronts the reasoning behind the inequities in our institution. The model prompts us to examine the attitudes and beliefs we employ as staff, faculty, and administrators in our interactions with students and with one another. What informal or unspoken rules do we perpetuate? Creating a culture of equity may be the most difficult area of change to enact, as it requires our campus to come together under a common philosophy and desired vision, specifically around how we embody a culturally responsive, appreciative and equity-centered institution. While it will be the community-wide effort that will create the change we want to see, the change won’t occur without individual responsibility. This leads to the third type of change: individual. Though the Equity-Driven Systems Change model does not identify this as a dimension of change, the Office of Equity felt it was important to acknowledge the opportunity to affect positive change in those areas within the realm of our college’s control, but also as a reminder that we all own the responsibility to do so. The act of ongoing, recursive self-reflection is imperative in our equity efforts. It is also important to note that all levels of change can impact and influence one another, for example, both individual and structural change will influence the culture of a campus. An individual with decision-making power can enact structural change, just as a group of individuals can collectively influence structural change. Cultural change can inspire individual change. Structural change impacts individual efforts. In addressing all levels, a more transformative change can occur.
Areas of Impact
The Office of Equity posits that our college’s equity efforts must impact four areas: 1) Access, Supports and Opportunities; 2) Organizational Policies and Practices; 3) Campus Climate; and, 4) Student Outcomes. Access, supports and opportunities references how we bring students onto our campus, set them up with the resources they need to be successful, and continue to look out for them by connecting them to opportunities that encourage their educational growth. The impact area of organizational policies and practices is concerned with looking at substructures within the college organization as well as overarching policy. Leadership and governance, budget and resource allocation, instructional policies and human resources would be topics of consideration within this area. Campus climate references the values, norms and history of our college, how we communicate within the college and how we work to prioritize and engage students. Finally, student outcomes refers to positive and equitable change in metrics like course completion, degree attainment, transfer rates, etc. From a foundational perspective, the Office of Equity believes ensuring that the college engages in activities in all four of these areas will be important in discussion and practice as they represent a new approach to eliminating disparities that is intentionally comprehensive and does not ignore the systemic structures at play.
While this plan lays out the aforementioned framework in an ordered, sequential manner, in praxis, the framework does not adhere to the neatly confined categories of the three dimensions of change nor the four areas of impact. Some of our equity strategies will intermesh with more than one dimension of change; that is, some interventions will require individual, cultural and structural change. Some equity strategies will cross more than one area of impact. These realizations only amplify the interconnectedness of our institution. Where areas of ambiguity may arise around who or what entity should be responsible for certain equity strategies, an opportunity presents itself to engage in conversation with other people and areas on campus to team up to get the work done. Those collaborative efforts produce the most effective change and the Office of Equity will help facilitate those conversations.
A Tool for Facilitating Discussion and Processing Change
A call for wide-sweeping assessment on how our college operates down to the very values we hold individually is a monumental ask. The process will be uncomfortable at times, and is likely to surface many feelings for all of us as we engage in this work. As the need for a framework to provide direction was identified, the campus community could also benefit from having tools to help process the change our institution is undergoing and to help keep difficult dialogues moving ahead in a productive way. Since 2014, Foothill has partnered with the Pacific Educational Group[3] to provide racial literacy seminars, which have included training on the Courageous Conversations About Race© protocol. It prompts users to be conscious of their own mindset as they enter the work, outlines four agreements[4] to use during discussions, and offers six conditions [5] to help individuals engage, sustain, and deepen conversation. The college’s efforts to train colleagues in using the protocol are intended to help individuals enter conversations with shared understanding of common terminology and norms. At the same time, the Office of Equity fully acknowledges there may be other robust strategies to have effective dialogues about racial equity. What is most important to us is that individuals are able to engage in racial equity conversations in a sustained and productive way. As a community, we must understand that while the Equity-Driven Systems Change framework may help provide direction on where our change efforts should be focused and how to pursue them, it will ultimately fail if we cannot engage and sustain difficult conversations and do the affective work that is intertwined with the equity work.
[1] Gazmuri, S., Petty, S., Porter, E. (2010, December). The Equity-Driven Systems Change (ESC) Model: A Toolkit for Improving Institutional Practice and Student Outcomes. Retrieved from https://skylinecollege.edu/seeed/assets/resources/ESC-Toolkit.pdf
[2] https://cainclusion.org/camap
[3] Pacific Educational Group (PEG): https://courageousconversation.com/
[4] Stay engaged, speak your truth, experience discomfort, and expect/accept non-closure
[5] Focus on personal, local, and immediate; isolate race; ensure multiple perspectives; use CCAR protocol with intentionality; establish a working definition of race; surface the presence and role of Whiteness