Strategic Vision for Equity 2021-2025
Part One: Equity at Foothill College, Today & Tomorrow
Introduction
Foothill College has a history of providing transformative educational experiences that meet the goals for its students and produce outcomes that have served to lessen disparities among our most vulnerable populations. Individuals and areas of our campus have long sought to achieve student equity, whether on their own or in response to state-mandated equity plan requirements. While these state-mandated plans helped to fund equity activities on our campus and set goals to help move the work forward, those efforts have been relatively siloed, often intermittent, and sometimes were not interconnected with all areas of the campus to produce systemic impact on equity disparities. This Strategic Vision for Equity is an effort to provide a sustainable, and systemic vision for achieving equity through eliminating demographically-predictable disparities at Foothill College. With a strong foundational vision, the college can then be guided toward action, collaboratively and within individual departments and areas. The Strategic Vision for Equity plan will also serve as a partnering document to Foothill College’s Educational Master Plan 2030, Facilities Master Plan, and other planning documents.
Equity Philosophy and Values
In conversations with the campus, several things surfaced in regard to what our college community valued about equity. Our campus prides itself on being proactive versus reactive when addressing challenges. We appreciate spaces that embody team, family, and community spirit. We recognize our students are continuously improving and developing. Perhaps most importantly, our college values and acknowledges individuals as whole people and sees their potential.
While our college is strong in its sentiment of our values, it is often difficult to fully enact those values because it exists within the broader institution of higher education in the United States that was inherently designed to systemically deny the right to education for so many. The system of education itself has a long history of upholding an oppressive premise about who gets access to quality education, and what that looks like. However, our college has always found ways to persist and we continuously challenge and aim to change the oppressive structure of education because we still believe in the value of education. The California Community College (CCC) system offers high quality, post-secondary education to all who want it, regardless of personal circumstances. Truly embodying this intent of the CCC’s original mission requires constant disruption of systemic oppression.
Discussions of, and intentions to disrupt the way oppression plays itself out in our educational institutions cannot occur without recognizing the importance power plays in upholding this system and efforts to maintain the status quo. One concrete way Foothill can disrupt systemic oppression is by taking stock of how it makes decisions, embracing the notion of transformative educational leadership in the college’s effort to improve and refine its processes. Specifically, decision-making in educational institutions tends not to prioritize student input, and particularly students of color. When the effort to reach out and engage students of color happens, it is to help the institution correct a deficit or fix problems in a student’s educational experience. This can be taxing on our students, especially without the time and support needed to be fully informed in these leadership roles. Foothill can support student self-advocacy by institutionalizing leadership training, and through exposure of community-engagement opportunities in and out of the classroom where students can exercise their voice and power. Our college can deepen its commitment to this disruption by continuing to create avenues in decision-making bodies and spaces of influence for student involvement.
On a similar note, Foothill should empower faculty and staff to be engaged in decision-making processes where the avenues for engagement are legitimate ways to influence the direction of the college. It should be clear to the campus community what constitutes shared governance and where those avenues of engagement occur. The campus community should have an informed understanding of how these committees work in concert and how they communicate and share information amongst each other and their representational bodies. Foothill can be mindful that our decision-making councils, senates and committees reflect the diversity of our campus. Furthermore, the work that comes with being involved in shared governance should not overly tax certain members with their involvement (especially our students), and does not precipitate burnout and/or representational disengagement.