Presidents Academy – Equity Gap
May 28, 2015
Summary of Small Group Discussions
Diversity gap for faculty and staff
Efforts that have worked:
 Intentional long term efforts
Diversity strategic plan adopted by Board with specific metrics for faculty, staff and students
Developing cultural competency on campus
Community pressure

Diversity in application process
Reflected in job description
Eliminating preferred qualifications that screen out diverse candidates
Targeted recruiting at institutions or regions with a more diverse workforce
Interviewing all qualified candidates of color
Training for search committee members
Requiring diversity in candidate pool or among finalists
Hiring finalists of color

Building experience among potential candidates
Recruit diversity for part-time faculty positions
Hiring one year temporary positions to increase exposure
Challenges:
 Faculty committed to closing opportunity gaps for students of color but don’t see connection
to diversity among faculty
 Worries about limitations to proactive efforts due to I-200
 Perception of compromising quality to hire diverse candidates
 Less diverse communities not attractive to diverse applicants
 Low salaries compared to other states
 Colleges competing for faculty and staff of color, stealing from each other
Next steps and ideas:
 Targeted recruitment to increase diversity in pools
Neighboring colleges pool targeted recruitment efforts, such as out of state job fairs
Partnerships with university graduate programs for teaching internships

Shared diversity training and effective practices
For campus communities
For search committee members
For deans and vice presidents

More leadership development for faculty and staff of color
Social Justice Leadership Institute
Equity gap for student access and achievement
Efforts that have worked
 Advising and orientation
Mandatory orientation
Required educational plan for new students
Intrusive advising for students with low placement test scores

Early alert systems
Bi-lingual Latino completion coach to follow up on early alerts

Mandatory college success courses
Cohorts of underrepresented students in student success courses

Accelerating pre-college course sequences, especially math

Expanding I-BEST offerings

Faculty engagement
Peer to peer faculty discussions on student success using disaggregated student data

Outreach to families and communities rather than individuals
Challenges:
 Resources for interventions that work
Resources for student success analytics software


Scaling advising, reorganizing advising system
Advisors for specific student populations

Financial aid for undocumented students
Next steps and ideas:
 Data sharing with key faculty
 Mandatory orientation
 Guided pathways advising
 College success courses for students of color taught by faculty of color
 Completion coaches
 Increase faculty diversity