REDWOODS COMMUNITY COLLEGE DISTRICT
Meeting of the Multicultural and Diversity Committee Of the Academic Senate
7351 Tompkins Hill Road, Creative Arts – CA-100
Meeting Minutes for Friday, March 27, 2015 , 3:00 to 5:00 p.m.
Present: Deanna Herrera-Thomas, Tami Bighead, Sean Herrera-Thomas, Dave Bazard.
Absent: Jaqui Cain, Dana Maher, Cindy Hooper, Kristey Carlson
Public Announcements:
None
Meeting began at 3:21pm
Approval of February 20, 2015 Meeting Minutes
The minutes were approved without objection
Action Items
1. Approve 2015 Proposed Course Recommendations to the Enrollment Management.
MDC Chair Deana Herrera-Thomas reviewed the proposed course list. Committee member
Lisa Bighead brought up additional ESL courses (200 and 201) that fit the spirit of the hiring
initiative. Committee member David Bazard suggested that Political Science 3 (World
Problems) would also be an appropriate course to add to the list. After discussion of the
content of these courses and reviewing the scheduling shown on WebAdvisor, committee
member Sean Herrera-Thomas made a motion to amend the list to add these three courses to
the existing list. The motion was seconded by Lisa Bighead. The motion passed on a
unanimous vote.
After the amended list was approved for consideration, MDC member David Bazard moved to
approve the list as amended. This was seconded by Lisa Bighead. The motion to approve the
amended list was approved unanimously.
The MDC then reviewed the process of forwarding the list for use by Deans and Directors for
scheduling. The committee considered the following process described in the Workforce
Equity in Hiring Plan (initiative III.1.J):
The resulting list of courses will be sent to appropriate discipline experts, division deans,
and directors to consider in course scheduling and course initialization. The list will also
be sent to the Enrollment Management Committee for consideration. Chair of MDC and
Senate Co-Presidents.
The MDC was uncertain of the status of the Enrollment Management Committee, but agreed
that presenting the list to the Instructional Council was appropriate given the directive in
III.1.J. MDC Chair Deanna Herrera-Thomas said she would ask to be on the agenda of an
upcoming Instructional Council meeting to present the list to the Deans and Directors. At that
point she would also be able to get clarification on the status of the Enrollment Management
Committee.
Discussion Items
1. Debrief the African American History Event
MDC Chair Deanna Herrera-Thomas described the attendance and participation at the two parts
of this event. Both the movie and follow-up discussion were well attended. The MDC
discussed how to disseminate the feedback provided by students during the dialogue portion of
these events. The feedback consisted of ideas, generated by students, for supporting diversity
and related student success. MDC Chair Herrera-Thomas stated that she would provide the
feedback to Dean Tracey Thomas and have her present it to the instructional council and student
equity committee for future planning. In addition, the MDC discussed the value of having
student athletes, many of whom are from underrepresented groups and from out of the area, to
interact with non student athletes. The committee agreed that future events should provide a
structure that would encourage more of this interaction.
Announcements/Open Forum
MDC member Sean Herrera-Thomas (who also serves on the Curriculum Committee) announced
that English 353 and English 153 were approved by the Curriculum Committee. These “forcredit” courses are developed to provide English instruction for “English as a second language”
students. These two courses would be taught in addition to the ESL courses that have a different
focus and outcomes.
Adjournment – The meeting was adjourned at 4:42pm