More than half of the 115 presidents in the California community-college system have formed a new partnership with the University of Southern California’s Race and Equity Center, pledging action and financial commitments to diversity on their campuses.
As the nation grapples with widespread outrage over the killing in police custody of George Floyd, colleges have scrambled to respond in a way that feels genuine in an emotionally charged moment. Often, their statements have been criticized as vague and empty.
Shaun Harper, a professor of education and business at USC and executive director of the race and equity center, was flooded with requests for help: Can you facilitate conversations with my students and employees about racism? Where do I go from here?
So last weekend, he emailed California’s community-college leaders — he already had relationships with many of them — and asked them to join the California Community College Equity Leadership Alliance. They had to put up a financial commitment of $25,000 and promise to act on racial disparities on their campuses. The center, in turn, is providing a 12-month curriculum led by racial-equity experts; an online resource library of rubrics, readings, and case studies; guidance on designing action plans; and climate surveys for students and faculty and staff members.
It’s tough for colleges to make such investments during the pandemic, which has upended higher-education finances. California’s public colleges have been asked to plan for a cut in state funds.
“It’s an amount of money that I had to really think about,” said Kathryn E. Jeffery, president of Santa Monica College. “But then I also had to think about what it would cost to miss this opportunity to use the momentum of the moment.”
Administrators will have to reallocate money from other places to carry out the surveys and other changes, said Francisco C. Rodriguez, chancellor of the nine-campus Los Angeles Community College District: “Ultimately your budget is a statement of your priorities.”
In California, two-year colleges can apply for funding from a state equity program, and Harper said he’s seen campuses put up $10,000 of that money to bring a single speaker to campus. He wants to help institutions spend that money more effectively.
Community-college presidents can lead the charge within higher education to stop racial injustice, Rodriguez said. “The students most impacted by police violence are the students that we serve.”
Black and Latina/o students disproportionately enroll at community colleges compared with white and Asian students, and they represent close to 40 percent of two-year-college enrollment nationwide. In California, community colleges also educate 80 percent of the state’s first responders, including police officers, he said.
On his campuses, the percentage of Black faculty members is “abysmally low,” Rodriguez said, and the proportion of students who are Black has slipped two or three percentage points in the last few years, he said. Across the state, 73 percent of community-college students identify as people of color, but 61 percent of tenured professors and 59 percent of senior leaders are white.
Through the USC partnership, Rodriguez hopes to focus on identifying and removing barriers to academic success for Black and Hispanic students and barriers to hiring and promotion for Black and Latina/o employees.
He’s started a review of his district’s relationship with the Los Angeles County sheriff’s department. He’s discussing ways to diversify the curriculum with faculty leaders and the possibility of requiring students to take an ethnic-studies course. And he said his campuses will suspend classes on several occasions next academic year to hold teach-ins focused on racial equity.
Jeffery said Santa Monica College has a passionate equity committee and sponsors a faculty diversity institute each year. She’s provided funding for some staff members to go to diversity-related workshops. But efforts to combat racial disparities haven’t been as closely coordinated as they should be, she said, so she is “taking full advantage of this moment” to move the college forward.
With the help of USC’s climate surveys, Jeffery said, she’ll make assessment her biggest priority. She doesn’t want her college to just talk the talk. Did a particular policy change actually result in students’ feeling more welcome on campus? Did revised hiring guidelines raise the number of Black and Latina/o faculty and staff members in subject areas where they’re traditionally underrepresented, like science and mathematics?
Jeffery wants to get as many faculty and staff members participating in the 12-month USC curriculum as possible — and not just professors and administrators. She’s bringing in her grounds and facilities managers, because a large number of their employees are men of color . And she’s inviting someone who handles construction contracts, to make sure they’re spending that money equitably. She wants students and the board of trustees participating, too.
“Some folks have said, we’ve worked on this for a long time, and we need more support from the president’s office,” Jeffery said. “And I agree.”
