DEI Professional Development

Fiscal Procedures that Foster Inequity in Students
Without awareness, many colleges foster inequity in student access and achievement with policies, procedures, and state initiatives. This workshop assists administration in examining local policies and practices to assess whether equity is fostered or hindered. This includes FA Appeals, SEA funding, AB 705 implementation and others identified by your college.

Building an Equity-Minded College Culture
The culture of an organization represents the basic assumptions and belief of the institutional community. Institutions of higher education in the United States have white supremist foundations and white culture is”…the dominant, unquestioned standard of behavior, ways of functioning embodied by the vast majority of institutions in the United States” (Gulati-Partee, Potapchuk, Foundation Review Vol 6:1 p.25, 2014). This workshop will explore how leaders interrogate existing ways of function to deconstruct white privilege and culture and shift the institutional culture to an equity minded culture that produces results and experiences that cannot be predicted by race

Evaluating College Policing with a Social Justice Lens
Increased awareness about the often-oppressive role police play in the lives of African American and Latinx communities has resulted in many cities, universities and colleges rethinking concepts of “safety” and the amount of funding that is spent on policing. In the CCC system, districts have a variety of policing approaches including contracting with local police/sheriff offices, contracting with private security agencies, or staffing their own police forces but rarely assess the impact of the college police in the student experience, the disproportionate cost of these forces that don’t address cultural nor mental health student issues. Importantly, this workshop offers the reimagining of both safety and policing through an equity lens in a manner that supports a learning environment free of the reminders of the trauma police. This workshop provides an analysis of institutionalized trauma and the policing of Black and Latinx people and fosters brainstorming discussions about alternative options that utilize community agencies. Additionally, RSS works with the college/district research office to conduct a student survey on policing and student focus groups to provide a report to college/district leadership.

How to Have Difficult Conversations
We all face situations in which having a difficult conversation is either inevitable, necessary, or essential to our work life and well-being. This workshop enables participants to create a toolkit to have and facilitate difficult discussion. Participants explore how to plan effectively for these conversations and to create a safe space for these conversations to unfold. In addition, participants discuss the importance of conflict and discover ways to assure that conflict is resolved in ways that are respectful are defined by restorative practices.

Navigating Intergroup Racial/Cultural Group Conflict
Conflict between Black vs. Brown, Asian American vs. Latinx and more can cause an undercurrent of politics that can damage an institution by fostering lack of trust, resentment, demoralization and more. The result is that a campus cultural shift away from meeting student needs and fulfilling the college mission. For administrators, addressing persistent conflict between campus communities of color can be daunting, resulting in many administrators ignoring the problems that then fester, or even adding to them by not effectively managing the conflict. This workshop provides a historical and systemic reason for such conflicts, fosters increased communication and understanding between college communities of color and provides administrators with clearly defined means for addressing intergroup conflicts with a confidence centered on equitable resolutions.

Creating a Professional Narrative
How do you tell the story of your professional lives as leaders, faculty, and/or innovators? How do you assure that your story changes when your professional passions change? Most importantly, what does the way you tell your professional story reveal about your strengths, your professional trajectory, or the areas you need to address as a professional? Rather than focusing on social media or branding practices, this workshop creates opportunities for participants to produce their own stories of celebration or growth. Participants also discuss how their personal narratives create value, become valuable as teaching/mentoring tools, and chart their growth as leaders and professionals. As importantly this workshop enables participants to counter what author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie refers to as “the danger of a single story

Courageous Conversation
This concept focuses on learning the strategies and protocols for talking about race. Dr. Glenn Singleton recommends embracing four agreements to facilitate open, honest conversation. This a survey workshop introducing his protocol that helps us understand race and explore how that understanding can have a profound impact on how we show up as leaders committed to eliminating inequity.

Community Building through Icebreaker and Self Awareness Activities
Participants will experience engaging and fund icebreaker, community building and self-awareness activities for deepening our diversity, equity, inclusion, and social justice work in an educational context.

Creating Racial Affinity Groups to Deepen Our Anti-Racist Work
Participants will learn about the benefits of racial affinity groups, and important considerations for setting up racial affinity groups as a strategy for deepening anti-racist work within an educational context.

Cultural Competency, Equity and Student Learning
The value that educators provide to society is rarely acknowledged. Filled with passion and commitment, educators give all they can to the students and the families they serve. However, far too often the good intentions lack the cultural competency needed to eradicate the continual harm that the educational system commits on the lives of students of color. The systemic racialized oppression in the educational system continues to not only hinder the brilliance of marginalized youth by negating culturally based learning styles and the rich heritages that students bring on campus, but furthers the falsities espoused by the dominant culture. This interactive workshop focuses on how committed educators can centralize equity in the services and curriculum offered through progress in their pursuit of cultural competency in and outside the classroom.

Infusing Equity and Anti-bias in the Curriculum/Classroom -An Administrators Role
State Chancellor Oakley’s June 2020 Call to Action asks CCCs to “audit classroom climates and create an action plan to create inclusive classrooms and anti-racism curriculum”. In doing so, he called out a critical area where inequity and racialized micro aggressions persist, yet it is an where administration hesitates to intervene. This is often due to a misunderstanding of 10+1, the faculty union contract and/or misconceptions of “faculty preview” over curriculum/syllabi. This workshop encourages Deans and other administration to rethink this misperception and understand the powerful impact they can have in infusing equity and anti-bias into the classroom. Ultimately, the administration is provided with detailed tools and actions that can transform the space that students spend the majority of time at on campus.

Decolonizing the Community College Classroom
The Faculty’s Role in Addressing Inequity: There have been recent “Call to Actions” across the nation as institutions respond to the rising racial consciousness throughout societal systems, and of particular note, education. Educators are called on to audit classroom climates and create inclusive classrooms and anti-racism curriculum. Throughout colleges across the nation, there are critical areas where inequity and racialized micro aggressions persist, yet it is an arena that many hesitate to systematically confront. This workshop encourages faculty and to rethink the powerful impact they can have in infusing equity and anti-bias into the classroom by decolonizing the syllabus, examining individual unconscious bias, discussing equitable pedagogical practices and more. Ultimately, faculty are provided with detailed tools, dialogue and actions that can transform the space that students spend most of their time on campus.

Infusing Equity and Anti-bias in the Curriculum/Classroom
An Administrators Role – seek to create inclusive, antiracist campuses and classrooms, administrators are sometimes hesitant to fully engage in areas they perceive to be faculty domain – the classroom and curriculum. Consequently, student success efforts focus on the deficiencies of the students and the services at the college, but not inside the classroom where students spend 80% or more of their time. This is often due to a misunderstanding and/or misconceptions of “faculty purview” over curriculum/syllabi and the classroom. This workshop encourages Deans and other administrators to rethink this misperception and understand the powerful impact they can have in infusing equity and anti-bias into the classroom. Ultimately, the administration is provided with detailed tools and actions that can transform the space that students spend most of their time on campus.

Intent vs. Impact: Implicit Bias and Microaggressions in the Classroom:
None of us are exempt from much of the socialization we have received from media, our communities, and families. Although some of the narratives into which we have been indoctrinated may have been intended to protect us, others have been rooted in stereotypes and mischaracterizations. Participants in this experience will have an opportunity to challenge many of the assumptions that have shaped our views of particular groups and learn how to interact with students and colleagues in a way that fosters a constructive campus climate.

Inside Out: Putting Your Equity House in Order
It is inevitable, especially during this time when we are focusing anew on how to create diversity, equity, and inclusion in our work as educators and leaders. Sometimes, organizations are forced to examine their policies, actions, and statements when the harsh realities of racial reckonings, gender and sexual discrimination or other inequalities are in the news. Calls for change external to our organizations often bring a heightened awareness to where we need equity change inside of our organizations. This workshop provides equity tools to use when there is significant equity work to do inside of our organizations. In this comprehensive training, you will have the opportunity to do an in-depth exploration of how to put your equity house in order, especially in response to external events. More specifically, we will: 1) explore how to be an anti-racist organization by understanding “the moment,” unpacking the savior-complex model, and defining allyship; 2)work together to create an equity tool to foster a culture of equality and respect when external events reveal internal issues; and 3) discuss how to use your equity tool to provide equity-minded guidance to reimagine workplace policies on diversity, equity, and inclusion during an equity crisis.

Supporting Faculty Success in Serving Students of Color
Institutions interested in addressing inequity often look at racism as an individual issue instead of a system of oppression and advantage based on race. When that is done, the “solutions” leave the system intact to continue to perpetuate inequity. Part of the system includes what happens inside the classroom, where students spend the most of their time at the college. Yet often solutions go all the way up to the door of the classroom without crossing the threshold to address the pedagogy, practices, and instruments that result in inequity. This workshop would take specific data, results of the climate survey and other relevant focus group results to look at ways the administrative leadership can and should be prepared to address faculty success in serving students of color. We will draw upon the work of two faculty members in our system who have developed ways to engage faculty to consider their own student outcome data and adopt approaches to improve students’ experiences and outcomes.

Workshop: Equity Centered Approaches to Data Interpretation
Data interpretation refers to the implementation of processes through which data is reviewed for the purpose of arriving at an informed conclusion. The interpretation of data assigns a meaning to the information analyzed and determines its signification, implications, and informs the work we do as educators. However, data analysis tends to be extremely subjective. That is to say, the nature and goal of interpretation may vary from person to person negatively impacting a collective agreement on the meaning of the results. This workshop assists managers in the best approaches to interpreting data through an equity-based lens. This includes establishing the scale of measurement, setting intentions prior to analysis, preempting unconscious bias, and establishing ground rules to frame analysis. The objective then is to foster an increased collective agreement on the interpretation of data so that resulting activities are firmly grounded in equity to better serve students.