Butte College Diversity Committee works collaboratively with our diverse campus and local communities to establish a learning and working environment that is equitable, inclusive, and anti-racist. We do this by honoring diverse identities, educating our community, identifying and responding to existing and emerging equity issues, and analyzing and recommending institutional change based on relevant research practices.
The Diversity Committee works to promote an inclusive community that embraces all aspects of diversity among administrators, students, faculty, and staff. In order to raise awareness toward this goal, the committee: A. Provides events, workshops, and trainings on campus B. Funds faculty, staff, and students to attend diversity trainings and workshops off campus C. Makes recommendations to faculty, staff, and administration on diversity-related topics D. Makes diversity and inclusion-related recommendations to campus committees, departments, and governing bodies E. Represents the college in outreach activities involving the community The committee revised it's Mission in May 2021 and defined it's vision and Values. It also developed a 3 year strategic plan. Below are its Vision and Values: Vision In order to dismantle the historical structures of oppression, we promote social justice by inspiring an educated, aware, and accountable community Values *Difference *Equity *Allyship *Inclusion *Representation *Awareness
Decolonize speakers, catering, and advertising
221 total students, faculty, and staff attended at least one Decolonize! event
Of the 221, it looks like
37 were students
30 were members of the community
1 was a dean
And the rest were faculty, staff, and facilitators.
There were no VPs in attendance, and the president was in attendance at the welcome ceremony, where she announced the 2021 Diversity Award Recipient
Average attendance over the 13 workshops was 45 participants.
Community members were especially drawn to Asian American and Latinx topics as well as the Diversity Talks.
Feedback received included:
"I have learned I have much to learn."
"Decolonizing requires learning histories."
"Change is possible and we each deserve a world that creates and co-creates from a place of mutual support and admiration with an emphasis on cooperation and collaboration as a means toward all of us rising together!"
"Decolonizing means recognizing and caring for the most vulnerable among us."
"Decolonizing is putting the safety of the community first"
"Decolonize the front desk! Act where you are."
"To decolonize means to unlearn."
"Burnout is real, and we need to each do our part, no matter how small it seems to the individual. Collectively, we can make a difference."
All of the feedback gathered was overwhelmingly positive, and it was clear that attending the events had a tremendous impact on the faculty, staff, and students who attended. Last year we also foregrounded student voice by having students introduce each of the keynote speakers, three students share their stories as part of the Diversity Speaker series, and student panelists/facilitators who led the Inspiring Scholars and Ascending Scholars discussions. These experiences were extremely empowering and validating for those students, and after Decolonize! student participation on the Diversity Committee tripled. We now have six students who regularly attend our Diversity Committee meetings, providing significant student perspective and voice for all of our efforts in that committee. We would still like to see more presence and participation from campus leadership in the events, but we're working on that in our outreach and advertising efforts this year.
Diversity speaker series
In fall 2021, we offered three speakers. JerXiong discussed Hmong literary heritage and introduced students and staff to a range of Hmong writers. In many ways, this was a powerful follow up to Kao Kalia’s talk in Spring 2021. Kalia is Xiong’s mentor and grounds Hmong literacies in our local area. We also hosted Naima Yael Tokunow in partnership with the Queer Resource Center and Sara Smallhouse’s art appreciation classes. In this way, attendance was more representative of Tokunow’s identities and perspectives. In November, we hosted poet Brynn Saito who engages "memory work" with community elders and their descendants, recording stories of their WWII-era incarceration.Brynn also read her own poetry which seeks to “transmute intergenerational trauma.”
The Diversity Speaker Series was so excited about bringing Dr. Gina Ann Garcia, that we decided to build a whole semester of programming around being a Hispanic Serving Institution.?Garcia, the author of Becoming Hispanic Serving Institutions, was our January 2022 institute day speaker. That launched a faculty-led book group on the topic. In addition, we’ll be offering talks on Latinx Professionals in Nursing and Agriculture, Supporting Student Academic Achievement, and even Environmental Justice through a racial justice lens.
The funding we get for these important events only supports the speakers and not all of the labor that goes into promoting them, creating contracts, and so on, which members of the Diversity Committee carry out in addition to their regular job duties.? We are also going to institute an online survey mechanism, so we can better measure the impacts of these events, but if the communication on the chat, the demand for recordings so folks can share them with colleagues who couldn't be present, and the increased numbers of people in attendance are any indication, these events are having a profound impact on our campus culture.?
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Butte College's Diversity Committee established a three-year strategic plan. Completing the strategic plan was accomplished by facilitating the committee's efforts to generate specific, measurable, attainable, and time-bound (SMART) goals. The DC 2021-2023 Strategic Plan Goals that support the Vision for Success are reflected in goals 1 and 5:
Gather climate survey data, Campus Pride index data, and focus group data on assessing marginalized students' and employees' needs and suggest changes to campus leadership by the end of Spring 2022.
Revise student concern process and implement campus-wide and effectively communicate to all students by the end of Spring 2022.
Create mandatory baseline DEI training for all employees by Spring 2022.
Identify avenues for student activism on our campus and support student-driven activist spaces for moving toward equity and liberation by the end of Spring 2023.
The Diversity Committee supports the Butte College Strategic Direction Priorities in the following ways:
1. Implementing AB 705--Our collaboration with the FLEX Committee to bring both a humanities and science-focused speaker discussing equity-minded interpretation of course objectives and faculty assessment/grading practices for both STEM (Maya Poe) and English (Asao Inoue) contributed key professional development for math and English faculty implementing AB 705, especially for closing equity gaps still present in our implementation of AB 705, despite its relative success compared to how we were doing before its implementation, primarily due to the pipeline effect.
2. Implementing Guided Pathways a. Strategic Scheduling b. Hobsons Starfish--in the fall semester of 2021, the Diversity Committee was contacted by the Guided Pathways committee to provide feedback on possible equity concerns around the implementation of guided pathways on our campus. Over two meetings, the committee put together in-depth responses to the Guided Pathways survey and shared our concerns in the form of a PowerPoint that was then shared at the Guided Pathways committee meeting.
3. Closing Equity Gaps: Everything we do as a committee is focused on developing strategies and practices that could eventually close equity gaps. Our current strategic plan, which will take us from Fall 2021 through Spring 2024 addresses the need for equity, consistency, and transparency in faculty onboarding, evaluation processes, student concern processes, employee concern processes, professional development, addressing burnout around equity work and in general--focusing on health and wellness within the committee and in our campus community, increasing student voice in campus governance, and most of all in our role supporting our new IDEA officer in all of the work he's doing. We believe it takes this multi-pronged effort and consistent communication between our committee and different committees on campus for us to achieve the deep change that will actually close equity gaps one day. We've also added representatives from the committee to the Curriculum Committee, Academic Senate, and Facilities to further that depth of communication and equity work on our campus.
4. Meeting enrollment targets--we also believe the work we do had a deep impact on retention, both of employees but especially of students that would help our campus reach our enrollment targets. Equity-minded and culturally responsive teaching practices, like Universal Design, end up making experiences better for all students in all classrooms, and the Diversity Committee is doing all we can to develop a truly equity-minded campus.
5. Meeting student achievement goals: In addition to all we've covered above, the Diversity Committee supports student achievement goals by augmenting student voice and participation within the committee and as part of the events we facilitate each year. We now have more than six active students on the committee, which is beyond what we see on any other campus committee, and they get to hear from representatives all over campus about the equity work we do at Butte College. The professional development we provide also significantly furthers the goal of equitable achievement for students in classrooms across campus, and our work with faculty accountability and equitable student concerns process will further ensure we're meeting those goals.
6. Fostering a Culture of Inclusiveness: See all the above--everything we do fosters a culture of inclusiveness on our campus
7. Improving Processes a. Data and Reporting b. Internal Communications--We've made significant improvements in increasing communication across campus on the equity work we're doing and de-siloing that work. At every meeting, representatives from curriculum, senate, climate surveys, SEAPAC, the UndocuCenter, the Cutlure and Community Center, student clubs, faculty/staff affinity groups,
8. Strengthening Pro Dev--see above
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Our strategic plan outlines the goals for 2022/23 as:
Goal I. Recommend best practices in accountability to administration and have them agree to review these with an eye to implementing them by the end of Fall 2022.
Goal II. Use impact data to revise our DEI events by the end of Fall 2022.
Goal III. Review current discrimination complaint processes for employees and suggest revisions and disseminate to all employees by the end of Spring 2023.
Goal IV. Build on a collaborative onboarding reform process by recommending changes and supporting and implementing this NEW plan at the end of Spring 2023.
Goal V. Create and support a safe platform for sharing discriminatory incidents by the end of Spring 2023.
Goal VI. Identify avenues for student activism on our campus and support student-driven activist spaces for moving toward equity and liberation by the end of Spring 2023.
Goal VII. Implement Annual Diversity Committee Retreat Healing from Institutional/Secondary Trauma by the end of Spring 2023.
Strategy 1 - Operating Budget for IDEA Officer
We are delighted that our college is currently in the process of hiring an Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Anti-racism Officer position for our campus, though we are concerned about the broad description of responsibilities given to this position.
We take our role in supporting this position quite seriously, and we can't imagine how the person in this position will be able to fulfill even some of the following representative duties without a budget:
1. Provides leadership in the areas of anti-racism, diversity, equity, and inclusion in accordance with the Butte College Mission Statement and Values.
2. Champions and promotes an inclusive institution that honors and embraces social equity and makes recommendations on how to maximize anti-racism, diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts across the District.
3. Responds to identified needs to maintain an intentional and sustained focus on achieving anti-racism, diversity, equity, and inclusion.
4. Maintains currency on state and federal legislation related to equity, diversity, inclusion, and non-discrimination and develops or recommends policies that ensure equity in compliance with all legal requirements.
5. Creates a Bias Incident Response process for the District in collaboration with Title IX Coordinator and BIR Taskforce.
6. In conjunction with Professional Development and Human Resources, develops, implements, and provides institutional employee training (onboarding and ongoing) to promote cultural understanding and competency and a climate of equity and inclusion.
7. Serves on the Professional Development Steering Committee to ensure that diversity, equity, and inclusion is embedded in all professional development offerings; works with other committee members to evaluate professional development activities and improve offerings based upon continuing evaluation.
8. Consults with academic departments in creating culturally relevant curriculum development and instructional practices and support academic administrators and guide faculty in the development of culturally responsive, equitable, and inclusive curricula, courses, and teaching practices.
9. Works directly with VP of Instruction, the instructional deans, and with faculty-led committees and attends Learning Council meetings to ensure that DEI is always considered during decision-making.
10. Provides guidance and feedback to the Guided Pathway initiative on how its efforts can best maximize diversity, equity, and inclusion.
11. Collaborates with the EEO Officer and Human Resources in implementing the EEO Plan; Serves on the EEO Advisory Committee.
12. Serves as the Co-Chair of the Diversity Committee.
13. Collaborates with the Student Equity Office in implementing the Student Equity Plan and serve on Student Equity and Achievement Program Advisory Committee (SEAPAC) and Work with institutional researchers and SEAPAC to gather and disseminate data on college equity gaps and the qualitative data that helps explain their causes.
14. Works in conjunction with Institutional Effectiveness in policy analyses and organizing and developing necessary annual reports of the college's effort in recruitment, retention, and successful completion of underrepresented student populations.
15. Assists in developing systems of accountability for reaching diversity and equity goals and objectives.
16. Consults with the Title IX Office on issues related to anti-racism, diversity, equity, inclusion, and compliance with California Community College, Title IX, and EO policies, regulations, and procedures.
17. Develops identifies, and disseminates educational materials related to anti-racism, diversity, equity and inclusion to faculty, staff, and students.
18. Acts as Butte College’s representative when attending conferences and communicating with federal or state agencies. May serve on a variety of District committees as directed.
19. Serves as a consultant and subject matter expert to administrators, faculty, staff, and students on matters related to anti-racism, diversity, equity, and inclusion.
20. Performs related duties as assigned by the President.
We’re also concerned that the existing Diversity and Student Equity budgets might be tapped for this additional work, and this amounts to robbing from DEI work on our campus to give to DEI work on our campus, and we’re hoping that’s not the assumption among our leadership.
Strategy 2 - Supporting Decolonize! and Related Events: Speakers, Workshops, Trainings, and Initiatives on Campus
We are asking that our campus continue to support Decolonize! (formerly Diversity Days) as it has done in the past.
Butte College’s Strategic Initiative 6 - Enhancing a Culture of Inclusiveness – emphasizes community “by actively promoting an environment that celebrates the uniqueness of each individual. The campus climate is characterized by diversity, understanding, mutual respect, and inclusiveness.” The Diversity Committee supports four vital aspects of this initiative: 1) Educating the campus and community that diversity is shaped and informed by many characteristics including but not limited to ability, age, culture, education, ethnicity, gender identity, language, religious beliefs, sex, sexual orientation, and socio-economic status; 2) Assisting in Hiring and retaining a diverse workforce; 3) Creating and sustaining programs, projects, and events that promote a greater understanding of diversity; 4) Developing annual reports that describe the results of diversity efforts and ensuring campus discussion of college progress.
The Diversity Committee is intimately involved in all aspects of this strategic initiative, including EEO planning and implementation, outreach to minoritized populations, and providing the members of the campus community exposure to a myriad of equity-related issues via activities during Decolonize! and throughout the year.
Additionally, Item 2 in the CCC Chancellor's "Call to Action" asks that our college host open dialogue and review campus climate, and the Decolonize! events together with the feedback we collect from those events are one of the only ways our college consistently does both of these things.
In the aftermath of yet another year of violence committed against black and brown folks, as well as several backlash movements and increased violence against LGBTQ+ identities, in particular, black transwomen, and the additional violence and harrassment faced by Asian Americans in the aftermath of COVID 19, and following upon campus climate survey comments (from both students and faculty/staff) that we have been able to access, it is apparent, more than ever, that our campus has work to do in creating rigorous and open campus dialogue about discrimination, microaggressions, implicit bias, and privilege in ways that are intersectional and consistently assessing the impacts of the spaces we create.
Historically Diversity Days (now called Decolonize!) has provided such a space on our campus, combining both celebration and empowerment of intersectional historically minoritized identities and holding frank conversations about the changes we need to make every day and every space that space of empowerment on our campus. Though we know times are tough, we ask that our leadership recognize the mindfulness and purposefulness of these spaces we've created for many years now at our institution, and that we continue to make these spaces a priority.
Strategy 3 - Diversity Speakers Series
The Committee seeks to continue its Diversity Speakers Series, which has been a great success in what is now its third year and especially in the online environment, averaging around 60 to 90 attendees for each event. We are asking for additional funding, so we don't have to depend on Equity funding for this series to support at least four speakers each year (two each semester).
For many years, minoritized faculty and staff and allies on campus had requested that the Diversity Committee work on expanding the Diversity Days style offerings and the reflection they inspired to more consistent events throughout the year. The Diversity Speaker Series and our Informational Campaign have been our response to these very valid requests. Diversity and inclusion needs to be something our campus actively values and makes visible year round, not just for a week in the spring. Over the past two years, the speaker series has covered important LGBTQ+ issues, including the legacy and current status of HIV/AIDS, homophobia, transhpobia, coming out, trans pride, unhoused peoples (both local and state/national), trans identities in history, media, and politics, the prison industrial complex, immigration, trauma, healing, and many more. Our speaker last semester, Alok, gave one of the most inspiring presentations many of us have witnessed at a time when our campus culture needed that energy most. This semester, our speakers cover a broad range of topics from intersectional perspectives:
Cameron Awkward-Rich is a black queer and trans poet whose work speaks to the lived experience of marginalization and the realities of hope (We just held this event on February 17, and we had over 90 participants, about a third of whom were faculty and another third members of the community--these events are getting better publicity and turning into one of the few spaces that bring together faculty, staff, students and members of the community on our campus).
Mateo Presente is an alum of Chico State and change maker who currently works for a non-profit organization called Black and Pink which supports LGBTQIA2S+ people and people living with HIV/AIDS impacted by the prison industrial complex.
Finally, Kao Kalia is author of “The Song Poet” in which she highlights the challenges and struggles of her family when immigrating to the U.S. and facing racism.
The funding we get for these important events only supports the speakers and not all of the labor that goes into promoting them, creating contracts, and so on, which members of the Diversity Committee carry out in addition to their regular job duties. We are also going to institute an online survey mechanism, so we can better measure the impacts of these events, but if the communication on the chat, the demand for recordings so folks can share them with colleagues who couldn't be present, and the increased numbers of people in attendance are any indication, these events are having a profound impact on our campus culture.
Strategy 4 - Educational and Informational Campus Campaign
The Committee seeks to implement each semester an educational and informational campaign focused on issues of diversity, equity and inclusion. For example, in fall 2020, in collaboration with CSU Chico, the Diversity Committee sponsored a "We're A Culture NOT A Costume" Poster campaign, which we adapted to an online environment, sharing digital posters via email and on social media. Posters were disseminated throughout the campaign and also on various Social Media sites.
This spring, we are again taking our poster campaign online and posters will be disseminated virtually for Women's History Month and Asian and Pacific Islander Month. Posters were circulated via social media for Black History Month, but were not shared via district announcements or email due to a mix-up in communication.
Whether we are online or face to face next year, we hope to continue this very powerful education campaign, though being online means this requires no funding. We are projecting a possible face to face environment in spring 2022 and thus asking for some funding to help print the posters for that semester.
For many years there has been a request that the Diversity Committee expand it focus beyond Diversity Days by highlighting important topics, speakers and events throughout the year. In January 2018, the DC's three year strategic planning committee prioritized collaborating and partnering to identify and disseminate at least one diverse educational, informational campaign per semester as a goal for the academic year.
Strategy 5 - Equity-Minded Onboarding for Incoming Faculty
We are requesting $69,750 to develop and launch a comprehensive onboarding program for incoming faculty.
The cost would cover an initial $750 stipend a piece for three faculty members to work over the summer to put together a complete plan, determine the best resources to share, decide on initial foci for each session, research onboarding strategies and best practices, etc… This cost would only be for the first version of this program, since faculty would have to work off contract, over the summer to get it ready by fall 2022.
The total budget also includes 10 percent reassigned time (at $5000 estimated backfill totalling $15,000/year) for three primary faculty organizers/facilitators to plan, prepare, run, and debrief three hour workshops once a month for 10 months. The total also includes one additional $750 stipend each month for visiting faculty facilitators with different areas of expertise (totalling $7,500).
We’re also requesting 10% reassigned time for all new faculty participants to give them a little extra time, probably in their first semester, to participate in the monthly meetings, mid-month check-ins, and then develop and apply some of the strategies we share in their classrooms. The estimated cost will be about $35,000 ($5,000 a piece for one course covered by an associate faculty member) for the estimated 7 new faculty members next year.
$7,500 of the total estimated budget would cover $150 stipends for each session for up to 5 associate faculty each year.
An additional $1,200 is being requested to cover catering for the three hour in person meetings.
An additional $1,300 is being requested to cover key books on equity-minded teaching for the program.
An in-depth quantitative and qualitative data-collection system will be developed, similar to the one we use in CACP, to help us continue to improve the program based on participant feedback from session to session and year to year.
We will administer a comprehensive pre and post survey measuring faculty confidence with the various topics we cover.
We will ask faculty to complete anonymous feedback forms at the end of each session, telling us what they most appreciated, suggestions for improvement, and any additional comments they’d like to share with us.
Our campus has long been struggling to recruit, but even more so, to retain faculty of color, though we’ve long-since recognized the key role a faculty body that mirrors the diverse identities of our student body can have for equitable student retention and success. We believe this program, with its focus on equity-minded teaching practices as well as equitable support for new faculty navigating institutional policies and procedures, will go a long way to building a culture of inclusiveness and support for all faculty on our campus and a culture of equity-minded teaching/student support among faculty and counselors.
For a long time, new faculty onboarding has been left up to deans, chairs, and colleagues in our various departments, and the quality of support and degree of feeling welcomed has varied greatly. Programs like Great Teachers and our current orientation practices mostly focus on up-front support before the semester begins, leaving many new faculty and counselors, depending on their department situations, to their own devices to just figure things out from month to month as they progress through their first year. The initial, up-front coverage of campus and classroom policies, procedures, and expectations is often overwhelming for new faculty, many who might still be in the process of relocating and negotiating a great deal of change in their personal lives as well. Much of the information shared in those initial orientation models is not retained, and faculty find themselves at a loss as things come from month to month. This program focuses on real-time support as well as a space for current faculty to mentor new faculty and share experiences as they negotiate their first year at Butte College. The program will also provide space and resources for new and current faculty to discuss the latest work on equity-minded pedagogy and student support from their various experiences and perspectives.
Furthermore, with the new chair and dean reorganizations, department chairs and deans are even less likely to have the capacity to ensure quality onboarding for new hires in their departments, leading to an increased likelihood that new faculty hires experience isolation and burnout in their first year. The likelihood of frustration, isolation, and burnout is only increased when our community is faced with wildfires, pandemics, power shut-offs, budget cuts, and any future crises that we might have to face as a campus. The program will include continuous discussion of strategies to increase instructor flexibility in the face of potential upheavals while still maintaining quality teaching and support of students.
Finally, this program supports the current language ensuring that our college will provide consistent, equity-minded onboarding for new hires in our EEO Plan and supports the changes to the faculty hiring procedures and increased focus on equity-minded teaching in the hiring process. This program would also support future changes to the BCEA contract that will increasingly focus on faculty accountability for equity-minded teaching practices. We anticipate having spots available for current faculty who could receive FLEX credit or column movement for participating in the program each year. We would like to set the capacity at 25, and we rarely have that many new faculty hires in one year.
Student Equity Funds
EEO Funds (possibly) for New Faculty Onboarding
Unused BCLDI Funding (possibly) for New Faculty Onboarding
| Original Priority | Program, Unit, Area | Resource Type | Account Number | Object Code | One Time Augment | Ongoing Augment |
| Description | Supporting Rationale | Potential Alternative Funding Sources | Prioritization Criteria | |||
| 1 | Diversity Committee | Personnel | $0.00 | $10,000.00 | ||
| We are delighted that our college is currently in the process of hiring an Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Anti-racism Officer position for our campus, though we are concerned about the broad description of responsibilities given to this position. | We take our role in supporting this position quite seriously, and we can't imagine how the person in this position will be able to fulfill even some of the following representative duties without a budget: 1. Provides leadership in the areas of anti-racism, diversity, equity, and inclusion in accordance with the Butte College Mission Statement and Values. 2. Champions and promotes an inclusive institution that honors and embraces social equity and makes recommendations on how to maximize anti-racism, diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts across the District. 3. Responds to identified needs to maintain an intentional and sustained focus on achieving anti-racism, diversity, equity, and inclusion. 4. Maintains currency on state and federal legislation related to equity, diversity, inclusion, and non-discrimination and develops or recommends policies that ensure equity in compliance with all legal requirements. 5. Creates a Bias Incident Response process for the District in collaboration with Title IX Coordinator and BIR Taskforce. 6. In conjunction with Professional Development and Human Resources, develops, implements, and provides institutional employee training (onboarding and ongoing) to promote cultural understanding and competency and a climate of equity and inclusion. 7. Serves on the Professional Development Steering Committee to ensure that diversity, equity, and inclusion is embedded in all professional development offerings; works with other committee members to evaluate professional development activities and improve offerings based upon continuing evaluation. 8. Consults with academic departments in creating culturally relevant curriculum development and instructional practices and support academic administrators and guide faculty in the development of culturally responsive, equitable, and inclusive curricula, courses, and teaching practices. 9. Works directly with VP of Instruction, the instructional deans, and with faculty-led committees and attends Learning Council meetings to ensure that DEI is always considered during decision-making. 10. Provides guidance and feedback to the Guided Pathway initiative on how its efforts can best maximize diversity, equity, and inclusion. 11. Collaborates with the EEO Officer and Human Resources in implementing the EEO Plan; Serves on the EEO Advisory Committee. 12. Serves as the Co-Chair of the Diversity Committee. 13. Collaborates with the Student Equity Office in implementing the Student Equity Plan and serve on Student Equity and Achievement Program Advisory Committee (SEAPAC) and Work with institutional researchers and SEAPAC to gather and disseminate data on college equity gaps and the qualitative data that helps explain their causes. 14. Works in conjunction with Institutional Effectiveness in policy analyses and organizing and developing necessary annual reports of the college's effort in recruitment, retention, and successful completion of underrepresented student populations. 15. Assists in developing systems of accountability for reaching diversity and equity goals and objectives. 16. Consults with the Title IX Office on issues related to anti-racism, diversity, equity, inclusion, and compliance with California Community College, Title IX, and EO policies, regulations, and procedures. 17. Develops identifies, and disseminates educational materials related to anti-racism, diversity, equity and inclusion to faculty, staff, and students. 18. Acts as Butte College�s representative when attending conferences and communicating with federal or state agencies. May serve on a variety of District committees as directed. 19. Serves as a consultant and subject matter expert to administrators, faculty, staff, and students on matters related to anti-racism, diversity, equity, and inclusion. 20. Performs related duties as assigned by the President. We�re also concerned that the existing Diversity and Student Equity budgets might be tapped for this additional work. |
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| 2 | Diversity Committee | Personnel | 11_099_110_1_676000 | $0.00 | $25,000.00 | |
| Supporting Decolonize! and Related Events: Speakers, Workshops, Trainings, and Initiatives on Campus | Butte College�s Strategic Initiative 6 - Enhancing a Culture of Inclusiveness � emphasizes community �by actively promoting an environment that celebrates the uniqueness of each individual. The campus climate is characterized by diversity, understanding, mutual respect, and inclusiveness.� The Diversity Committee supports four vital aspects of this initiative: 1) Educating the campus and community that diversity is shaped and informed by many characteristics including but not limited to ability, age, culture, education, ethnicity, gender identity, language, religious beliefs, sex, sexual orientation, and socio-economic status; 2) Assisting in Hiring and retaining a diverse workforce; 3) Creating and sustaining programs, projects, and events that promote a greater understanding of diversity; 4) Developing annual reports that describe the results of diversity efforts and ensuring campus discussion of college progress. The Diversity Committee is intimately involved in all aspects of this strategic initiative, including EEO planning and implementation, outreach to minoritized populations, and providing the members of the campus community exposure to a myriad of equity-related issues via activities during Decolonize! and throughout the year. Additionally, Item 2 in the CCC Chancellor's "Call to Action" asks that our college host open dialogue and review campus climate, and the Decolonize! events together with the feedback we collect from those events are one of the only ways our college consistently does both of these things. In the aftermath of yet another year of violence committed against black and brown folks, as well as several backlash movements and increased violence against LGBTQ+ identities, in particular, black transwomen, and the additional violence and harrassment faced by Asian Americans in the aftermath of COVID 19, and following upon campus climate survey comments (from both students and faculty/staff) that we have been able to access, it is apparent, more than ever, that our campus has work to do in creating rigorous and open campus dialogue about discrimination, microaggressions, implicit bias, and privilege in ways that are intersectional and consistently assessing the impacts of the spaces we create. Historically Diversity Days (now called Decolonize!) has provided such a space on our campus, combining both celebration and empowerment of intersectional historically minoritized identities and holding frank conversations about the changes we need to make every day and every space that space of empowerment on our campus. Though we know times are tough, we ask that our leadership recognize the mindfulness and purposefulness of these spaces we've created for many years now at our institution, and that we continue to make these spaces a priority. |
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| 3 | Diversity Committee | Personnel | 11_099_110_1_676000 | $0.00 | $22,000.00 | |
| Supporting Diversity Speaker Series | Diversity Speaker series continues to bring speakers to Butte who have diverse identities and perspectives, have particular expertise and offer a high educational value for students. We prioritize speakers whose message is timely, progressive, challenges status quo thinking, and asks us to question our own practices. Moreover, we�ve grown Diversity Speaker Series committee membership to include more Butte staff with diverse identities. Working from the premise that privilege creates blind spots, we do our best to center the perspectives of BIPOC members. In these ways, we seek to create a program representative of our diverse students. In fall 2021, we offered three speakers. Jer Xiong discussed Hmong literary heritage and introduced students and staff to a range of Hmong writers. In many ways, this was a powerful follow up to Kao Kalia�s talk in Spring 2021. Kalia is Xiong�s mentor and grounds Hmong literacies in our local area. We also hosted Naima Yael Tokunow in partnership with the Queer Resource Center and Sara Smallhouse�s art appreciation classes. In this way, attendance was more representative of Tokunow�s identities and perspectives. In November, we hosted poet Brynn Saito who engages "memory work" with community elders and their descendants, recording stories of their WWII-era incarceration. Brynn also read her own poetry which seeks to �transmute intergenerational trauma.� The Diversity Speaker Series was so excited about bringing Dr. Gina Ann Garcia, that we decided to build a whole semester of programming around being a Hispanic Serving Institution. Garcia, the author of Becoming Hispanic Serving Institutions, was our January 2022 institute day speaker. That launched a faculty-led book group on the topic. In addition, we�ll be offering talks on Latinx Professionals in Nursing and Agriculture, Supporting Student Academic Achievement, and even Environmental Justice through a racial justice lens. The funding we get for these important events only supports the speakers and not all of the labor that goes into promoting them, creating contracts, and so on, which members of the Diversity Committee carry out in addition to their regular job duties. We are also going to institute an online survey mechanism, so we can better measure the impacts of these events, but if the communication on the chat, the demand for recordings so folks can share them with colleagues who couldn't be present, and the increased numbers of people in attendance are any indication, these events are having a profound impact on our campus culture. |
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| 4 | Diversity Committee | Personnel | $0.00 | $500.00 | ||
| Educational and Informational Campus Campaign | The Committee seeks to implement each semester an educational and informational campaign focused on issues of diversity, equity and inclusion. For example, in fall 2020, in collaboration with CSU Chico, the Diversity Committee sponsored a "We're A Culture NOT A Costume" Poster campaign, which we adapted to an online environment, sharing digital posters via email and on social media. Posters were disseminated throughout the campaign and also on various Social Media sites. This spring, we are again taking our poster campaign online and posters will be disseminated virtually for Women's History Month and Asian and Pacific Islander Month. Posters were circulated via social media for Black History Month, but were not shared via district announcements or email due to a mix-up in communication. Whether we are online or face to face next year, we hope to continue this very powerful education campaign, though being online means this requires no funding. We are projecting a possible face to face environment in spring 2022 and thus asking for some funding to help print the posters for that semester. For many years there has been a request that the Diversity Committee expand it focus beyond Diversity Days by highlighting important topics, speakers and events throughout the year. In January 2018, the DC's three year strategic planning committee prioritized collaborating and partnering to identify and disseminate at least one diverse educational, informational campaign per semester as a goal for the academic year. |
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| 5 | Diversity Committee | Personnel | $750.00 | $69,000.00 | ||
| Yearlong New Faculty Onboarding Program | Our campus has long been struggling to recruit, but even more so, to retain faculty of color, though we�ve long-since recognized the key role a faculty body that mirrors the diverse identities of our student body can have for equitable student retention and success. We believe this program, with its focus on equity-minded teaching practices as well as equitable support for new faculty navigating institutional policies and procedures, will go a long way to building a culture of inclusiveness and support for all faculty on our campus and a culture of equity-minded teaching/student support among faculty and counselors. For a long time, new faculty onboarding has been left up to deans, chairs, and colleagues in our various departments, and the quality of support and degree of feeling welcomed has varied greatly. Programs like Great Teachers and our current orientation practices mostly focus on up-front support before the semester begins, leaving many new faculty and counselors, depending on their department situations, to their own devices to just figure things out from month to month as they progress through their first year. The initial, up-front coverage of campus and classroom policies, procedures, and expectations is often overwhelming for new faculty, many who might still be in the process of relocating and negotiating a great deal of change in their personal lives as well. Much of the information shared in those initial orientation models is not retained, and faculty find themselves at a loss as things come from month to month. This program focuses on real-time support as well as a space for current faculty to mentor new faculty and share experiences as they negotiate their first year at Butte College. The program will also provide space and resources for new and current faculty to discuss the latest work on equity-minded pedagogy and student support from their various experiences and perspectives. Furthermore, with the new chair and dean reorganizations, department chairs and deans are even less likely to have the capacity to ensure quality onboarding for new hires in their departments, leading to an increased likelihood that new faculty hires experience isolation and burnout in their first year. The likelihood of frustration, isolation, and burnout is only increased when our community is faced with wildfires, pandemics, power shut-offs, budget cuts, and any future crises that we might have to face as a campus. The program will include continuous discussion of strategies to increase instructor flexibility in the face of potential upheavals while still maintaining quality teaching and support of students. Finally, this program supports the current language ensuring that our college will provide consistent, equity-minded onboarding for new hires in our EEO Plan and supports the changes to the faculty hiring procedures and increased focus on equity-minded teaching in the hiring process. This program would also support future changes to the BCEA contract that will increasingly focus on faculty accountability for equity-minded teaching practices. We anticipate having spots available for current faculty who could receive FLEX credit or column movement for participating in the program each year. We would like to set the capacity at 25, and we rarely have that many new faculty hires in one year. |
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