Working Paper
Prepared for the California Joint Legislative
Committee to
Develop a Master Plan for Education—Kindergarten
through University
"Professional Personnel Development and the Importance
of
Faculty Diversity in the Community Colleges"
California Tomorrow, 2002
Updated version, March 11, 2002
Introduction
Community colleges have been vehicles of learning,
training and opportunity for low income and working people for decades
– and the community colleges are the primary institution of higher education
for communities of color in California (particularly African Americans,
Latinos and Native Americans). Yet the California community college system
has not yet adequately built its capacity to address the needs of all its
diverse students and is not fulfilling the dream for many language and
ethnic communities in the state, as indicated by persistent gaps in outcomes
across groups. A core element of responding more effectively to these needs
is developing a diverse, high-quality faculty while at the same time creating
the conditions that support effective teaching and learning.
This report examines issues of faculty diversity
and professional development in light of comprehensive, interview-based
research conducted at community college campuses across the state.
The study, sample and methodology
California Tomorrow, a non-profit research organization
committed to supporting the development of a fair and inclusive multicultural
society, embarked one year ago on a statewide exploratory research project
to inform policy, stimulate dialogue and action, and provide information
on the experiences of students of color and immigrants in the California
Community College system, the barriers they encounter and the efforts of
the system to respond to diversity.
The research was guided by three questions:
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What are the experiences of Latino, African American,
Asian, Native American, White and Immigrant students in the community college
system, and what are the systemic barriers and supports they encounter
in entering, transitioning through and completing their community college
programs?
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What strategies are being used for the recruitment,
outreach, guidance and support of traditionally underrepresented students
in community colleges related to the successful completion of vocational
and academic courses, degrees and transfers – and what is the perceived
effectiveness of these strategies?
-
What forms of professional development and support do
faculty and staff need and find useful to help them respond more effectively
to the needs of diverse students? What are some of the "best practices"
in this area?
The research methodology included: a review of relevant
literature; an analysis of quantitative, disaggregated, systemwide data
on student access and outcomes; and field research on nine campuses throughout
the state. The field research emphasized student interviews and focus groups,
interviews with faculty, staff and administrators, and the collection of
data on the use and effectiveness of support programs. We also conducted
a quantitative analysis of access and outcome data for the 1993 cohort
of all first-time community college students (data provided by the California
Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office, CCCCO). We will refer to this aspect
of our work as the "1993 cohort study" – findings from that study are currently
preliminary; a final report on the complete analysis of outcomes for the
1993 cohort will be completed and available by April, 2002.
In total, 363 students and 160 faculty and staff
were interviewed across nine campuses. The student sample is 26% Latino,
20% African American, 10% Native American, 10% White, 23% Asian, and 7%
multiracial. To address the policy concern with the transfer function,
56% were students who declared transfer as their goal. The student sample
reflects the age spread of community college students in the state and
also includes, by design, vocational and immigrant students. The nine campuses
were chosen to be as representative as possible of the community college
system – located in different geographic regions, reflecting urban, suburban
and rural service areas, with a variety of student demographics (from majority
White campuses to majority student-of-color campuses), and with variation
in both campus size and mission emphasis.
Increasingly Diverse Students
The majority of people who enroll in a California
institution of higher education do so in the community colleges, the primary
institution of higher education for all ethnic groups in California. Those
groups that rely most heavily on the community colleges are Latinos (77%
of first-time freshmen in 1999), Native Americans (74%) and African American
(73%). The community colleges also enroll 69% of White first-time college
freshmen, 58% of Filipinos and 45% of Asian/Pacific Islanders (1999, CCCCO
data). Students of color comprise the majority (60%) of the community college
enrollment-- and more than half of the students of color are Latino. As
enrollment in the colleges increases, the diversity of its student body
will also increase, since youth of color now constitute a majority in California.
While the students are becoming increasingly diverse,
the faculty and staff remain largely White and middle-class – 75% of the
faculty were White in 1999 (CCCCO data). Contrary to common belief, part-time
faculty are less diverse than full-time faculty, perhaps due to more informal
hiring practices – yet the pool of applicants for part-time positions is
more diverse than the pool for full-time positions. Since part-time faculty
often constitute a major portion of the full-time applicant pool, greater
diversity in part-time hires could lead to more diverse full-time applicant
pools.
As is true in most systems of higher education across
the nation, diversifying the faculty and staff is a long-term proposition
which faces many challenges, from finding candidates to eroding a status
quo that continues to permit colleges and departments to "clone their own."
Change is incremental — from 1984 to 1997, the percent of non-White community
college faculty grew in California, but only by 6.6% (while the non-White
student population grew by 12.6% at the same time). And in the post-Prop
209 era in California, with Affirmative Action coming increasingly under
attack, there is a danger that efforts to diversify college faculty and
staff may grind to a halt.
Student Outcomes
Persistent indications of underachievement and differences
in the success rates of various ethnic groups, and between immigrants and
non-immigrants, remain in key areas. Transfer rates, and the rates for
earning Associate degrees, are lowest for Latinos, African Americans and
Native Americans. From a preliminary analysis of our 1993 cohort study,
we found that about a third of students from those groups aspired to transfer,
but within six years, of those who desired to transfer, only 16% of African
Americans had done so, 18% of Native Americans and 18% of Latinos – compared
to about 40% of Asian students and 28% of White students. African Americans
also earned Associate degrees at the lowest rates.
While Latino and African American student enrollment
has increased numerically and proportionately in the community colleges
over the past decade, they are losing ground:
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Latinos in 1996 comprised 27% of the community college
first-time freshmen, but three years later, they only earned 21% of the
associate’s degrees and 20% of certificates. They also accounted for only
19% of transfers to California State Universities (CSU) and 13% of transfers
to the University of California (UC) in 1999. (California Postsecondary
Education Commission (CPEC) data).
-
African Americans, while completing Associate’s degrees
at a rate proportional to their enrollment (about 7%), are underrepresented
in transfer pools, especially to the UC system – and their share of the
transfer pool slipped from 1989 to 1999, from 3.2% to 2.5% of UC transfers
and 5.7 to 4.7% of CSU transfers (CPEC data).
Immigrants overall remain largely invisible, since there
is no data collected on their numbers or outcomes. Our preliminary analysis
of the 1993 cohort study did track outcomes over time for immigrants. On
one hand, most immigrants (except for Pacific Islanders) earned Associate
degrees at higher rates than non-immigrants and many immigrant groups transferred
at rates comparable to their non-immigrant peers or slightly better. However,
Filipino and Latino immigrants transferred at lower rates than non-immigrants
from those groups.
Teachers, as we discuss below, can be a powerful
support or barrier to students’ success. As such, it stands to reason that
faculty could play an even stronger role in student retention and success
if more could effectively teach and interact in ways that support diverse
students.
Key Findings
Teaching is at the heart of the community college
experience and teachers can be the greatest influence on students in college.
When students in our study were asked to name the top two or three things
that helped them to be successful, the most common response was "teachers."
Immigrant students, vocational students, part-time students, Latinos, African
Americans and Asians were more likely to name teachers as their top support.
Overall, students we spoke with appreciated their
teachers – half spoke about the value of faculty with supportive attitudes.
This appreciation is both a response to the actual teaching approaches
and to the attitudes teachers expressed towards them. But the power of
teachers can go both ways – effective teachers with positive, validating
attitudes to students are powerful supports, while teachers who demonstrate
negative attitudes to students were the most frequently cited challenge
to learning.
Good Teaching Makes a Difference
Most students we spoke with have experienced good
teaching – and what they describe as good teaching is fairly consistent.
Students say they learn best in classes where a variety of interactive
teaching strategies are used, where multiple perspectives are encouraged,
where faculty are passionate and knowledgeable about their subjects, where
the course is made relevant and the teacher invites students to bring in
their own views. Students feel that faculty who give specific, clear feedback
on assignments and have effective strategies to check whether their students
understand the concepts are the most powerful.
Students also indicated the type of instructional
methodology played an important part in their success. Interactive teaching
was cited by most students as the most essential aspect of a good class,
and was particularly valued by Latino, African American, Native American
and White students. Hands-on approaches, varied activities, projects and
group work were seen as helpful. Lecture was least favored by all ethnic
groups except White students. Students favored class experiences that brought
the "curriculum to life" by connecting it to the students’ lives or "real
world" experiences– especially African American, Native American and Latino
students.
"I learn by being in a group, so they put us in
a group, and once we find out you know what to do, then he'll go to another
group and work with you one on one. You’re a group of four or five, but
the teacher comes over and lets you know what ideas to come up with, helping
maybe an individual who's stuck. So he walks around making sure the groups
know what they're doing. I think that helps." (African American male, 22
years old)
"[the best are] teachers that use different styles
of teaching, they write things on the board, they do the lecture, they
show different kinds of visual aids, that’s the best. I can’t complain
about any of the teachers I’ve had." (White/Native American female, 19
years old)
The teaching approaches that students learn best
from, particularly students of color, are interactive, hands-on, and participatory.
However, reports on the kinds of teaching in the colleges indicate that
most teaching – except in vocational or job-training areas —remains lecture/discussion
oriented (Honored but Invisible, W. Norton Grubb and Associates,
1999, Routledge, NY).
Accessibility of Teachers
Not only does the quality of teaching matter, but
so does the accessibility of teachers. Students need teachers they can
reach to ask questions and clarifications outside of class time. Faculty
who were accessible to students ranked high in the students’ consideration
of good teachers. Most students felt that having faculty available to them
was a key to their success, especially for Latino and African American
students – conversely, the lack of accessibility of faculty was noted as
a major issue for some students. The ability of teachers to be available
is largely a reflection of the structure of the teaching job. Community
college faculty have a standard load of 15 teaching hours a week, five
office hours, plus committee work. This teaching load is approximately
25% higher than the national average (Chancellor’s Office, "Funding Patterns
in California Community Colleges" Nov. 1997). With the number of classes
they teach (and therefore the number of students they have), the five hours
of office time is not sufficient. In addition, the system relies heavily
on part-time faculty, who teach about 40% of the courses, and who are far
less available to students because they are on campus only part time and
do not have the office hours full-timers have; until only recently, part
time faculty were not compensated for those office hours.
Part time faculty were originally used to staff the
few sections that remained unstaffed after full time faculty assignments
were made and overload requests had been met ("The Use of Part-Time Faculty
in California Community Colleges: Issues and Impact," 1997, Academic Senate).
After Proposition 13, however, and more recently as the state’s economic
climate has worsened, part time faculty (initially valued for the flexibility
they provide in scheduling and their special expertise) began to have another
appeal – they were cost efficient. Part time faculty receive approximately
half the pay of full time faculty and typically receive no benefits. As
colleges become more desperate to cut costs in the face of rising enrollments
and flat or declining funding, when full time faculty retire, they are
often replaced with part time faculty members. Several years ago, AB1725
mandated that community college districts work toward a goal of a minimum
of 75% of all class hours taught by full time faculty. Almost no campuses
have met this goal.
The Enabling or Devastating Power of Faculty Attitudes
About half of the students interviewed in our study
indicated that the attitude of the faculty played a significant role in
their ability to be successful and maintain interest in their classes.
In general, supportive attitudes meant "caring," "personable" and patient
teachers, who students felt were committed to their success. Students wanted
faculty who "like students to ask questions…are willing to explain or go
over [the material] again and again" the material.
"Lack of support or that wrong experience from
a teacher is enough to just say, I'm done. They [students] may not have
any other support. Respect your students. Respect them for being there.
They want to learn. Remember that. Listen and give information." (Latina,
35 years old)
"I thought I'd have to be a genius to transfer
- I thought that it wouldn't happen for me. It would happen for somebody
else but not for me. I wasn't smart enough to transfer to a four-year college
or anything like that. I had very little self-esteem when I started here.
I didn't even know how you would do it or how long it took. Until instructors
started talking to me, you know, saying, later on you should start looking
into a four- year university. Is she really talking to me? I had no idea
I had the potential." (Latina, 42 years old)
On the other hand, negative faculty attitudes played
a significant part in hampering the success of students. Usually students
would say that only a few teachers treated students in disrespectful or
invalidating ways, but those invalidating incidents so impacted the students
that some became emotional when telling their stories. As one person said:
"Not many teachers are like that, but it only takes a little poison to
kill you." These negative attitudes were described as being rude, or intimidating,
invalidating, undermining, or embarrassing students in front of other students.
While half the students described the importance of supportive faculty,
one third of students from all ethnic backgrounds had encountered faculty
with these kinds of negative attitudes and behavior. African American students
were the most likely to say they encountered such negative attitudes. In
some cases, these negative faculty attitudes reflected racism, prejudice
and stereotypes.
Faculty Diversity and Sensitivity is Important
The Value of a Diverse Faculty
Having a diverse faculty benefits students of all
backgrounds, through exposure to different ideas, experiences and worldviews.
Overall, 72% percent of the students we asked felt that diverse faculty
was a benefit to them – and while students of color found faculty diversity
the most beneficial, the majority of White students also felt they benefited
from exposure to diverse teachers. Overall, 87% of Native Americans, 90%
of Asians, 81% of African Americans and 72% of Latinos spoke of the benefits
of faculty diversity, compared to 64% of Whites. Students of color talked
about benefiting from having faculty from their background as role models,
or simply as people they felt more comfortable approaching and connecting
with. Faculty and staff of color, as well as those from immigrant or low-income
backgrounds, also spoke about how students with similar backgrounds sought
them out and seemed to connect with them. Such connections with faculty
and staff are a key element of student retention and success. At the same
time, we spoke we many students of color who never had a faculty member
from their own ethnic background.
Many administrators and staff in our study also felt
that it is important to have a staff that reflects the communities that
the college serves, and see an opportunity in the retirement of many faculty
over the next five to ten years to create a more diverse faculty. Instructional
faculty continue to be less diverse than those who work in student support
services – and academic areas like English and math tend to be more heavily
staffed by White faculty. However, we heard about many barriers to diversifying
the faculty, from difficulty finding candidates to some departments’ tendency
to "clone their own" – interviewing and hiring candidates that reflect
their own ethnicity and class background.
The Importance of Effective Diversity-Oriented
Professional Development
Whatever the diversity of the faculty and staff,
all need to have the skills to work with diverse students – and for those
separated from students by differences in race, language, culture and income,
these skills need to be consciously developed. Community college faculty
are hired mainly for their expertise in a content area, and may not receive
any teacher training before they are hired. Some have taken courses in
cross-cultural communication as part of their Master’s degrees, but for
many, learning to teach the very diverse students at the community colleges
comes through experience, trial and error. Given current barriers to diversifying
the faculty, training is a key opportunity to help develop teachers who
are more responsive and effective with the students they teach.
As noted earlier, about a third of the students we
interviewed had encounters with a faculty member who treated students disrespectfully
– embarrassing them in class, belittling them, being rude, etc. While this
behavior could be an unintentional effect of cross-cultural misunder-standings
and lack of awareness of students’ experiences, these interactions can
have debilitating effects on students. This is a compelling reason to develop
more effective training and support for faculty and staff working with
diverse students.
Professional development related to diversity occurs
on most campuses. In our statewide survey of administrators and staff responsible
for professional development, questions were asked about the extent, nature
and quality of such training. Almost all of the 28 campuses that responded
(93%) indicated that their campus had sponsored professional development
or facilitation on issues related to ethnic/racial and linguistic diversity
in the past five years. Only two campuses, however, had sponsored professional
development related to working with immigrant students and meeting the
needs of English as a Second Language (ESL) and non-native students.
Once hired, faculty will find opportunities for professional
development on diversity issues, usually through speakers, workshops and
conferences (almost half of the faculty we interviewed said such training
was available). Most of the faculty we interviewed (60%) felt they had
had some training, either in their Master’s programs or through workshops
on campus, but that this "training" focused at the level of raising awareness
and was not in-depth, ongoing or specific enough to impact classroom practice.
Only 15% of the faculty we talked to felt that the training they had on
diversity had impacted their teaching, compared to about half who felt
it had raised their awareness. Another 13% felt that such training had
no effect. In general, not much training seems to be directly related to
classroom teaching and very little focuses on meeting the needs of immigrants
or English language learners.
Clearly, some faculty and staff do pursue in-depth
training on working with diverse students, and some work hard to learn
from the students themselves what works best – but this is entirely voluntary.
Generally, those who attend diversity-oriented professional development
workshops view them positively. Based on our statewide survey of professional
development officers, 40% said attendees were "enthusiastic," 50% were
"favorable" and only 10% were lukewarm about diversity trainings. None
were "greeted negatively." However, as many faculty and staff noted in
interviews, diversity training is often "preaching to the choir" – and
those who most need the training often do not go, since no training is
mandatory. Some faculty and administrators also want more opportunities
to talk about classroom issues with their colleagues, including issues
around diversity and tensions that may come up in class, but such activities
are not structured into the professional life of a faculty member.
While not a majority, many of the faculty we talked
to had an interest in more diversity training (45%), especially if that
training were to focus on what works in classrooms with diverse students.
About a third of administrators we interviewed wished that more diversity
training was available for their faculty. But overall, many faculty had
been teaching diverse students for a while and did not see major reasons
to change their instructional approaches. If they are not facing a sudden
influx of a new population or shrinking enrollments, they do not perceive
a "crisis" that would necessitate change. The professional development
available has mostly not been powerful enough to compel and enable faculty
to change, either.
Those who responded to our statewide survey identified
barriers they face in accessing the kind of strong, ongoing professional
development they feel is needed to make a difference. Sixty percent of
them named the problem of generating interest and incentives for people
to participate in "diversity trainings." Almost half found it difficult
to find "good people" to provide such professional development/facilitation.
Equal numbers cited the difficulty of creating time and scheduling the
training. Notably, almost none mentioned a lack of leadership support as
the barrier. On most campuses, the leadership is open, receptive and in
some cases, strong, active promoters of such efforts.
"We need a lot more training in the diversity
area. By that I mean in the curriculum and how we are presenting and how
we are teaching the students. I would like to see us do more training around
what’s happening in the classroom." (Latina administrator)
Best Practices
Developing a Faculty and Staff Sensitive, Reflective
and Responsive to Diversity
According to our interviews, what helps most in developing
a diverse and sensitive staff is active, high-level leadership at the campus
and/or district level. This includes keeping data on staff/faculty diversity
and making the data available and part of hiring and staffing discussions.
Some colleges have an explicit goal of working towards a faculty that more
accurately represents the student body they serve.
In hiring, some good practices we found include:
rejecting pools that are not diverse; recruiting through ethnic publications;
internships to "grow your own" and encourage community college graduates
to eventually return to teach; recruiting in other diverse states and paying
for candidates to come for interviews; asking candidates to explain or
demonstrate their approaches for teaching diverse students; making it clear
from the beginning that new hires are expected to be able to work with
a variety of students. When hiring, it helps when campuses take extra measures
to ensure that individuals are not only diverse but also sensitive to the
needs of diverse students.
Effective models of professional development around
diversity include: institutionalized diversity training facilitated through
permanent positions to coordinate such efforts, with regular institutes
and with clear, high-level administrative support; intensive workshop formats
that are interactive, experiential and not lecture-based; providing incentives
or rewards for faculty/staff who receive training and focus on diversity;
offering stipends for part-timers who attend trainings. Some campuses have
also focused their evaluations of faculty, staff and programs on how well
they serve diverse students. Another promising practice is to create communities
of faculty focused on inclusive, culturally responsive teaching, on working
with English Learners, and on infusing "multiculturalism" into the curriculum.
Recommendation:
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Create and fund an initiative to develop faculty
and staff with the skills and understanding needed to be effective in a
diverse state. This initiative would include:
Establishing a professional process for the development
of standards for cultural competency that can be used by the field for
hiring and tenure review.
Instituting widescale, intensive professional development
efforts (summer institutes, coaching cadres, etc.) focused on issues of
diversity, cultural competency, language acquisition and the needs of immigrants,
and infusing multicultural perspectives into the curriculum.
Recommending that all faculty demonstrate cultural
competency and creating a certificate of completion of cultural responsiveness
training.
Creating a clearinghouse and centralized resource/referral
service in the state on professional development resources, materials and
models related to culturally responsive teaching and addressing language
barriers.
Ensuring that campus instructional centers and the
new community college leadership center include intensive strands that
focus on effectively teaching students of color and immigrants.
Developing and implementing structural invitations
and incentives for faculty to participate in diversity-focused professional
development.
For further information about this study, please
contact:
Dr. Laura Woodlief, Project Director
California Tomorrow
1904 Franklin Street, Suite 300
Oakland, CA 94612
(510) 496-0220, ext. 319 fax: (510) 496-0225
lauraw@californiatomorrow.org