Disproportionate Impact: API (2020-2021)
July 2020- May 2021

ARC’s vision is to transform the future of all students through inclusive, equitable education. In order to realize this vision, and achieve its mission, the college must contend with the institutional factors that contribute to existing disproportionate impacts. The approach to this work is further defined through ARC’s ongoing commitment to social justice and equity as well as its strategic plan. ARC’s first strategic goal asserts that it will consider students first in its practices: “The college engages and connects students early and often to people, programs, and services as an integrated educational experience. By providing personalized, proactive support, the college fosters relationships that ensure all students, particularly the historically underserved and marginalized, persist, learn, and succeed.”  

As an active step in working towards its vision, the college is utilizing a series of project teams to examine how to improve the college experience for students from disproportionately impacted populations. The intent is to affect meaningful change by determining the best methods to support these students and facilitate the conditions to cultivate their success. Three other DI populations (i.e., African American, Latinx, and Native American) were the focus of a project in 2019-2020, so the timing is now ideal to expand the work to the Asian Pacific Islander (API) population. Learning communities such as PRISE have been successful in the past, but a full suite of interventions and programs may be necessary to provide a comprehensive solution at scale.

ARC’s Disproportionate Impact (DI) projects are expected to create a cohesive strategy that (1) is designed to engage students from disproportionately impacted populations to enable their persistence and timely completion of their educational goals; and (2) has the potential to be effectively run at full scale. The scope of this project would focus on serving students from the Asian Pacific Islander (API) population. 

During the project, the team will explore and document aspects of the Asian Pacific Islander experience as well as suggesting changes that have the potential to create a more equitable learning environment at ARC. A report will be produced that will familiarize the reader with factors that contribute to disproportionate impact such as the historical marginalization of Asian Pacific Islanders in education and current institutional barriers. Considering this background and existing literature/sources, the team will identify motivators that contribute to the success of this student population as well as potential methods that might be adopted. Recommendations will then be developed for institutional practices designed to equitize the success of API students. These recommendations will be guided by ARC’s Institutional Equity Plan and aligned to other collegewide efforts such as Guided Pathways.

The project team would be primarily comprised of individuals who can contribute first-hand perspectives of the lived reality of the population and/or those who are closely connected to supporting API students. The charge of the project team is limited to the development of the report and design of the recommendations. Actual implementation is beyond the scope of this project. However, participants on the team may subsequently be engaged in implementation through their regularly assigned job duties. 

Successful completion of this project is intended to achieve the following objectives:

1. Review and briefly summarize the historical exclusion and marginalization of Asian Pacific Islanders in U.S. education.
2. Provide a profile of API students at ARC that conveys demographics and disproportionate impact; expand upon this profile with descriptive information about recent efforts or programs that influence the current student experience (e.g., PRISE).
3. Identify institutional barriers that perpetuate systems of power and privilege that contribute to the equity gap and affect the experiences of API students at ARC.
4. Provide a literature review or exploration of other sources that outlines high impact practices that could better serve the API student population. Identify motivators (academic, personal, spiritual, cultural, etc.) that inspire and produce positive outcomes for API students, as well as self-efficacy.  
5. Considering the Institutional Equity Plan, the college’s efforts in Guided Pathways, and the literature review, identify an appropriate methodological framework of high impact social justice practices, services, and teaching methods that would best serve API students at ARC.
6. Offer clear recommendations for equity-minded practice that are designed to eliminate the equity gap for API students.

Deliverables to be completed and/or submitted for approval:

1. Executive summary (1-2 pages) that highlights key findings and lists the recommendations
2. Full report that includes the following sections:

• Introduction – acknowledge the project team; discuss purpose and approach
• History and Context – briefly summarize historical exclusion and marginalization in U.S. education
• Profile of API Students at ARC – highlight data and other aspects of the current experience 
• Institutional Barriers and De-motivators at ARC – list or describe the issues that contribute to disproportionate impact
• Motivators and High-Impact Practice Models – identify motivators and describe promising practices found in the literature or in use at other institutions
• Recommendations – provide actionable recommendations

The team may insert additional sections or subtopics to better explore the topic and convey the team’s perspective. Appendices may also be used to offer additional supporting information.

The project will be considered successful when:

1. Deliverables are accepted by the Student Success Council and the Executive Leadership Team.
2. Recommendations for better serving API students are available to the college by the end of Spring 2021.
3. A comprehensive report describing the historical context, literature review, barriers, and high-impact practices related to the education of API students is available for inclusion in future professional development efforts. 
4. The proposed design of college efforts for serving API students is sustainable, affordable, manageable, intentional, focused, scaled, and aligned with other college-wide efforts (e.g., Guided Pathways).

All of these indicators can be thoroughly accomplished through completion of the stated project objectives. 

The project team was authorized based on the following assumptions:

1. API faculty, staff, community members, and students are available and willing to create recommendations for practice specific to their communities.  
2. Implementation of the Institutional Equity Plan will serve as the guiding framework for the work of this team.
3. Proposed strategies to serve this disproportionately impacted student populations should be aligned with collegewide efforts (e.g., Guided Pathways) and scalable for all students.
4. The college is ready and willing to listen to and act upon the recommendations from the identified DI group (API).
5. The project will consider how existing successful programs, such as PRISE, might be integrated within the overall design. 
6. This project was initiated in the midst of remote operations due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Project meetings and team-based work will be conducted remotely and/or provided the option of remote participation throughout the duration of the project. In developing recommendations, the team should recognize that there is ambiguity to whether the college will be operating in a fully on-ground, fully remote, or blended model over the next few years. While individual recommendations might be specific to a particular operating model, the overall strategy should be flexible and relevant in any of these scenarios.
7. Three DI projects have already been completed (African American, Latinx, and Native American) and two additional projects (API and LGBTQIA+) are scheduled for 2020-2021. While each project serves a unique community, the Student Success Council and Executive Leadership Team consider the deliverables holistically to ensure implementation of a cohesive institutional strategy for eliminating the equity gap across all DI populations.  
8. The college will provide the resources needed to create professional development in support of the recommendations provided by this team and aligned to the existing plan for institutional professional development (which was influenced by former DI project teams).
9. Disaggregated data for Asian and Pacific Islander students is available from a recent campus climate survey.

The project team should be aware of the following known risks, constraints, and/or dependencies:

1. Some of the proposed work touches on district processes and systems (e.g., curriculum, websites, pathways). Decisions made at the district level could affect the team’s ability to produce the deliverables according to the proposed timeline as well as the viability of future implementation.
2. In forming the charter, a team composition was proposed that represents multiple interests and perspectives. However, it is also recognized that the API community is diverse and that no one person can represent the experiences of everyone in the group.
3. There is a risk that members of the college community who read the report will not be ready or willing to accept the recommendations, and that existing systems of power and privilege could pose a barrier to the recommendations being heard. However, this work is needed and it is a risk worth taking.

1. Ongoing support from the Research Office will be needed to evaluate the effectiveness of the college’s efforts at closing the equity gap.  Assistance may also be needed to extract data for the specified DI population for inclusion in the deliverables or to access relevant data from the recent campus climate survey.
2. There may be significant implications for college-wide practices, relationships, and resource needs; however, the exact nature of these implications is unknown until the recommendations have been formed.