Bias Response
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American River College embarked upon a holistic redesign intended to transform the student experience. Foundational to this work, its Strategic Plan Goal 3 calls for the College to ensure “an equitable, safe, and inclusive teaching, learning, and working environment.” Furthermore, it asserts that “the College promotes liberation and honors the dignity, humanity, and contributions of all members of our community.” Accountable to this goal, the college developed its first Institutional Equity Plan. The implementation of the recommendations contained within this plan has shed a light on the need for the College to develop a model to address actions and behaviors that cause damage to the core institutional values of equity, safety, inclusion, liberation, and honoring the dignity and humanity of all members of the college community. Examples of such actions and behaviors include instances that fall in the categories of hate, microaggression, implicit and explicit bias on members of the College community. Collectively referred to as bias incidents, concrete examples include threatening telephone calls or mail (including electronic mail), graffiti, physical assault, stalking, vandalism, destruction of personal property, harassment, or coercion.

This project is proposed to provide a recommended model for responding to acts of bias upon members of the ARC community. As a whole, this model should reflect that at ARC inclusion and the relationships between individuals are valuable and important. Also, this model should foster an environment that further promotes employee development and retention in support of the college mission. While the model should be responsive to all forms of bias, given the college focus on Disproportionately Impacted Populations at ARC and our Resource Panel on Retaining Faculty and Staff of Color, this Bias Response model should include specific focus on racial bias, Tribal bias, LGBTQIA+ bias, and intersectional forms of bias. 

This project will consider bias response as a strategic mechanism to enable the college to achieve its strategic goals. The project team is expected to carefully consider how the college might best create a comprehensive, integrated, and intentionally sequenced bias response model in support of the following goals:

▪ Strategic Goal 1: Students First

▪ Strategic Goal 3: Exemplary Working and Learning Environment

▪ Strategic Goal 4: Vibrancy and Resiliency

Underlying all of these goals is the institutional imperative: a commitment to social justice and equity that strives to uphold the dignity and humanity of every student and employee.

The project will consider questions such as:

▪ How can a bias response model be structured to foster ARC’s commitment to inclusion, social justice, and equity?

▪ How can recommendations of the Institutional Equity Plan related to bias response be integrated? 

▪ How can this Bias Response model be designed to address the College's disproportionate impact on Black, African American, Native American, Latinx, AAPI, and LGBTQIA+ students and other disproportionately impacted groups?

▪ How can recommendations of the Professional Development and Training Plan related to bias response be integrated?

▪ How can a bias response model assure all members of the college community who experience or witness an act of bias receive support and access to resources?

▪ Which resources (internal and external) are available and needed to provide a comprehensive, integrated bias response effort?

The charge of the project team is limited to the planning process including steps such as assessment, analysis, strategy design, and developing recommendations. Actual implementation of a bias response model and strategies are beyond the scope of work. 

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

1) Gather resources to inform the planning process such as initial insights from the institutional equity planning process, promising practices from other institutions, other relevant research, and DI Project Team Reports.

2) Assess the current state of ARC practices related to bias response, such as the Crisis Assessment Support Team (CAST)

3) Assess practices and efforts at the College that pose barriers to an effective bias response model

4) Consider the composition/membership of a bias response team that would be most effective

5) Project the future needs of a bias response model considering the ARC Redesign, the rapidly changing environment, and ARC student population, including disproportionately impacted groups.

6) Consider training and development needed for employees who participate as members of a bias response team, as well as for members of the broader college community

7) Identify clear priorities for bias response at ARC

8) Develop recommendations that are actionable

Deliverables to be completed and/or submitted for approval:

1) Draft a recommended bias response model including:

a. Purpose

b. Recommended team composition/membership roles

c. Team responsibilities

d. Member responsibilities

e. Training needed for members

f. Intake process to handle reported incidents of bias

g. Review/response process

h. Timeline for response

2) Other responsibilities to consider for the bias response model:

a. Monitoring campus climate (data/research)

b. Advocating for prevention of incidents of bias and hate.

c. Assisting campus groups and recommending educational programs

d. Monitoring current world events that may potentially trigger bias incidents 

The project will be considered successful when:

1) A draft report containing a bias incident model has been completed

2) Actionable recommendations are identified in the report

3) A draft of recommendations is considered through established governance channels

4) The adopted recommendations are available to serve as a roadmap for institutional bias response efforts

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:

▪ ARC’s mission, strategic goals, and commitment to social justice and equity and the value of inclusion are central to this work.

▪ New training needs will accompany much of the anticipated work of the ARC Redesign.

▪ Equity requires focusing resources to specifically support the College’s disproportionately impacted groups, including Black, African American, Native American, Latinx, AAPI, and LGBTQIA+ students.

▪ Human interaction is impacted by the complexities of social dynamics and world events, manifesting as incidents of bias and hate

▪ The higher education environment and the world of work are both changing extremely rapidly. Coping with change while mitigating damage brought about by incidents of bias is a necessary strand of community college professional development.

▪ Bias response expertise may need to be obtained through a variety of internal and external opportunities that have varying associated costs. While it is recognized that available resources are limited, the team’s focus should be placed on designing an effective model. The team is also encouraged to provide options and alternatives that may be aligned to future resource constraints.

▪ In order to effectively realize the goals of ARC’s strategic plan, this project should consider a model appropriate for various types of employees, including the dynamics of supporting a mobile workforce.

▪ Recommendations should consider a bias response model that builds internal capacity (e.g., train the trainer) and provides just-in-time learning resources as well as ongoing development.

▪ The proposed deliverables will be developed in a manner that advances ARCs efforts regarding LRCCD Board Policy 1.2.12 which holds all employees accountable to “ensure an atmosphere in which controversial issues can be presented fairly and in which the dignity of each individual is maintained.”

▪ The content, style, and format of the plan should be concise and accessible to the average person (not written for an academic audience).

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

▪ Consideration should account for the intersection of this project and the CAST model

▪ Priorities will need to be aligned to the overarching framework of the Institutional Equity Plan

▪ This project needs to align with work involving the implementation of the Professional Development and Training plan

▪ The implementation of recommendations may be subject to resource constraints.

▪ Various implications are likely related to equity and inclusion in response to alignment of bias response to the recommendations of the Institutional Equity Plan.

▪ There may be staffing, technology, and/or facility needs related to the provision of bias response team model.

▪ Opportunities may exist to partner with HR in the development of the bias response team model

▪ Data collection and analysis is likely to be needed to determine the effectiveness of the recommended bias response team model once implemented.