Disproportionate Impact: African American, LatinX, Native American
July 2019- June 2020

ARC’s strategic plan includes the following statement on its commitment to social justice and equity: “American River College strives to uphold the dignity and humanity of every student and employee. We are committed to social justice and equity through equity-minded education, transformative leadership, and community engagement. We believe this commitment is essential to achieving our mission and enhancing our community.” Additionally, Strategic Goal #1 states, “Students First – 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.” In support of these goals, the college is dedicated to eliminating the equity gap. The disproportionate impact project team is needed to gather information and recommendations for practice from our most disproportionately impacted student populations in order to equitize student success. 

The Disproportionate Impact Team is responsible for summarizing the historical exclusion of African American, Native American, and Latinx students in education. Additionally, this team will identify institutional barriers and motivators to providing equitable education for these student groups, and will create recommendations for instruction and student services practices based on a literature review, the Institutional Equity Plan, and the college’s efforts in Achieve and Pathways.

Note that the actual implementation of the DI project team recommendations will not reside with the project team. However, participants on the team may be engaged in implementation through their regularly assigned job duties.  

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

1. Create a literature review which outlines high impact practices for African American, Latinx, and Native American students.
2. Provide an appropriate methodological framework and recommendations to the college for serving African American, Latinx, and Native American students. These recommendations will be aligned with the college’s current work in Achieve and Pathways.

Deliverables to be completed and/or submitted for approval:

1. Summarize the historical context of the education of African American, Latinx, and Native American students in the United States.
2. Provide a literature review (including current scholarship and community college based praxis, including local quantitative and qualitative data and testimony) for the identified DI populations which outlines high impact practices that would best serve these student populations.
3. Create a comprehensive list of institutional barriers (historical and current) that perpetuate systems of power and privilege that contribute to the equity gap and impact the experiences of African American, Latinx, and Native American students at ARC.
4. Create a comprehensive list of motivators (Academic, Personal, Spiritual, Cultural, etc.) that inspire and produce positive outcomes for African American, Latinx, and Native American, as well as self-efficacy.
5. Considering the college’s efforts in Achieve and Pathways and the literature review, identify an appropriate methodological framework for each identified group for high impact social justice practices, services, and teaching methods that would best serve the African American, Latinx, and Native American students at ARC.
6. Identify recommended methods for practice based on the literature review and methodological framework that would provide equity minded praxis for African American, Latinx, and Native American students and eliminate the equity gap.
7. Develop and recommend a communication plan for sharing the team’s report with the College community.

The project will be considered successful when:

1. Recommendations for best serving African American, Latinx, and Native American Students are available to the college by the end of Spring 2020.
2. A comprehensive literature review and historical context of the education of African American, Latinx, and Native American students have been fully documented and understood by the college and included widely in professional development efforts. 2018-2019 Project Charter – Page 3
3. College efforts for serving African American, Latinx, and Native American students are sustainable, affordable, manageable, intentional, focused, scaled, and aligned with college wide efforts.
4. Deliverables are accepted by the Student Success Council and the Executive Leadership Team.

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. African American, Latinx, and Native American faculty, staff, community members, and students are available and willing to create recommendations for practice for their communities.
2. The college will provide the resources needed to create professional development in support of the recommendations provided by this team.
3. Existing efforts to serve these disproportionately impacted student populations need to be aligned with college wide efforts (e.g. Achieve and Pathways) and scalable for all students
4. Implementation of the Institutional Equity Plan will serve as the guiding framework for the work of this team.
5. The college is ready and willing to listen to and act upon the recommendations from the identified DI groups (African American, Latinx, and Native American).
6. The DI project team will meet as a team on a regular basis; additionally, project members of each DI group (African American, LatinX, and Native American/American Indian) will meet as an individual group to develop the deliverables for their group). Each DI group will report back at the project team meetings and share their findings under the support and direction of the chair and co-chairs.

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.
2. Faculty and staff have expressed concerns that there are students from other disproportionately impacted populations that also need to be considered. A DI project team (or similar) will be created for the 2020-2021 academic year to address additional needs for other DI students (e.g. API, LGBTQ, Foster Youth). African American, Latinx, and Native American student populations were selected because they historically have the highest levels of DI in the ARC data and no previous targeted, college wide, scalable efforts have been directed at meeting the needs of those DI populations.
3. In forming the charter, the Student Success Council has sought to recommend a team makeup that represents multiple interests and perspectives. However, we recognize that these three populations are not monolithic, and that no one person can represent the experiences of everyone in their group. 2018-2019 Project Charter – Page 4
4. The work of the DI project team will be closely aligned with the work of the Professional Development Project Team, and timelines and communication between these groups is imperative for alignment and effectiveness. A strategy for aligning these two groups should be developed and agreed upon before the team begins its work.
5. 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.