Presidential Task Force:

Call to Action

 

In June 2020, President Dyrell Foster held a Campus Forum to provide a platform for Las Positas College faculty, classified professionals and administrators to talk about the social unrest that had been occurring throughout the United States. That forum lead him to send a call to action that kicked-off the Presidential Task Force. This task force was created to discuss and address actions that will lead to systemic change for our students and the communities we serve.

Numerous recommendations with five specific themes emerged from this task force:  

 Disaggregated Data & Inquiry: 

• Develop and administer a campus racial climate survey to students and to employees to better understand our students' and employees' experiences.
• Conduct listening sessions with our current Black students to better understand their experiences.
• Disaggregate data on student access, persistence/retention, and completion to reveal hidden patterns of racial inequity within all programs and disciplines.
• Provide demographic student success data (to include race/ethnicity) to each instructor, at their request, for their class sections to monitor their own progress on student equity.

  Campus Climate & Communication: 

• Create and support a highly functioning Black Cultural Resource Center.
• Develop a proactive outreach plan to connect and communicate with prospective Black students.
• Identify and display African American art on campus.
• Be inclusive in our student images/publications/videos to include Black students on website and marketing material.
• Identity and develop an effective communication network/modality for Black students to be informed of opportunities and resources on campus.
• Review and update the Student Equity and Achievement Committee's Equity Statement.
• Host a specific welcome event for Black students (i.e., a break-out room for Black students during the Student Services Resource Fair).

 Instruction & Curriculum: 

• Develop and implement a cultural curriculum audit to engage a small cohort of faculty in a collaborative evaluation and redesign of their courses focusing on developing culturally responsive, engaging and relevant materials, high impact teaching practices, and developing equity-mindedness; this work would be replicated with additional faculty.
• Develop  and implement a plan to reimagine Public Safety Training at LPC.
• Review existing coursework and develop new curricula to advance racial and social justice, anti-racism and cultural diversity across the curriculum.

 Programs & Support:

• Continue to identify and support the specific needs of Black students arising from the COVID-19 pandemic. 
• Support and fund as needed centralized equity work on campus to oversee the current Black student success initiatives happening on campus.  Develop a multi-year plan to institutionalize all funding for Umoja and Puente learning communities, with the goal of moving funding sources from categorical to general funds. 
• Support current and establish new communities of practice to address the following: micro-aggressions, white fragility, and how to better understand students’ experiences. 
• Develop a proactive outreach plan to formally support current Black students who don’t qualify for learning communities to connect them to resources and engage them within the campus community.

 Professional Development: 

• Initiate a monthly President's Speaker Series for faculty, classified professionals, students, and administrators on anti-racism, anti-blackness, cultural competencies, culturally relevant pedagogy, and unconscious/implicit bias. 
• Develop employee learning communities, workshops, and ongoing professional development in anti-racism and anti-blackness

 

In a letter to members of the Presidential Task Force, Dr. Foster shared, “We are hopeful that we will turn our collective sadness, anger and frustration into individual and community action to actively confront anti-blackness and systemic racism.  As our college community comes together (virtually), to dialogue about our individual and collective experiences, we have also begun to identify the actions that we will take as an institution that will lead to systemic change for our students and the communities we serve. It is our responsibility to restore faith and hope to our campus. This begins with each of us reaffirming LPC’s Mission, Vision and Values and staying vigilant to address systemic and structural inequities that impede student success.  We are committed to doing the work and taking the necessary action to ensure student success for our Black students at Las Positas College.”

 

California Community Colleges Chancellor's Call to Action