With the current global climate due to the pandemic, college campuses have halted hiring new faculty, staff and administration. Prior to that, hires at CCC have traditionally been white. The majority of faculty/ staff and administration at CCC are white. Research has shown that students of color (SOC) indicate that they feel a greater sense of belonging when they see higher education administrators and staff who look like them.
Formed during the 2019-2020 academic year, the Diversity Advocates (DA) are made up of twelve faculty members and are overseen by the Provost. The members participated in a D&I training in February 2019 administered by the University of Southern California. The mission of the group is to serve on faculty job search committees to ensure that positions at CCC are promoted nationally and that searches are conducted in an equitable manner. The purpose is to ensure that potential faculty of color are made aware of CCC opportunities and they can be recruited to the campus. This is established to ensure that the most qualified candidates with diverse backgrounds are recruited.
There is cross-collaboration with the Diversity Trainers to help facilitate separate faculty workshops, department dialogues on D&I issues, and to design a rubric to assess courses for equitable content. Each member of the DA has been required to participate in the diversity training modules and is encouraged to participate in other D&I trainings on and off campus.
Outcomes: This is ongoing. The pandemic has halted campus-wide hires. As a few key positions are being filled, members of the DA are asked to serve on search committees. As CCC hopes to return to a traditional sense of campus life in the fall, the DA will be participating in the hiring process to ensure a diverse pool of candidates. In 2020, 36% of staff hires have been people of color. Even though there have not been many overall faculty hires, we have also seen an increase of faculty hires who are people of color since 2020.