Report 2022-113 Recommendation 8 Responses

Report 2022-113: California Community Colleges: Increasing Full-Time Faculty and Diversity Remains a Challenge (Release Date: February 2023)

Recommendation #8 To: Community Colleges Chancellor's Office

To improve faculty diversity at districts, the Chancellor's Office should, by February 2024, implement a policy to regularly determine the most effective and feasible best practices for districts to implement. It should then update its multiple methods process to include those selected best practices when it conducts its evaluation of district EEO plans once every three years.

6-Month Agency Response

New requirements in the Education Code supersede this recommendation. SB 117 (2023) amended Education Code section 87102 to require the Chancellor's Office to, on or before April 1, 2024, to implement a policy to regularly determine the most effective and feasible best practices for participating community college districts to promote faculty diversity under their EEO plans and to update the Multiple Methods strategies to include the selected best practices for purposes of evaluating each participating district's EEO plan once every three years. The Chancellor's Office is in the process of formulating and implementing such a policy.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 6-Month Status: Pending

We will evaluate whether the Chancellor's Office's implementation of the requirements of SB117 also represent implementation of this recommendation when it finalizes the relevant policy.

60-Day Agency Response

The Chancellor's Office provided an update on the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) Integration Plan at the March 20, 2023 Board of Governor's Meeting and March 16, 2023 Consultation Council. The update included discussion of recent revisions to regulation, the 2022 EEO/Diversity Best Practices Handbook, revised standards for employee evaluation and tenure review, Pipelines to Possibilities Program, ALIVE Academy, Aspiring Radical Leaders Institute, and additional state resources made available by the Legislature since the Board of Governors adopted the DEIA Integration Plan in 2019. Also shared were upcoming statewide efforts to promote equal employment opportunities through targeted professional development, district grants, and promising practices showcases. In 2023, the Chancellor's Office will continue to present the Representation Matters Webinar Series, host Communities of Practice to support EEO related efforts, support professional development efforts related to culturally responsive pedagogy and practices, and create learning opportunities for all employee classifications through a needs assessment, and host a two-day event in Fall of 2023 to showcase and celebrate the momentum of DEIA and promising campus practices.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 60-Day Status: No Action Taken

To supplement its response, the Chancellor's Office provided a memo to districts on the transition to a new EEO program and a draft of a new 10-point plan for faculty diversity hiring. While the plan does include evaluations of relevant best practices, it is not clear that the Chancellor's Office has yet taken steps to implement a policy to regularly determine the most effective and feasible best practices and then to specifically update the multiple methods to include those best practices.

All Recommendations in 2022-113

Agency responses received are posted verbatim.