Los Medanos College

Applying CUE’s Equity Scorecard™ Process at Los Medanos College

Some members of the Los Medanos evidence team meet to discuss the Los Medanos/CUE initiative

Tim Leong, Director of Communications and Community Relations for the Contra Costa Community College District and Peter Garcia, president of Diablo Valley College and former Los Medanos College president.

A multi-disciplinary group of Los Medanos College (LMC) faculty and staff is excited to be making progress on a comprehensive equity initiative designed to improve student retention and transfer rates. The team has been working hard to implement the Equity Scorecard™ at the campus.

This collaboration in the Contra Costa Community College District began in September 2009. It is currently focusing on basic skills classes at LMC, and a second phase has been added to look at improving transfer rates among students.

The process engages college instructors, administrators and staff to become “action-researchers” of their own institutional practices.

The philosophy behind the Equity Scorecard™ is that campuses must acknowledge and change institutional practices that interfere with student achievement. This belief is shared by LMC’s “evidence team,” made up of 17 faculty and staff members tasked with conducting research and analyzing data that will eventually lead to recommendations and steps for campus and district leaders to follow.

Outcomes can range from a larger equity focus to institution-wide policy changes. The team’s work in the last year culminated in inquiries about English 90, an introductory English course, and the matriculation process. In the year to come, team members will be initiating inquiries in transfer-level courses as well as student services.

Joellen Hiltbrand, an English instructor and a member of the evidence team, said she’s been inspired by CUE’s skill in training fellow faculty members.

“It wasn’t just like they are coming in and telling us what they know and leaving,” she said. “Their skill involves building skill sets so we can go through this whole process, facilitate tricky conversations and build more teams around the campus."

She acknowledges it’s a lot of work but believes it’s all worth it.

“When you see the systemic, decades-long, inequity of educational outcomes for groups of students, I don’t see any ethical argument for not doing this,” she said. “The situation needs to change.”

As a community college president, I have an obligation to ensure all students are successful. If a large number of students are not progressing through basic skills courses and moving on to transfer level courses, we as an institution need to figure out what is happening and why. We need to find out what obstacles are impeding progress and make change happen institution-wide.

Peter Garcia
President, Diablo Valley College
Former President, Los Medanos College