Student Equity Framework

San José City College is committed to advancing equity as set forth by the following guiding principles: 

• SJCC empowers all students with fair and just, well-defined, tailored, accessible, inclusive, and culturally responsive pathways toward achieving their goals and continued success.
• SJCC provides all campus community members with ongoing professional development opportunities that support the lifelong learning and community engagement processes fundamental in practicing equity-mindedness and cultural humility, advocating for social justice, removing equity barriers, and institutionalizing transformational change.
• SJCC promotes the critical examination, development, and continuous improvement of SJCC programs, curricula, policies, and processes to guarantee equitable access to resources, opportunities, services, and instruction that strengthens and sustains student success.
• SJCC ensures individual and institutional responsibility for student outcomes by holding all campus community members accountable for whether their programs, curricula, policies, processes, and services are equity-centered.

Awareness

Awareness is defined as the embodiment of the principles and practices of equity-mindedness, cultural humility, and social justice. Facilitating awareness requires an institutional investment in professional development opportunities focused on equity-centered capacity building. Thus, SJCC provides campus community members with ongoing professional development opportunities that support the lifelong learning and community engagement processes fundamental in practicing equity-mindedness and cultural humility, advocating for social justice, removing equity barriers, and institutionalizing transformational change.

Assessment

Assessment is defined as the ongoing culturally-responsive and systematic method of critically assessing student needs and outcomes based on disaggregated data collected from diverse sources to inform and implement equity-centered decisions and actions when developing, delivering, and/or transforming programs, curricula, policies, processes, and services. Therefore, SJCC empowers campus community members to mobilize, implement, and institutionalize culturally-responsive data-driven decisions that improve student development and learning outcomes when developing, delivering, and/or transforming programs, curricula, policies, processes, and services.

Advocacy

Advocacy is defined as the social justice-centered act of identifying and confronting the causes of inequity and oppression. Hence, SJCC creates opportunities for campus community members to collaborate and build relationships, coordinate efforts, and communicate effectively to challenge inequity and oppression when developing, delivering, and/or transforming programs, curricula, policies, processes, and services.

Access

Access is defined as the equity-affirming provision of fair and just access to resources, opportunities, services, and instruction. Avenues of access are expanded when SJCC nurtures campus community members to recognize and remove equity barriers that hinder fair and just access when developing, delivering, and/or reforming programs, curricula, policies, processes, and services.

Achievement

Achievement is defined as the student-centered practice of empowering and sustaining student success with equitable supports and strategies when developing, delivering, and/or transforming programs, curricula, policies, processes, and services. Achievement results from being aware, assessing from a culturally responsive standpoint, building and leveraging campus relationships and resources to advocate for equity, and reinforcing existing and carving new avenues of equitable access. As such, SJCC encourages campus community members to mobilize, implement, and institutionalize equitable supports and strategies that empower and sustain student success when developing, delivering, and/or transforming programs, curricula, policies, processes, and services.

Action

Action is defined as intentional acts of mobilizing, implementing, and institutionalizing transformational change and holding all campus community members accountable for whether their programs, curricula, policies, processes, and services are equity-centered. It is critical that, as a college, we avoid passivity and operationalize equity by executing practical, measurable, and effective action plans. For this reason, SJCC authorizes campus community members to mobilize, implement, and institutionalize action plans that identify, challenge, and remove inequitable and oppressive structures when developing, delivering, and/or transforming programs, curricula, policies, processes, and services.

Awareness

How will equity-mindedness, cultural humility practices, and social justice advocacy inform professional development opportunities and integrate into the development, delivery, and/or transformation of programs, curricula, policies, processes, and services? 

Assessment

How will the program/curriculum/policy/process/service mobilize, implement, and institutionalize culturally-responsive data-driven decisions that improve student development and learning outcomes when developing, delivering, and/or transforming programs, curricula, policies, processes, and services?

Advocacy

How will the program/curriculum/policy/process/service identify and confront social inequities?

Access

How will the program/curriculum/policy/process/service recognize and remove equity barriers and provide all students with fair and just access to resources, opportunities, services, and instruction?

Achievement

How will the program/curriculum/policy/process/service mobilize, implement, and institutionalize equitable supports and strategies that empowers and sustains student success when developing, delivering, and/or transforming programs, curricula, policies, processes, and services?

Action

How will the program/curriculum/policy/process/service mobilize, implement, and institutionalize an action plan that identifies, challenges, and transforms inequitable structures when developing, delivering, and/or reforming programs, curricula, policies, processes, and services?

The Equity Rubric prompts campus community members to reflect on the extent equity is infused into their daily practice; and to identify possible equity gap(s), to propose a solution to address the identified equity gap(s), and to provide a completion timeline of the proposed solution. The SJCC Equity Rubric criteria focus on the following concepts:

Equity-mindedness | Cultural Humility |Social Justice |Professional Development | Assessment Methods | Data Collection |Data-driven Decisions | Social Inequities | Advocacy Opportunities | Equity Barriers | Fair and Just Access | Student Success | Action Plans | Accountability

Upon completing and submitting the SJCC Equity Rubric, a summary report of the mean scores associated with each rubric section will be emailed to each respondent, indicating which rubric areas require an equity action plan.