Introduction:

Community colleges are simple higher education institutes that offer simple programs

such as math, history, etc to their surrounding community. There are many community

colleges across the USA that offer national and international students enough education

for their entry-level jobs or provide them solid basics for further education in traditional

universities for students who want to continue their education. The main difference

between a community college and a traditional university is the duration of the degree

program. Community colleges offer 2-year programs whereas traditional universities

offer 4-year programs.

Around one-fifth of the students studying in community colleges are international

students. California on its own has 115 community colleges with about 1.2 million

students. With a large student body and students from different parts of the world, a

need for diversity among the faculty arises which is very important to address. Diversity

is important as it makes colleges a better place to learn as people from different parts of

the world can interact with each other and learn in a more comprehensive way. Also,

diversity can make students from a specific part of the world more comfortable blending

into the campus life of these community colleges. Moreover, the students can feel more

engaged in the class and have more motivation to study. Students from around the

world come to the USA for better education and to make professional contacts to help

them in the future and diversity at the college level is important for them to understand

how to deal with people from around the world.

Key Information:

‘(KnoeZl, 2005) discusses how the racial map of California is rapidly changing and how

while the population continues to increase, the majority of middle-class white citizens

continue to move out of the city and the ratio of other ethnicities continues to increase.

Also, the extended opportunity programs and services (EOPS) which provided

underprivileged students from racial groups that have been suppressed in the USA

opportunity to have higher education makes these students predominant in community

colleges that is about 69%. This encouraged the legislature in the year 1992 to pass a

bill that about 39% of the faculty must represent these racial groups with a view of one

day having a faculty that fully represents these groups acknowledging that by hiring

faculty staff from these groups will result in the educational success of these colleges

and so far the system has not found success in recruiting enough faculty member from

these groups to fulfill the required diversity.

As described above, there are over 1.2 million students in about 115 community

colleges in California alone and if these colleges fail to comply with the rules of proper

ethnical division of faculty members, only fines are implemented which cannot be

enough to encourage more diversity among faculty members (THOMAS PEELE, 2021).

The fine collected is known as the equal employment opportunity fund which is then

equally divided among the districts irrespective of the number of colleges or the number

of violations. The fine totaled 1.2 million dollars in 2019. But many districts try a

loophole to avoid paying any of these fines. Also reported is that about 71% of the

student body in the California district are from other racial and ethnic groups such as
Native Americans and African Americans while the faculty of these colleges have a

majority of 60% white faculty which creates a large gap for diversity among the faculty

of these colleges.

(Deukmejian, 1988) A 2015 revision to the 1988 state law called the community college

reform act again encourages the need for diversity among the faculty of community

colleges but fails to provide any extra funding for this purpose as the state provides

additional budgets for operations that it deems requires to be dealt with urgently.

Currently, the fine is almost the only source for funding of staff diversity and that fine is

also corrupt as the districts find a way out of paying such hefty fines, making funding

even more scarce.

(Jasmín D. Llamas, 2019) reflects how social identity can help students to improve their

studies as people of the same race and color can help develop the concepts that they

receive from their mentors as people often show favoritism to other people of their race.

As studies show that people tend to help people of their own group or race. “You cannot

teach the most diverse student body which is California students when you don’t have

the right faculty and administration,” said Daisy Gonzales, the deputy community

college chancellor. Moreover, students can feel a sense of unease when they are in an

educational environment where around 70% of the faculty and administration are white

and the people that they can relate to, people of their own race constitute only 10-20%

of the entire staff. Such an education system can be classified as structural racism and

a need to address this situation urgently has been brought upon previously but

unfortunately, no strict action has taken place till now.

Context:

The context of this paper is to target the lack of diversity among the faculty of different

community colleges in the California district and lock into the matter of improving this

situation while addressing chancellors, senators, and heads of these community

colleges, people with influence over the situation, to look into the matter and initiate an

immediate response. Possible steps to improve the situation are mentioned which can

be implemented easily and urgently.

Recommendations:

The need for more diverse faculty members among different community colleges across

California has to be addressed as soon as possible for the betterment of the education

of the students from different backgrounds studying in these colleges.

The first step could be to implement the fine structure for violation of the minimum limits

of staff from a specific ethnicity in a more strict manner as many colleges from across

the district regularly find a way of avoiding to pay large fines for the violation of rules set

by the state. Through regular fines, enough funds can be generated to financially back

the movement of incorporating staff and faculty from different ethnic backgrounds.

Moreover, if the community colleges are fined strictly, they will try to improve the

situation on their own to avoid paying large fines in the future.

Another step to improve the situation could be to incorporate rewards and incentives for

community colleges that comply with the requirements of staff diversity. The board of
governors could present these rewards to the colleges which stood out in implementing

strategies in achieving balance in not only ethnicity but also gender and disability.

Incentives will help the district colleges to fund recruitment programs for their faculty

members and encourage colleges to create more recruitment programs.

Advertising can also create more opportunities for people from different ethnic groups to

apply for the recruitment of community colleges in their nearby regions as advertising

raises awareness among people. The advertisement also creates more job

opportunities for people belonging to different races while raising the issue to the mass

public. Job fairs in parallel to these advertisements can help in the recruitment plans of

community colleges.

A survey can be conducted among the students of these colleges to see if they are

satisfied with the level of diversity at their campuses. If they are not satisfied then the

results of the survey can be studied to target the point of failure and recruit faculty from

specific ethnicity to comply with the regulations set by the state.

The above-mentioned points have to be put into action along with regular accountability

of the institutions, with regular evaluation of the standards of diversity set by the state

and if the institutions do not comply with the regulations regularly then along with fines,

sanctions can also be applied for more strict actions (People, 2022).
Conclusion:

Diversity is an important factor for the large student body of California as it is probably

the most diverse district in the USA and for the students to have a healthy environment

for their studies and to have a good education, it is important that only one race or

ethnicity does not dominate the staff and faculty of an institution. It is important that the

students feel comfortable and feel at ease when they approach a faculty member,

especially in a community college where the goal is to provide the students with basic

higher education and also with enough interactions to help them get their first jobs or

get into traditional universities for their higher education. So steps have to be taken to

maintain the level of diversity of a community college at an healthy level according to

the instructions provided by the state and also to hold the institutions accountable when

they don’t comply with regulations.