Institutionalizing Professional Development on Cultural Responsivenessfor Faculty and Staff

Institutionalizing Professional Development on Cultural Responsivenessfor Faculty and Staff: Thoughts on Process

Allison Green
English Department
Highline College

Natasha Burrowes
Director of Multicultural Affairs
Highline College

Allison Lau
Associate Dean, Counseling & Student Conduct
Highline College

June 16, 2016

From 2014-16, we co-coordinated a Faculty and Staff Learning Community on cultural responsiveness at Highline College. Our goal was to create a Canvas-based resource for professional development that could be used by individuals or facilitated groups. Thirty-six faculty and staff participated in the project over the two years.

We have come to the conclusion that, while it might be tempting to try to export the Canvas site wholesale to other campuses, such an approach would not be as effective as a program developed organically at each institution, responding to the specific needs of that institution’s student body, faculty, and staff. Therefore, assembled here are thoughts on how the process we used at Highline might be adapted to other institutions and some documents that might be useful as starting points for discussion.

Allison Green is available to discuss the project with faculty and staff at other institutions: .

Gather the Experts on Your Campus

Every institution has people who have knowledge to share about specific aspects of cultural responsiveness. At Highline, core team members of the FSLC included faculty from Education, Sociology, ABE/ESL, Communication Studies, and other departments; staff included the Director of Access Services, the Program Coordinator for Veterans Services, and the Intercultural Center Leadership Coordinator.

Several years before the FSLC began, Allison Green, then chair of the Arts and Humanities Division, assembled people she perceived as experts in various areas and asked them what cultural responsiveness meant from their perspective. This group developed a Framework for Cultural Responsiveness (included below). In fall 2014, when the FSLC began, we kicked off the year with an all-day retreat to imagine what we wanted from the Canvas-based site. Again, we involved all the people who had helped develop the Framework, plus key faculty and staff from other areas on campus that we thought could contribute to the project. In short, at every stage of the project, we gathered the experts on campus and asked them for help in discussing the vision and implementation of the project. Ultimately, thirty-six employees, about evenly split between faculty and staff, were involved in the project.

Create a Framework for Cultural Responsiveness

The Framework, first developed in 2011-12, was entirely focused on faculty and teaching, and most of the members of the taskforce were faculty. It has proven useful over time to have a relatively simple document like this that articulates key concepts and provides structure to conversations about cultural responsiveness.

As the project developed, we expanded it to include staff and all kinds of work at Highline, from greeting students at a front desk to managing programs, and to include cultural responsiveness between colleagues and not just between faculty/staff and students. If we could go back to the beginning of the Framework project, we would take this broader approach. Sometimes staff concerns have taken a backseat to faculty concerns, because of how the project began and because faculty tend to forget to examine their privilege in the hierarchy.

We have since created a Framework rubric for self-assessment. While we have added some elements that address issues relevant to staff, both the Framework and the rubric need to be revised to more fully incorporate what we have learned since that first year.

Get Feedback from Key Stakeholders

Throughout the process, from developing the Framework through the two years of our FSLC, we gathered feedback from stakeholders. When we completed the first draft of the Framework, we asked specific people on campus to read and review it, and we had face-to-face, individual conversations with these people. These discussions led to significant revisions. We were still focusing on people with a strong commitment to cultural responsiveness because we wanted the Framework to reflect our best thinking on the topic.

The first year of the FSLC, we ran focus groups, which we called "listening sessions," with staff and students, who until that time had not been invited to participate much in the process. We asked staff what they felt they needed to be more culturally responsive. We asked students for examples of times faculty or staff had or had not been culturally responsive. Our grant provided food for these sessions. At each table, a member of the core team took notes on butcher paper and asked clarifying questions. Afterwards, a staff member typed up the comments.

Once we had a significant body of material in the Canvas site, we began asking people to user test the materials. For our first session, we asked people who were not involved in the project to come to a computer lab and review the site for an hour, then we moved to another room for lunch and discussion. We repeated this process in the second year, but with FSLC participants reviewing each other's modules.

Delegate Cultural Responsiveness Modules

In 2014-15, while we were conducting listening sessions, we were also developing outcomes and an outline for the Canvas site. We used the Framework and the notes from our fall retreat to develop the outline, and then we delegated the work to thirteen task groups. Each group could invite whomever they wished to join them, so by the end of the first year we had about thirty people involved. In winter 2015, we had a late-quarter show-and-tell with lunch, which proved helpful. Those who had finished some work could get some feedback and those who hadn’t gotten very far could see what others were doing. We repeated this show-and-tell format twice during spring quarter. The last one was also our end-of-year celebration.

In 2015-16, we continued to develop the modules that weren't yet finished. Allison Green reviewed each module to determine how completed it was, contacted team leaders, and met with individuals and groups as necessary. One group invited her to attend all of their work meetings, about two per quarter. Other groups checked in and then worked on their own. As the project continued, new modules were suggested, and Allison recruited faculty and staff to work on them. Mid-year, we held another peer review session, and we celebrated the project at the end of theyear.

Institutionalize the Project

In the second year, Allison Lau replaced Natasha Burrowes, who had left the institution, as co-facilitator, and the two Allisons worked to institutionalize the project (note: Allison Green took a sabbatical fall quarter, and Communication Studies instructor Laura Manning substituted for her). Institutionalizing professional development was easier on the faculty side than the staff side because cultural responsiveness had recently been incorporated into the tenure review criteria, which apply both to tenure-track faculty and faculty in post-tenure evaluation. Also, faculty have one, consistent performance evaluation system. Several approaches have been considered for rolling out the modules to faculty: 1) course release to several faculty to act as consultants and workshop facilitators for individual faculty or for groups or departments, 2) a hybrid online/face-to-face class for faculty on culturally responsive teaching for which faculty would earn a stipend, and 3) course release for one instructor, through the Learning and Teaching Center, to direct professional development activities. While we haven't yet finalized the approach we are taking, our hopes for 2016-17 are to conduct the following activities:

• Quarterly Cultural Responsiveness 101 workshops: participants learn what cultural responsiveness means, self-assess on the rubric, and make a plan for their own professional development.
• Yearly training for tenure working committee members and post-tenure committee members: participants learn ways to support and measure their faculty member’s professional development.
• Yearly training for the Tenure Review Committee: participants learn ways to support professional development in probationers.
• Yearly training for faculty hiring committees: participants learn how to evaluate diversity statements and candidates’ level of cultural responsiveness.
• A set of themed workshops/seminars on specific topics, braided into existing professional development days: Opening Week, Professional Development Day, and Unity Week.
• One-on-one consulting and group (e.g., department) discussion facilitation as requested.
• Maintenance of Canvas modules.

Institutionalizing professional development for staff was more challenging for a number of reasons: staff positions are more varied, so what cultural responsiveness looks like is somewhat different for each position; performance reviews and other forms of accountability also vary by type of employee; Highline’s Human Resources Department has not historically providedsignificant amounts of training for all employees, so there is no centralized process.

During the 2015-16 year, Allison Lau and Allison Green conducted a series of interviews with managers and administrators at various levels about the training needs of their staff. Two of the interviewees, a dean and a director, had already begun to organize cultural responsiveness training for their staff (and both Allison Lau and Allison Green facilitated workshops with those groups during the year).

These were the interview questions:

1. What currently do your staff or direct reports do to build their cultural responsiveness as employees?
2. How do you think it is working? What could be improved?
3. What role does Human Resources play in this type of training?
4. What resources do we provide as an institution for cultural responsiveness training?
5. What resources do you provide as a leader for cultural responsiveness training?
6. Are trainings mandatory or required for employees?

At the end of the year, we wrote a report on the project to executive staff and included the following recommendations for staff professional development:

-Establish clear expectations of what “cultural responsiveness” means for people in key roles across the institution. This includes people in all types of positions, not just leadership/administrative roles.

-Increase institutional structure for cultural responsiveness training and education to decrease silos and facilitateaccess to relevant training, expertise, institutional knowledge, and resources. Examples include:

• Build a Community of Practice for interested managers or administrators to empower their teams with cultural responsiveness training, and adapt the material to their areas of expertise/service.
• Make funding available for trainings equitably across the institution
• Create an incentive program or rewards for administrators or supervisors who provide cultural responsiveness training and professional development opportunities to their employees.

We have already seen "ripple effects" from the FSLC; in addition to the staff training mentioned above, instructional department coordinators have organized trainings among their faculty. Interest among faculty and staff seems high; eight faculty and staff attended the White Privilege conference this year and reported on their experiences at a Whites on White meeting (WoW is our anti-racism white allies group). The president of the college attended this meeting. The groups directly involved in creating the cultural responsiveness modules have learned a great deal from each other. We are confident that we will be able to continue to institutionalize the project.

Below are some key documents that may be useful to other institutions. Again, for further information, Allison Green, , is available for consultation.

Note: This Framework, largely developed in 2011-12, formed the foundation for the work of our FSLC. It is largely focused on faculty and teaching.

Framework for Becoming Culturally Responsive Educators

Preamble

Highline's Core Theme #2 is to integrate and institutionalize diversity and globalism throughout the college. This framework is an assessment tool for individuals and the college that can help us institutionalize our organizational learning about diversity. Developed by a committee of faculty and staff, with broad input, the framework articulates our understanding of what makes a culturally responsive educator. By “educator,” we mean everyone who works at the college; we all participate in educating our students.

We have intentionally used the word “becoming” because we are always in the process of learning to be more culturally responsive. We can never fully understand another culture; it’s challenging even to articulate what we know about our own. But we can become more responsive, more effective at navigating significant differences such as those of race and ethnicity, class, sexual identity, gender, gender expression, language, nationality, ability, religion, and age.

Indeed, there is much to be learned from the bodies of scholarship on this topic generated by academics and social justice activists. These scholars and practitioners have produced theories and practices that can increase student success. We argue that any educator who wishes to successfully engage with a broad range of students must be familiar with this work and able to incorporate it into everyday work with students.

We have drawn from a number of sources for this framework, most significantly Gary R. Howard, whose definition of culturally responsive teaching is “our capacity as teachers to know and connect with the actual lived experience, personhood, and learning modalities of the students who are in our classroom” (We Can’t Teach What We Don’t Know, 131). His three-part conception – know yourself, know your students, know your practice – is the basis for our framework.

Note that not all items in the framework will apply to all employees. The examples and resources are samples only and not meant to be comprehensive. A number of items overlap. Committee members include Darryl Brice, Allison Green, Yoshiko Harden, Alice Madsen, Amelia Phillips, Joy Smucker, Bevin Taylor, and Jodi White.

Know Yourself / Examples of Knowledge, Skills, Applications / Sample Resources
-The Courage To Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life, Palmer
-We Can’t Teach What We Don’t Know: White Teachers in Multiracial Schools, Howard
1. Articulate your social identities (e.g., race, gender, and socio-economic position; described by Nieto as "target" and "agent" memberships) and how they have privileged and/or marginalized you. / --If you have been privileged in terms of socio-economic class, consider how your privilege has impacted your ability to get an education.
--If you have been marginalized in terms of socio-economic class, consider how the knowledge you have gained about class can be of value to our students. / -Beyond Inclusion, Beyond Empowerment, Nieto
-Faculty of Color in Academe: Bittersweet Success, Turner and Myers
-White Privilege: Essential Readings on the Other Side of Racism, Rothenberg
-Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work for Racial Justice, Kivel
-The Price of Silence, Raising Issues that Aren’t Discussed Enough, Lesser, Thompson and Nieto,
2. Describe your learning preferences or modalities and how your own educational background impacts your work at Highline. / --Recognize when you are teaching or working in a particular way because it helped you as a student, whether or not it works well for your students now.
--Recognize that learning preferences or modalities may be cultural. / -Harvard’s Center for Teaching and Learning in the Diverse Classroom
3. Articulate Highline’s mission, history, and culture. / --Know Highline’s role in South King County and how the college and community have become increasingly diverse. / Highline’s web site:
4. Analyze your attitudes and assumptions – about students, education, and the college – and how they impact your work. / --Take time to get to know students as individuals.
--Know how the model minority myth may affect your teaching.
--Learn about issues for transgender college students. / Harvard Implicit Association Test project,
-“The Creation and Consequences of the Model Minority Myth,”
-"Transgender Issues on College Campuses," Beemyn, Curtis, Davis and Tubbs,
Know your Students / Examples of Knowledge, Skills, Applications / Sample Resources
-Carnegie Mellon Learning Principles,
5. Investigate Highline’s demographics and as much as possible about where our students live and are from. / --Become familiar with our service area’s demographics.
--Know which high schools and school districts feed into Highline.
--Know the difference between international, immigrant, and refugee students.
--Know what languages our students speak.
--Know what is happening in students’ home countries and current communities.
--Be familiar with the full range of student populations, including groups such as veterans and worker retraining students. / -Highline’s Fast Facts about Students:
-United Way King County Community Assessment:
-Culture Grams:
-Understanding Your Refugee and Immigrant Students, Flaitz
-Understanding Your International Students, Flaitz
6. Theorize how our students’ social identities have impacted and continue to impact their education. / --Know how to sensitively solicit this information from students when relevant.
--Consider how you can reduce stereotype threat in the classroom. / -Facing Race Disparities in Washington State,
-Claude Steele’s scholarship on stereotype threat
-"The Invisible People: Disability, Diversity, and Issues of Power in Adult Education," Rocco,
-"Analysis of LGBT Identity Development Models and Implications for Practice," Bilodeau and Renn,
7. Describe what our students’ interests are and what skills they bring to our college. / --Relate your course/program content to students’ interests.
--Ask students for examples from their own experiences.
--Assess prior knowledge and build on what students know.
8. Implement educational methodology based on adult learning theory. / --Help students develop their own learning paths
--Use inquiry-based learning / -Women's Ways Of Knowing: The Development Of Self, Voice and Mind-Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, and Tarule
-Towards the Essence of Adult Experiential Learning, Malinen
-Adult Learning Principles, Goodlad
Know your Practice / Examples of Knowledge, Skills, Applications / Sample Resources
-Culturally Responsive Teaching: Theory, Research and Practice, Gay
-Rethinking Multicultural Education, Au
-Multiethnic Education, Banks
-Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice, Adams, Bell & Griffin, et al
-Bloom’s Taxonomy,
9.Build community with students and demonstrate your care for their well-being. / --Learn students’ names, model correct pronunciation, and help students learn each others’ names.
--Incorporate collaborative learning strategies into your curriculum and assessment. / -Washington Center for Improving Quality Undergraduate Education,
10.Design curriculum and instruction that is relevant to our students, that values what they already know, and that allows them to have a voice in their education (asset vs. deficit model). / Give students opportunities to apply course concepts to their own lives. / -Alternatives to the Cultural Deficit Model,
11.Design curriculum, assessment, and other materials using Universal Design for Learning principles. / --Allow students to demonstrate knowledge in multiple ways.
--Provide materials in multiple formats (visual, written, auditory, multiple languages, etc.). / --CAST (Center for Applied Special Technology) UDL website
-National Center on UDL
12. Investigate how multicultural scholarship has impacted pedagogy and curriculum in your discipline/area. / --Know what impact feminist pedagogy has had in your discipline.
--Be familiar with key concepts in Disability Studies. / -Affirming Diversity: The Social political Context of Multicultural Education, Nieto and Bode
- /writings.html
-Guidelines for Providers of Psychological Services to Ethnic, Linguistic, and Culturally Diverse Populations, American Psychological Association,
-Practice Guidelines for LGB Clients, American Psychological Association,
-Guidelines for Assessment of and Intervention with Persons with Disabilities, American Psychological Association,
13. Reflect on and take action to improve cross-cultural communication. / --Explore students’ native cultures
--Be able to restate what you have said in different words.
--Practice active listening. / -Addressing Cultural Complexities in Practice, Pamela Hays, 2009
-Culture Grams:
14. Explain to students how to navigate college operations, advocate for themselves, and critically analyze the higher education system. / --Remind students about registration and financial aid deadlines.
--Connect students with a faculty advisor or other support services.
--Incorporate advising into your curriculum.
--Be available for advising. / -David Conley’s “College Readiness” Framework -
15. Integrate knowledge of language acquisition and literacy development (and the politics thereof) into your work. / --Consider the relationship between your outcomes assessments and language fluency.
--Make discourse expectations in your discipline explicit.
--Scaffold assignments that require writing and speaking.
--Provide multiple ways of accessing information and demonstrating knowledge. / -Teaching Non-Native English Speaking Students:
-Teaching Non-Native Speakers:
-Learner English, Swan & Smith
-Vygotsky’s concept of scaffolding,

Glossary