Equity & Inclusion - Seeking Opportunities to Advocate

[image: ACPA/NASPA Professional Competency Areas for Student Affairs Educators, Visual Representation of the Intersection of the 10 Competency Areas.  Social Justice and Inclusion is a Professional Competency.]

Dear ACPA Community,

This is the third in a 4-part series of blog posts providing an update on President Gavin Henning’s five commitments that were published in his blog entitled We Must Do Better.  It can be read at: http://www.myacpa.org/blogs/presidents-desk/we-must-do-better

These are the commitments we have made to our members and to ourselves as leaders:

1. Continuing dialogue that provides voice to our members as well as pathways for collaborative problem solving
2. Examining our own shortcomings as culturally competent leaders
3. Partnering with allied organizations to create opportunities for coalition building and professional development
4. Seeking opportunities to advocate for policies that best support our students and campuses, and
5. Exploring structural barriers to full inclusion of our members

Today, I would like to highlight our progress in:

(4) SEEKING OPPORTUNITIES TO ADVOCATE and (5) EXPLORING STRUCTURAL BARRIERS

Seeking Opportunities to Advocate 

ACPA reached out to the Gender Mosaic organization, local universities in Quebec as well as the border patrol to ensure that Convention attendees could enter the country without barriers, feel welcome and supported by local businesses and organizations and feel safe during their attendance.  The Convention team developed a comprehensive plan regarding equity & inclusion as well as accessibility with particular emphasis on native, aboriginal and indigenous persons.  One of the HEd Talk speakers identifies as aboriginal and Trans* and will help us explore these issues even more deeply.

Exploring Structural Barriers 

ACPA has also completed the Leadership Pathways project exploring structural barriers to full inclusion of our members.  The Governing Board accepted this report in September 2015.  The purpose of the Working Group, as charged by the ACPA Governing Board at the June 2014 Leadership Meeting, was to:

• Assess the current practices for encouraging/supporting members to move into leadership roles. 
• Note any practices that encourage a more diverse representation as well as any that may inadvertently not advice ACPA’s goals of equity and inclusion
• Areas to explore include Governing Board, Assembly Leadership, Entity Group Leadership, Editors, Foundation Board, Convention Planning Teams, Appointments to Leadership, Editors, Foundation Board, Presidential Task Force, and similar groups
• Identify effective practices that result in a more diverse representation among leaders
• Identify current practices that may unintentionally result in a more homogeneous group of leaders.
• Develop recommendations for changes and new practices, as needed.

The Working Group first convened in October 2014 chaired by Drs. Kathy Obear and Kathleen Kerr. Membership over the course of the last ten months include:

Danielle Morgan Acosta, Laura Bayless, Paul Brown, Jason Cottrell, Jennifer Ferrell, John Garland, Ebelia Hernandez, Leilani Kupo, Victoria Livingston, Allyson Logie-Eustace, Heather Lou, Cindi Love, Karol Martinez-Doane, Amanda Mollet, Jenny Small, Susan Sullivan, and Chandar Supersad.

The rationale for the working group was:

ACPA has long been committed to preparing college student educators to support the academic and personal success of the increasingly diverse student population served by college campuses.

ACPA has a long legacy of both valuing and working to create greater equity and inclusion within the organization and higher education.

As ACPA continues to be an association that is responsive to the expressed needs of members and professional growth and development, advocacy and informed decision-making, it is essential that ACPA leaders reflect the demographics of the membership for several reasons:

• Members may be more likely to believe that ACPA is an accessible, transparent organization.
• Members may be more likely to feel their perspectives will be represented and considered during planning and decision-making processes.
• Members may be more likely to believe they can serve as a leader in ACPA if they “see themselves” in the current leadership.
• Members may be more likely to believe that they can find a “home” in ACPA as they anticipate that programs and services will continue to shift and change to better meet the increasingly complex, diverse needs among all members.
• Potential new members may choose to join ACPA if they view the association as a place where people across group identities are successful leaders and contributors to the organization.

• Members may increase their cultural competence through participation in as association that models, affirms and asserts values of cultural competence.  In turn, their competence may influence improvement on campuses around the world

The process for the working group was as follows:

Conversations were held with various ACPA leaders in advance of the ACPA 2015 Convention in Tampa FL, USA to better understand access to leadership opportunities.  Leadership representing the following ACPA entities were interviewed: Equity & Inclusion Advisory Committee, ACPA Foundation, 2015 & 2016 Convention Teams, SCW, SCGSNP/Ambassadors, CMA, SCLGBTA, SSAO Advisory Board, External Relations Advisory Board, Books and Media Board, Faculty at Large/Research & Scholarship Advisory Group, International Divisions, ACPA Sustainability Advisory Committee, Developments, Involvement Team, Awards Committee, About Campus, Commissions, California CPA, ACPA Task Forces & Working Groups.

Conversations were also facilitated at the ACPA 2015 Convention with:

State Presidents, Commission Chairs, and Standing Committee Chairs.

Questions asked during these conversations included:

1. How does your group currently recruit and engage members to become leaders in your group? What are your current formal/informal processes?

2. Do you intentionally recruit members who reflect the diversity of ACPA members? If so, how? If not, why not?

3. Do you intentionally recruit members who have a high level of cultural competence and/or competence around issues of equity and inclusion? If so, how is competence measured?  How do you recruit?

4. How would you describe your current leaders with respect to depth of cultural competence and/or competence around issues of equity and inclusion?

5. How would you describe your current leaders with respect to how their group identities reflect the breadth of diversity among ACPA members?

6. Do you intentionally train members on increasing their cultural competence and/or competence around issues of equity and inclusion? If so, how?

7. As you think about your group’s recruitment and engagement practices for leadership, have there been any identified unintentional barriers for members of marginalized groups? What are they? How have you worked to mitigate these barriers?

8. What are you thinking about that might help open up your processes to increase the chances of engaging people who are more culturally competent and/or better reflective the full diversity of identities among the ACPA membership?

The notes from these conversations, as well as the minutes from the Working Group’s multiple meetings were then analyzed for themes, and the following recommendations emerged.

The observations shared with and recommendations made by the working group to the Governing Board were as follows:

1. Some leaders seem to conflate presence of diversity with cultural competence. This represents a wider opportunity for education. While the Working Group recognizes the importance of heterogeneity in our leaders and entity groups, this cannot be the sole measure used to determine if the Association is living its values as they relate to diversity, equity, inclusion and social justice education.

2. Systemically infuse cultural competence expectations into positions via application processes, leadership position descriptions, performance reviews, etc. 

3. All leaders should be required to attend and participate in training that advances their cultural competence.

4. The Association should find ways to encourage and empower members and leaders to move away from measuring the diversity of the Association, Association leadership, and Association entity groups in a personal, subjective way. For example, currently it seems as though many leaders personally “measure” the diversity of their entity groups in terms of every identity (visible or otherwise) against the diversity of ACPA as a whole. Instead, ACPA should develop an objective way to measure/evaluate cultural competence in leaders. Leaders desire this. 

We believe that the ACPA Governing Board will be well served by the:

• Development or adoption of a formal tool for assessment to guide strategy and measure progress in managing diversity, creating equity, fostering inclusion, cultural competence and promulgation of social justice education.
• Use of benchmarking with other organizations with similar commitments to cultural competence, diversity, equity, inclusion, social justice (outside higher education/student affairs and within)
• Regularly scheduled training for all elected and non-elected leaders that is accessible and competency based (ACPA Video On Demand can provide a 24/7, 365 day per year platform)
• Proactive encouragement/incentivizing ACPA Grow, Ambassador, NextGen, New Professional Institute (NPI) and Mid-Level Management Institute cohorts to attend a “Leadership at ACPA” session on ACPA Video On Demand

Finally, the Governing Board should consider adopting, perhaps via a by-law change, an open call for nominations and applications for every leadership opportunity that exists within the Association, and articulate a standard and transparent process for selection (if not election) of leaders by a representative body which includes Coalition Chairs and the Director of Equity and Inclusion, among others.

Most recently, this open call process was initiated to replace the Director of Equity & Inclusion, Dr. John Gardner, when he resigned due to family needs.

While we have made progress on the five commitments President Gavin Henning made to the association in March, we will continue to build our cultural competence individually and collectively as well as identify and address structural barriers to equity and inclusion in the association.

With deep respect,

Cindi Love
Executive Director