Community Colleges for All

Community Colleges for All (CC-ALL) from OCCRL is a series of engaging videos and podcasts that promote and foster success and equitable programs for diverse learners as they move through their guided programs. CC-ALL is designed for educators, advocates, students, and administrators who want to advance racially responsive and culturally sustaining practices in community colleges. Discover the convenient all-access material below.

Module 1: Exploring & Engaging Equity

Episode 1: Equity-Conscious Practices

Discover what the term "equity" really means and how educators can actualize equitable outcomes for all students, regardless of their backgrounds and characteristics. Learn how to use strategic solutions through ongoing and sustainable efforts that are grounded in equity. Watch the video.

Episode 2: Identifying Equity Consciousness Gaps

The P-20 education system does not engage enough initiatives to advance equity, nor do educators participate in self-reflection or identity gaps in equity consciousness like they should. Learn how to make equity a priority to attain equal outcomes by using data-informed decisions that are grounded in equity consciousness. Watch the video.

Episode 3: Developing Critical Consciousness for Advancing Equity

Critical consciousness offers a way for marginalized people to try to make sense of inequitable social and economic conditions around them, and act to change those conditions. Learn about critical consciousness in relation to education and about the acts of reflecting, analyzing, and taking steps to change social inequities. Watch the video.

Episode 4: Equity-Conscious Leaders and Cultural Proficiency - Leading for Change

Delve deeper into how equity consciousness and cultural proficiency are interconnected, and how important it is for leaders in education to include these practices within their overall framework. Learn also about "equity traps," which are patterns of thinking and behaviors that prevent educators from being successful with all students. Watch the video.

Episode 5: Recap

Get a summary of the preceding module-one videos to advance strategic solutions to redress inequities through ongoing and sustainable efforts centered around equity. Evolving from consciousness gaps to critical consciousness can occur by knowing what equity is and isn't, talking about sensitive issues around race, and making data-informed decisions grounded in equity. Watch the video.

Module 2: Advancing Racial Equity in Education

Episode 1: Why Race & Equity Matter in Education

Equity consciousness should intentionally promote culturally responsive practices that best advance educational opportunities and outcomes for racially minoritized, marginalized, and underserved students. Discover why race and equity matter in P-20 education and society at large. Watch the video.

Episode 2: Anti-Racist Education

Learn about concepts of equity, racial equity, and anti-racism and check out critiques on how educators interpret and use the term "equity." Watch the video.

Episode 3: Racialized Realities on Community College Campuses

Discover the historical foundation, mission, and racially troubling past of U.S. community colleges, as well as the racism that still exists in the institutions today—and what can be done to stop it. Watch the video.

Episode 4: Action Steps to Advancing Racial Equity in Education

Learn about strategies community colleges can use to advance racial equity through five specific action steps that can be taken right now. Watch the video.

Episode 5: Recap

Get a summary of the preceding module-two videos to help community colleges further racial equity in their institutions and beyond. Watch the video.

Module 3: Race, Racism, and Moving Toward Racial Justice

Episode 1: Race, Racial Antipathy, and Racialized Role Strain

Americans tend to avoid issues such as race, race relations, racial tensions, and racism, in large part due to the impediments that have been created through the institutionalization of a racial hierarchy that assigns value, power, and authority to some and not to others. Discover in this module-three introductory video why race continues to matter. Watch the video.  

Episode 2: Racial Microaggressions and Racial Battle Fatigue Across Educational Contexts

Get an in-depth description of the four types of racial microaggressions and how college students experience them. This video also delves into implicit bias and how prejudices operate in an unrealized way within people's daily lives. Watch the video.

Episode 3: Racialized Realities - Examining Whiteness, White Privilege, and Unlearning Colorblindness

Whiteness is a social construct that can be viewed as the motivating force behind a system of racism. Thus, this video analyzes what whiteness is and how it is evident within the social contexts of higher education. Watch the video.

Episode 4: Strategies and Resources to Address Race, Racism, and Move Toward Racial Justice

Discover what campus racial climate encompasses and get strategies and resources that can be helpful in addressing race, racism, and moving toward racial justice in education. Watch the video.

Episode 5: Recap

This module-three recap video revisits important points from the preceding videos, with the goal of unpacking and better understanding the concept of race. Watch the video.

Module 4: Introduction to Guided Pathways

Episode 1: Background, Planning, and Essential Conditions 

Discover the four key areas of the Guided Pathways Model—Planning, Implementation, Early Outcomes, and Evaluation—which helps students identify their goals early on and supports them through their courses and through graduation. This video covers the essential conditions of the Planning phase of Guided Pathways, showing how colleges can support institutional transformation to assist students with completing credentials in a timely manner. Watch the video.

Episode 2: Preparation, Awareness, Sustainability, and Implementation

The Planning pillar of Guided Pathways requires an understanding that engaging in this work requires long-term investment and a commitment to shifting entire institutional cultures. This video covers the five essential conditions of the Preparation and Awareness phase of the Planning process within the Guided Pathways model, as well as the Sustainability and Implementation phases. Watch the video.

Episode 3: Implementation - Helping Students Get on and Stay on a Path

This video reveals how to implement the Guided Pathways Model, which involves institutions both clarifying the path that students can choose from and keeping them on the path toward credentials or degrees so that they are fully learning. The video takes a deep dive into the fourth pillar of the Implementation phase: Ensuring Students are Learning. Watch the video.

Episode 4: Ensuring Students Learn and Early Outcomes

This video explains how students can best learn through evidence-based, high-impact practices across varied learning styles, as well as how an institution-wide commitment to equity-minded, asset-based teaching improvement will benefit learners. The final portion of the clip delves into how the Guided Pathways framework incorporates data analysis toward understanding early outcomes following the Implementation process, listing helpful key performance indicators as a guide. Watch the video.

Episode 5: Evaluation and Continuously Improving Pathways

Discover how to be evaluative within the Guided Pathways Model by learning how to revisit conditions, sustainability, and implementation areas of the process. This means endeavoring to continuously improve the pathways model by building on elements that work, making needed adjustments where necessary, and discarding any elements that may not be serving students well. This video offers evaluation approaches, or models, that are ideal to emulate within the Guided Pathways Model. Watch the video.

Episode 6: Recap

This recap video sums up the Module 4 Introduction to Guided Pathways series of videos, which cover the four areas of the Guided Pathways Model: Planning, Implementation, Early Outcomes, and Evaluation. Watch the video.

Module 5: The Elusiveness of Racial Equity in Guided Pathways: Findings from a Delphi Study

Episode 1: Baseline Study

Learn how the Guided Pathways Model for students came into being and how it inadequately advances equity for all students. Viewers will learn about the mission of OCCRL and how the unit seeks to challenge and change systemic viewpoints and dislodge internal and external blockages and silos within institutions, with the goal of facilitating meaningful change across academic and student-affairs functions. Other OCCRL objectives include furthering wraparound supports and programmatic and curricular areas that produce equitable experiences and outcomes. This episode highlights OCCRL’s findings from a modified Delphi approach that sought to discover how focused Guided Pathways is on equity and how likely the model is to advance racially equitable outcomes for students. Watch the video. 

Episode 2: Expert Panel on P-20 Faculty

Gain insights and recommendations from the faculty expert panel of an OCCRL Delphi study. This presentation focuses on the racialized equity gaps that the Guided Pathways Model fails to address across the P-20 educational pipeline, according to the panelists, which included faculty from P-12, community colleges, undergraduate, and graduate levels. The presentation reveals emergent findings on how, as the race-neutral Guided Pathways Model has increasingly been implemented, it is imperative for institutions to make racial equity a priority within the model. Watch the video.

Episode 3: Expert Panel on Postsecondary Administrative Leaders

Discover the role of administrative leaders in guiding the way for creating racial equity within the Guided Pathways Model, using data accumulated from an expert panel of administrative leaders in an OCCRL Delphi study. These individuals identified equity gaps that exist in the Guided Pathways Model. Discover racial considerations and emergent findings, issues and challenges, implications for policies and practices, and learn about an exemplar institution that provides promising practices in the Guided Pathways Model. Additionally, there are reflective practice discussion questions and resources for practicing equity on a deeper level. Watch the video.

Episode 4: Expert Panel on Workforce, Policy & Nonprofit Partners

Get insights and recommendations from a panel of workforce development policy and nonprofit experts who participated in a Delphi Study conducted by OCCRL. Discover key issues and challenges these experts identified within the Guided Pathways Model as it pertains to the workforce, policy, and the nonprofit sectors, as well as who is framing the dominant Guided Pathways narrative and how it can evolve to focus more on racial equity, for the betterment of all students. Watch the video.

Episode 5: Recap

Get a recap on OCCRL’s iterative Delphi study, which underscores the elusiveness of racial equity in the 10-year-old Guided Pathways Model. Discover what community college and P-20 educators and policymakers can do to formulate a more equitable Guided Pathways Model. Learn about the importance of nurturing the sense of belonging for racially minoritized students, and how important it is for senior-level leaders at community colleges and other institutions to use their influence to create change. Viewers will get a sense of the importance of addressing the lack of focus on racial inequities in the current Guided Pathways Model and be inspired to initiate a revolutionary new model. Watch the video.

Culturally Sustaining Stories

Episode 1: Culturally Sustaining Leadership

Explore the culturally sustaining leadership practices that staff and administrators use while working with their student populations. Hear from Brandon Bellamy of Howard Community College in Maryland and Dr. Rhonda Coats of Davidson County Community College in North Carolina. Listen to the podcast or read the transcript.

Episode 2: Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy

Discover the culturally responsive pedagogy practices that community college faculty members utilize while teaching their courses. Hear from Drs. Mara Lazda and Grisel Acosta, both of Bronx Community College, as well as from Dr. Tiffany Gause of Santiago Canyon College in California. Listen to the podcast or read the transcript.

Episode 3: Culturally Sustaining Wraparound Services for Student Success

Learn about the culturally responsive wraparound support services that administrators use to support racially minoritized student populations on community college campuses. Hear from Antonio Jackson of Fayetteville Technical Community College in North Carolina, Alvina Thomas of Delta Community College in Louisiana, and Gabrielle Thompson of Jefferson Community College in New York. Listen to the podcast or read the transcript.

Episode 4: Culturally Sustaining Practices on Race for a Better Campus Climate

Explore campus racial climates that racially minoritized students experience with interviewees Joseph Alonzo, Charles H.F. Davis III, and Dominique Hill. This podcast also covers the rise of student activism and how higher education professionals can leverage culturally sustaining practices to support activists and campus communities. Listen to the podcast or read the transcript.

Episode 5: Culturally Sustaining Practices Across Institutional Types

Discover culturally sustaining practices that support racially minoritized students across institutional designations within the community college sector with panelists Dr. Vicki McGillin, Marcus Peanort, and Jameta Rogers. The discussion delves into the important roles administrators play in creating campus spaces, services, and policies that reflect the needs of racially minoritized students within the respective roles of the panelists. Listen to the podcast or read the transcript.

Episode 6:  Culturally Sustaining Stories in Black Student Activism

Explore the dimensions of black student activism, a highly relevant topic of discourse considering the chilly campus environments of many colleges and universities today. To provide depth, meaning, and critical insights about black student activism, we talk to panelists Amalia Dache, Frederick Douglass Dixon, Jael Kerandi, and Jonathan McElderry.  Listen to the podcast or read the transcript.