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Since early 2021, Madison College’s Institute for Equity and Transformational Change (IETC) - a part of the school’s Division of Culture and Climate - has collaborated with college faculty, the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL), and Institutional Research and Data Management (IRDM) to foster an inclusive and affirming learning community at Madison College.
Marco Torrez-Miranda, IETC director, shared a bit about the vision, progress and plans for the ongoing effort.
Tell us a bit about the IETC and the work it does.
The work of the IETC is, first and foremost, a collaborative effort. We represent all different schools within Academic Affairs. This is critical, as that’s how we can reach a wide range of faculty and students and have the kind of impact we all need. The partnerships that we’ve forged have been so instrumental in ensuring that we’re moving forward cohesively in advancing a more equitable inclusive academic experience at Madison College.
Our work has three arms. One is curriculum reform, and it’s a process we’ve been very intentional about. Faculty partners are trained what it means to review and deliver curriculum that ensures all perspectives are being addressed, not just singular viewpoints. And this could look different for each academic area based on the learning outcomes and the students served. It’s important that we contextualize and localize what this curriculum development process looks like for our different academic offerings.
The second arm is professional development, which is working with our faculty partners to design and implement equity-centered learning opportunities to develop faculty and staff at Madison College. Faculty participating in opportunities like curriculum mapping and development have learning opportunities they can engage in to better understand what this looks like for their specific classroom, their program, and in their department.
The third arm is Action Research, which reflects our dedication to using evidence-based decision-making and implementing data-driven policies and practices to foster a culture of inquiry. This empowers faculty and encourages self-analysis to enhance teaching methods and administrative approaches. These efforts foster a collaborative and continuously improving environment, promoting an inclusive and supportive learning space for Madison College students. The goal of Action Research is to support faculty who have noticed an issue in the classroom and their practice and bring forward a proposed solution. They can implement the solution and measure the impact through cycles of inquiry funded by the IETC.
Can you talk a bit more about the importance of Action Research?
The key component of our growing research repository is that we make it available to all faculty, because we want anybody who engages with this work to feel like they’re not starting from scratch. The results of all curriculum development projects and Action Research projects are easily accessible.
We, as a college, have grown to be a more data-informed culture, meaning that we're not just doing things to do them. We're doing them to make sure that we then can measure their impact and know what’s working.
The 2021-22 inaugural cohort of action researchers measured improving access and success in the Education pre-major, explored prior Biology coursework to increase student success in Anatomy and Physiology, and examined the development of programming to empower students and faculty to be more equitable in niche practices.
For the 2023-2024 Action Research cohort, there are 11 different projects in various stages of progress.
Why is this work so important for the Madison College community?
Two-year colleges across the country enroll higher rates of students of color than four-year colleges and universities. Madison College is no different. While we enroll higher rates of students of color, there are institutional performance gaps with their persistence and completion rates. This is a painful truth and one we hope to change.
What has impressed you most about the work so far?
I’m impressed every day by something related to the work. Seeing the impact of the work in events like the first annual Equity Summit we held last spring was especially gratifying. Faculty, staff, administrators and students came together from different demographics, gender identities, races, ages, and ethnicities and shared their learnings in community with one another. It was beautiful.
I am also blown away by the creativity and dedication of our collaborators and faculty partners. During a time when we are all being asked to do more, to teach more and feel stressed, this group has stepped up to take on this extra work. Somehow, someway, they’re being innovative and creative and willing to engage in the work we’re doing.
They’re choosing to do it because they want to do better for our students, despite all that they’re juggling in their day-to-day professional and personal lives. That impresses me more than I can say.
Two-year institutions, like Madison College, are an access point to higher education, credentialing, community building, and job opportunities and, if we have these inequities, that promise is not being realized. What can we do differently to correct the completion rates – to ensure the success of all of our students? That’s why the work of the IETC is so important.
Students of color are coming to us, but clearly, we must further transform our approach and practices so we are better serving them. We don’t want to be an institution that is just maintaining inequities – that’s a big responsibility. And we must be self-critical about it, because we have an opportunity to be different in our approach to ensure we close institutional performance gaps in the communities we serve. But we must be intentional about it, and that’s what we’re doing with the work of the IETC and all our collaborators.
What role do the students play in the work of the IETC?
Obviously, this work is centered on the students and identifying the inequities that are preventing them from being successful. It’s about them. But to date, we haven’t been very intentional about having more student voices involved, aside from gathering their feedback.
For example, in April 2023, we surveyed students in courses and sections where specific assignments focused on learning about diversity, equity, and inclusion were implemented. Of 249 students from a variety of programs and departments, 72% of responding students agreed or strongly agreed that the assignment should be used in the future. When asked if the assignment was of value, of 166 responding students, 79% agreed or strongly agreed.
Beyond soliciting feedback, one thing that has recently changed, and is already having an impact, is that the IETC team now has a dedicated physical space on campus. It may not seem like a big deal, but it’s been amazing to see how many students have been dropping by. I’ve heard some say, “I feel safe here.”
Now that we have this space, we’re hiring students to be a part of our team so they can engage with us and have conversations with faculty and staff. We’ve primarily seen students as another data collection tool, but now I really want us to shift to them being partners with us in this work.
What’s next for the IETC?
We started with Academic Affairs, and I think we’re doing great work. Now, we are exploring what this looks like beyond academics. What does it look like for Student Affairs? What does it look like for leadership?
It's a good time to re-envision that this is all of our work. So, whether you are faculty or staff, a dean or vice president, we all have responsibility. We’re working alongside the units of the college’s Division of Culture and Climate to implement models and frameworks that can help us rethink how we do this work across the Madison College experience.
