The Pierce College Equity Plan was revamped for 2014 to include state funding and analysis for a wider range of struggling student demographics, Director of the Center for Academic Success Crystal Kiekel said.
The Equity Plan consists of annual data that examines how certain demographics of students perform academically at Pierce. The plan exists to identify and analyze the demographics that tend to struggle so that the school can establish programs to help them improve.
“The Equity Plan is our obligation to identify the underserved students and improve our work so that we can help the students we are not currently serving,” Kiekel said. “It is both a state-mandated and moral obligation.”
Data used to be collected on three specific groups – males, African Americans/Latinos and students with disabilities.
Three new groups were added in 2014 – veterans, students with foster parents, and low-income students.
Kiekel said the three new categories are a result of the state’s recent increased investment in community college student success, which came from the passing of state bills.
“Quite honestly, the state had not put a premium on student success in the past,” Kiekel said. “But what we’ve seen since 2006 is an increasing attention to the student success initiative.”
This increased interest in student success led the state to give $426,292 to fund Pierce’s Equity Plan, Kiekel said. This is the first time the plan has ever received funding from the state.
“I think it’s a good thing that we want to look at these groups,” Associate Professor of Philosophy and former Pierce Equity Plan committee member Mia Wood said. “I’m very, very happy about the low-income demographic because so many people who come to Pierce are struggling mightily to make ends meet.”
However, the addition of the new groups has brought its share of challenges. Dean of Institutional Effectiveness Oleg Bespalov said gathering data on the new groups has been tricky because data on these groups wasn’t always recorded in the past.
“For the groups that we don’t have data on now, we have to wait until data becomes available to report on them,” Bespalov said. “In the past, we didn’t collect foster youth data.”
The plan is still in its developmental stage, but the new dynamic of having three additional groups to analyze as well as money to spend on helping them achieve success is encouraging, Kiekel said.
“I’m really excited about strengthening the programs on campus,” Kiekel said. “The goal of the Equity Plan is to change the culture of the campus for the better.”