What the CCC Registry Can Do for You!

September
2006
Chair, Equity and Diversity Action Committee (with many thanks to Beth Au)

At the Spring 2004 Plenary Session, delegates passed Resolution 13.03, asking the Academic senate for the california Community Colleges to explore which parts of the California community college application process might be standardized to facilitate employment opportunities for college teaching. At the August 10, 2006, System Office Equity and Diversity Advisory Committee meeting, Paul Stark, an Equal Employment Opportunity specialist, raised the idea of a universal application for California community college faculty as a possible way to nurture diversity among instructors. While standardization of the application could undoubtedly assist in casting a wider net in encouraging individuals throughout California and beyond California's borders to apply for jobs and in easing the application process, another resource already exists that also offers a means of making the application process easier, the California Community College Equal Employment Opportunity Registry (The Registry).

The Registry (see http://www.cccregistry.org) is a centralized employment website funded by the System Office for full-time faculty and administrative positions for all 72 California community college districts and all of the individual colleges. The Registry also holds job fairs in an effort to attract potential applicants. In 2006, at the Los Angeles Job Fair, 1,500 job seekers attended, and 34 college districts participated; and at the San Francisco Job Fair, 700 job seekers attended, and 22 college districts participated. Because Nursing has the highest need for recruitment, the Registry has also focused its efforts to attract as many qualified applicants as possible. (Information reported to the System Office Equity and Diversity Advisory Committee by Beth Au, Director of the California Community College EEO Registry, February 9, 2006.)

The posting of job openings and recruitment for full-time faculty and administrative positions has been mandated in Title , section 0 (a). Some districts have gone even further by posting classified staff and part-time faculty positions as well.

Since 1995, each district's human resources office has been able to post employment opportunities on the registry at no cost and search its database for potential candidates.

More importantly, since 2003, the Registry has included an online application for individual districts, allowing job seekers to apply directly for a position at a district as long as the district accepts online applications. Herein lies the rub. while some colleges accept applications through the registry for classified staff positions and one college does so for part-time faculty positions, essentially districts have not used this resource for their faculty positions, full-time or part-time.

Why haven't districts used the Registry to its fullest extent? If my college is any indication, it is because the human resources people do not know what the registry can do and how the Registry can facilitate the hiring process. Districts using the Registry system currently post jobs through a secured administrative portal (http://www.registryadmin.org). The district's human resources official or the Registry can assign a username and password to those individuals participating on a hiring committee. As a member of a hiring committee one would be given access to view online applications, resumes, transcripts, and letters of reference . thus, as a designated reviewer or member of a hiring committee, individuals can access the applications and materials for a specific position online. Interview questions and appointment schedules for potential candidates can also be established online. Thus, all committee members can view the paperwork prior to meeting as a committee from the comfort and convenience of their own desks or laptops, eliminating the need for human resources personnel to keep files under lock and key and restricting file viewing to human resources office hours. The registry is a fully functioning database and reporting system with ample server space to service the 72 districts and their human resources needs . this would eliminate the paper process, though in discussions with the human resources people at my college, they continue to see the use of the registry as an ancillary process, rather than the Registry playing a much more central or key role to the process.

The Registry has no way of knowing whether or not a person hired at a college first saw the position on the registry, a situation that would change if districts only accepted online applications through the Registry. moreover, there is no way to determine the effectiveness of the registry in diversity hiring, since its ethnic data survey is optional and anonymous.

However, its importance as a recruitment tool and as a potential means of widening the applicant pool is apparent. Its effectiveness can only be increased if districts would begin to use the online application process.

Local academic senate presidents will be receiving a letter from Registry Director Beth Au asking them to consider using the online application process. As local senates work with other campus constituencies on their forthcoming Model Equal Employment Opportunity Plans and begin discussions on ways to address underrepresentation and significant underrepresentation among their faculty, classified staff, and administration, one possible consideration is to utilize all of the Registry's services, including the online application.