Greater Transparency in the Committee Appointment Process

Fall
2021
Resolution Number
01.04
 
Contact
Assigned to
President
Vice President
Executive Director
Category
Academic Senate
Status
Ongoing
Status Report

The ASCCC has made efforts to ensure that the faculty appointment process is as transparent as possible. For appointments for the 2022-23 academic year, the President, in collaboration with the Executive Director and Vice President, updated the document titled Academic Senate for California Community Colleges Faculty Appointment Process, to include a clear outline of how the appointment process takes place, as well as  the criteria used to determine potential faculty appointments. The ASCCC annually releases demographic data on the faculty appointments to standing committees, and most recently released the demographic data over the last 5-years of the Executive Committee, the ASCCC's governing body. 

Whereas, The Academic Senate for California Community Colleges Bylaws Article V states, “the President shall make appointments to all standing committees,” “The President, in consultation with the Vice President and Executive Director, makes appointments to all other groups requiring faculty participation,” and “these appointments are subject to approval by the appointee’s Member Senate President” [1];

Whereas, The Academic Senate for California Community Colleges has developed a Senate Committee Appointment Process [2] for Senate committees and ad hoc, special task forces, work groups, or advisory groups, including an online faculty application for statewide service form;

Whereas, The Academic Senate for California Community Colleges solicits faculty volunteers for statewide service throughout the year, emphasizing the need for a “diversity of voices” across a range of dimensions (e.g., race/ethnicity, discipline, expertise, region, life experience); and

Whereas, members of the Latinx Caucus have expressed frustration to members of the Executive Committee over the past five years about (1) faculty of color who have applied using the online faculty application for statewide service form and are unaware of their application status at any time after submission unless selected for appointment and (2) the limited outreach efforts to racial/ethnic diverse faculty;

Resolved, The Academic Senate for California Community Colleges revise its appointment process involving the President, Vice President, and Executive Director to demonstrate a transparent documentation process reflecting a practice to target in outreach and appointment of racially and ethnically diverse faculty;

Resolved, The Academic Senate for California Community Colleges engage in intentional and sustainable practices to target racially and ethnically diverse faculty and prioritize racial and ethnic diversity as a primary factor for appointment to statewide committee service;
Resolved, The Academic Senate for California Community Colleges share broadly longitudinal data on all statewide committee appointments including racial and ethnic demographic data; and

Resolved, The Academic Senate for California Community Colleges revise the Senate Committee Appointment Process to support transparent communication of faculty applicant status at any given time during the period that the faculty member’s application is active, in addition to investigating and adopting the appropriate technology to support transparent communication.

MSC


1. https://www.asccc.org/about/bylaws
2. https://asccc.org/sites/default/files/Appointment_Process.pdf